Mayor: City will drop plans to include distillery warehouses in annexation

NC GAZETTE / WBRT RADIO
STAFF REPORT

Tuesday, March 31, 2015, 7 p.m. — The City of Bardstown announced Tuesday it will abandon its plans to annex local distilleries’ warehouses as part of a series of planned expansions of the city limits.

Larry Green, city assistant city administrator, and annexation committee chairman Fred Hagan look over a map of the city limits during a recent committee meeting.

The move comes after “careful consideration and discussions with many members of the community, Barton Brands and Heaven Hill Brands,” according to a press release issued Tuesday by the office of Bardstown Mayor John Royalty.

Royalty will request that the city council’s Annexation Committee withdraw its latest recommendation involving annexing the warehouses at the council’s working session on Monday, April 6.

According to the press release, the decision comes in the wake of the distilleries’ concerns about the impact the additional city taxes on the distilled spirits would have on their operations if their warehouses were annexed.

“The tax burden of being annexed into the city would threaten the economic viability of their businesses to remain in this area,” the press release stated.

“Bardstown is the Bourbon Capital of the World. We have always been supportive of and enjoyed a special relationship with the distilling industry,” Royalty said in the press release. “There is no desire on the part of the City to change or damage that relationship.”

The committee’s plans to annex local distiller’s warehouses had attracted the attention of both Heaven Hill and Barton Brands. Heaven Hill Brands’ representatives attended the March 18 annexation committee meeting, and representatives of both companies were in the audience at the March 24 council meeting.

The City of Bardstown has not actively pursued annexing the Heaven Hill, Willett Distillery and Barton Brands warehouses in the past. Previous city officials have referred to an informal “gentlemen’s agreement” between the City of Bardstown and the distilleries in which the city agreed to not annex their warehouses.

Jim Beam Brands’ warehouses off Withrow Court are also outside the city limits and apparently will remain that way. The city agreed not to annex those warehouses in exchange for some needed right-of-way on the property several years ago.

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