By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT–The community has rallied around the historic Old Mill Grocery and Deli, 222 Hillspoint Road, with a petition with 3,000+ signatures and counting, to help save the beloved store from lawsuits filed by neighbors who want to prohibit the serving of liquor there.

Why now?

“I don’t understand why it’s happening now,” said Ian Warburg, vice chairman of Soundview Empowerment Alliance, the nonprofit organization that owns the property. There have been restaurants with full bars in the immediate area over several decades including Positano Ristorante and Allen’s Clam House, “and it was never an issue before,” he said.

Romanacci Compo Beach LLC, which leases the property, applied for a liquor permit because many residents press him to sell beer and wine, said Mario Ricci of the Romanacci restaurant group, which operates several restaurants in Fairfield County. “We started serving liquor as a request from the community,” he said. “For us it is an honor to be there. We tried to please the community.” 

No drinking outside

Only patrons inside the small building have the opportunity to order beer or wine, he said. “There is no drinking outside on the property.” And in the winter, without beach traffic, serving alcoholic beverages will “keep the business up and running,” Ricci said.

Three suits

During the past year, neighbors filed three lawsuits against the process by which town bodies allowed the liquor permit. The defendants are the Zoning Board of Appeals, the Planning and Zoning Commission, Soundview Empowerment Alliance, and Romanacci Compo Beach LLC.

Neighbors have also filed a “remonstrance” with the Connecticut State Liquor Department asking that Romanacci’s LLC be denied a liquor permit, according to Warburg.

Liquor has been served there under a provisional permit for about 10 months, he said, “and there has not been a single incident related to the [liquor] license at all.”

Well-loved

Matthew Mandell, executive director of the Westport Chamber of Commerce and a District 1 representative on the RTM, has been circulating a “Don’t Kill the Old Mill,” flyer from the Soundview Empowerment Alliance to collect signatures on the petition. The organization is also collecting donations to defend against the neighbors’ lawsuits. 

“It’s a well-loved place,” Mandell said. There has been a long tradition in the beach neighborhood for children to go there to get an ice cream or another treat. Some neighbors even opposed a gelato cart that was very popular at the Old Mill, he said, and is not much different than serving ice cream out the window of the small building.

“They don’t want a commercial entity in their neighborhood even though when they moved here there were restaurants and the Old Mill Grocery here,” Mandell said of the few protesting neighbors. “But the community wants this business to stay where it is and serve this generation of young Westporters.”