Soon to come: One-stop shopping for liquor and news
Like former copy editor and current University of North Carolina professor Andy Bechtel suggests: You just can’t make this stuff up.
David Bracken of the News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C. reports today:
The News and Observer Publishing Co. has sold the Franklin Street headquarters for its Chapel Hill News and Durham News operations to an owner who plans to turn the former press room into a liquor distillery.
Scott Maitland, owner of Chapel Hill’s Top of the Hill restaurant and brewery… will lease the office space, including 5,000 square feet to The N&O for its western Triangle news and advertising staff. The remaining space will be set aside to brew vodka and gin under Maitland’s Top Spirits company.
A couple of sentences later, Maitland says — are you ready for this? The italics are mine:
“Believe it or not, printing a newspaper and running a distillery are considered the same class of activity, and so the building is zoned correctly,” he said.
February 2nd, 2010 at 9:55 pm
The building that houses The Sacramento Bee and McClatchy corporate offices used to be The Buffalo Brewery. There’s still some evidence of it in the building. I remember hearing the editor there once say, “everything goes in cycles.” I think he was referring to the beginning of a dip in ad revenue. But he may have been referring to the pace turning back into a brewery. Not sure anymore.
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:51 am
Nearby precedent: http://www.raleightimesbar.com/