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Date: 7/27/2022
HADLEY – Maple Valley Creamery Owner Bruce Jenks attended the Hadley Planning Board’s July 18 meeting after concerns were raised at the previous Planning Board meeting over Jenks’ Scoop at the Silos ice cream, taco and beer trucks located on the property at 102 Mill Valley Rd.
Jenks said he hoped to come to an understanding with the board over what was permitted in the town within the agricultural-residential zone, where Jenks operates. He said he never realized anyone had a problem with their food truck and that he had used one for a dozen years at Amherst College, breweries, festivals, football games and more. He said he had always approached the Board of Health for permission and did the same when seeking permission to establish the taco truck at its current location.
Jenks also explained that the beer truck idea was brought by a co-owner of Leadfoot Brewing, Patrick Randall, who produces his beer in Chicopee and purchases his grains and malts locally. Jenks said that so far, the truck has been serving for three weekends but only has permits to return for one more visit at the end of July, with no plans for serving beer in August.
“There’s six dairy farms still in Hadley and there’s six locations serving ice cream,” Jenks said. “The only way we were able to differentiate ourselves is that the original farm, Smith Farm, sold ice cream and raw milk out of their milk room so that’s the plan that we took right away. We didn’t want to overpopulate the property with animals so that people were seeing cows up to their bellies in manure. We wanted to be a very clean, a very pristine facility both for animal and for visitor. The only way we could get the people to come there is to continually upgrade the offerings we have.”
Jenks has capitalized on the ability to draw people in with performances on a stage they built to help his brother’s band be able to play during COVID-19 closures. He said he delivers ice cream for purchase throughout the state and said he’s seen “every type of facility, every type of entertainment, and every different way of marketing your farm to the public.”
“In this day and age when everybody’s on their phone, you better be able to hold their attention for more than 15 minutes or they aren’t coming,” Jenks said. “There is no more agro-tourism, as far as I’m concerned that term should be no longer used. If you don’t have agro-entertainment you are not keeping people, you’re not bringing people to your farm and that is the direction we took.”
Concerns with the performers were brought to the board last week by Building Commissioner Tom Quinlan Jr., saying that there was a point where Jenks had musicians playing until at least 7 p.m. while his entertainment license was limited from 2 to 6 p.m. Jenks also addressed a complaint about his stage featuring more than two musicians two weeks ago, another stipulation of the entertainment license. Jenks said that that performance started as a girl with a guitar player who invited her dad to join for a couple of songs.
“The night that we played past 6 o’clock until 7 was actually the Amherst College kids jazz camp, I don’t know how many of you are familiar with that but for the last two years we’ve allowed the jazz camp to come on their last night to perform for their parents, it’s trios, quintets, quartets,” Jenks said. “I honestly didn’t even know when Tom came out and said we played past our time and we had more than two musicians, I hadn’t opened up our entertainment license that I picked up from Jennifer. When I picked it up it was in a white envelope, I took it to the scoop shop and put it in the drawer. I thought that an entertainment license meant that we were licensed to have entertainment, so that’s my fault for not reading it.”
Jenks said the farm has become a version of a community center with Sunday yoga from 8 to 9 a.m. where 50 to 60 people gather on their lawn for a lesson amongst the cows, taught by a licensed yoga instructor. Again, he said this started during the coronavirus pandemic with gyms being closed and the space to safely host free classes for the public.
Planning Board member Mark Dunn called Jenks’ explanations for his practices a “great story” and said he doesn’t need to defend himself.
“Mark [Dunn] is right, you don’t need to defend yourself,” Planning Board Chair Jim Maksimoski said. “However, remember you are in an ag-residential zone and these things that you’re telling us are great, allowing the kids to play and all that is all great stuff, but we need to be careful of what you’re doing and to allow you to do certain things in an ag-residential zone that are more business-related like the yoga classes. That’s really great stuff, however, there’s no way I can see that that’s defendable to be done in an ag-residential zone, that’s got nothing to do with ag-residential.”
Board member Bill Dwyer said Jenks fell into a few gray areas, and said that he had exposed a weak spot in Hadley’s bylaws that don’t address food trucks.
“For zoning purposes, the general rule in Hadley is if it’s not allowed in the bylaw specifically by name, it is prohibited,” Dwyer said. “Food trucks just haven’t been an issue yet. I guess it’s become an issue we’re going to have to start talking about. Secondly, the Board of Health had no authority to authorize you to operate a food truck in any particular location.”
Dwyer understood that Jenks has a large enough property with no nearby neighbors to host musicians and gatherings but feared the precedent it could set for much smaller properties in the same zone. The board unanimously approved to amend his entertainment license to the hours of operation on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with no performer limit and said that the town and board would continue to review and amend the bylaws over the next year.
Jenks has a hearing scheduled for Aug. 3 to finalize the entertainment license extension.