Smithfield’s Town Council voted 4-3 on April 1 against granting Red Point Taphouse’s request for a special use permit that would waive a requirement that the brewery connect to town water.

The vote marked the latest development in Red Point’s seven-month standoff with town officials over an unmet condition of the circa-1929 former gas station-turned-restaurant’s 2020 rezoning.

Red Point’s former co-owners, Tim Ryan, Derek Joyner and Nick Hess, say they reluctantly agreed, as a condition of rezoning, to within two years pave the parking lot and connect to town water, not knowing at the time that it would cost $30,000 to have town contractors extend the required 2-inch water connection from the opposite side of the road to where the business is located. Red Point is currently served by a private well that predates the town’s annexation of the area.

Ryan, Joyner and Hess sold the business to Ben and Elen Osmanson in January, but the trio retains ownership of the building.

Councilman Jeff Brooks, who made a motion to approve the requested permit, said he believed the trio had effectively agreed to use town water “with the gun to their heads” by virtue of the town’s then-planning director, John Settle, allegedly having told the partners at the time that their rezoning application would not be approved unless they agreed to the required upgrades.

“If the water were there, if it were at their street, I’m sure that they probably would have no problem connecting, but they don’t,” Brooks said. “The fact is they’ve got to run this underneath the road to get it over to them, and I don’t think they knew that, and I don’t think it’s fair to them.”

But his motion drew only his own vote and that of Councilman Darren Cutler and Councilwoman Mary Ellen Bebermeyer. Councilman Steve Bowman, Councilwoman Valerie Butler, Vice Mayor Bill Harris and Mayor Mike Smith each voted in opposition.

Bowman said that while he’s frequented the restaurant several times since its 2021 opening and “love(s) the food,” he was concerned about the “precedent” the waiver would set.

“We do this now, where do we end up with the next entity? … There are times we want to do certain things, and everybody always wants to do the right thing, but it calls into question when you’re dealing with regulation and rules what is the right thing. That’s where I’m a little conflicted,” Bowman said.

Butler said she took offense at Brooks’ characterization.

“I don’t want to think that any of our staff; our staff are highly qualified,” Butler said. “Maybe it was a misunderstanding, but I don’t like the (issue) being described as ‘putting a gun’ to an applicant’s head.”

Brooks apologized and said that phrase was used several months ago to describe the situation.

“I just wanted to reiterate that I heard that at one point, and that they felt pressured.”

The council’s vote upholds the recommendation of the town Planning Commission, which split 5-2 in recommending denial of the water waiver in February. The commission previously voted 5-1 in August to waive the paving requirement.

Ryan, in a statement to the Times, said he and his partners “plan to sell the property in order to cover the $30,000 cost of a water line they don’t need and will never use because they have perfectly good water already.”

“In the end, it was not a matter of compliance, or the application of common sense, but a demonstration of control by the council to force their will on a small business that will now go out of business because of their decision,” Ryan said.

Town Attorney Bill Riddick said Red Point would have remained grandfathered on the well had the trio not applied for rezoning from residential office to highway retail commercial. The former zoning did not allow for restaurants, Riddick said.

Ryan says the five-figure cost would equate to nearly 100% of Red Point’s 2024 profits, which Ryan said were hurt by the ongoing rehabilitation of the Cypress Creek Bridge. Since January of last year, the Virginia Department of Transportation has restricted the two-lane bridge connecting downtown Smithfield with the east end of town to a single westbound lane with eastbound traffic diverted via Main and Grace streets to the Route 10 Bypass. The work is scheduled to be completed this fall.

Ryan told the council his plan, upon opening, had been to use the proceeds from selling a portion of the property that fronts South Church Street to the town for the last leg of a long-planned bicycle and pedestrian trail to connect Nike Park in Carrollton with Windsor Castle Park in Smithfield, but Smithfield’s 1-mile stretch of trail has yet to be funded due to rising costs. As a result, the hypothetical sale of land never happened.