HENDERSON - A popular Henderson County winery,restaurant and event destination has been under review by Kentucky's Alcohol Beverage Control agency after complaints have arisen about the validity of their liquor licenses.
The point of contention for complainants about the Farmer & the Frenchman winery, 12522 U.S. 41 in Robards, is that it is located in a part of the county that, according to some historical representations, is considered dry territory.
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Ironically, another popular winery, Ruby Moon, which was located at 9566 U.S. 41-Alternate, in the nearby Cairo area, operated for many years, also in a part of the county considered dry territory by those same historical representations.
Meanwhile, the state's ABC website shows that the agency considers Henderson County a "wet" county or one that allows the sale of alcohol. Two maps from that website, with breakdowns of the counties with each county color-coded as to whether it's "wet" "dry" or "moist," show Henderson as a wet county.
In two separate listings of wet and dry counties in Kentucky taken from the ABC website, Henderson is listed as a wet county in both lists. However, on one list, there is an addendum that says, "May have dry precincts. Check with local officials."
Multiple Henderson County officials told The Gleaner there is no official record that indicates which areas of the county, if any, are considered dry territory.
Henderson County Judge-executive Brad Schneider, who also serves as the county's ABC administrator, said he signed the license for Farmer & Frenchman and sent it to the state ABC office for approval based on the agency's stance that Henderson County is wet.
"I signed the NQ2 (retail drink) license because we had every indication that the state supported the existence of the Farmer & the Frenchman winery because they approved the small farm winery license," Schneider told The Gleaner.
"I have to go on what the hard evidence is and what the state ABC precedent is. And there's precedent in Ruby Moon Winery's existence and (liquor licenses) approval," he said. "Also because I'm concerned with economic development and things like that, I thought it was a great opportunity based on their apparently legal ability to be in business. The economic development opportunity was terrific, and they've done a first class job with that business. It already employs 17 plus people and pulls in folks from outside the county. They've absolutely operated within the letter of the law. There have been some complaints about noise during weddings, but not one noise citation has been issued by the county. And there hasn't been a noise complaint since November of 2016. So I guess that's been resolved."
Other county officials have also signed off on F&F's operations in that they've swornin legal affidavits that "exhaustive" searches for official wet/dry maps of Henderson County have been conducted and none exist. Some of these affidavits were provided to The Gleaner by F&F's attorney Steve Arnett of Morganfield. Others were obtained through an open records requestfiled by The Gleaner.
Those county officials who have signed affidavits regarding the non-existence of official wet/dry maps for Henderson County include Schneider, Henderson County Attorney Steve Gold, Henderson City County Planning Commission Director Brian Bishop and Henderson County Fiscal Court Clerk Sue Baker.
The complaints
Since Februaryof 2016, three complaints have been filed with the ABC regarding F&F operating in a dry section of the county.
According to copies of two of the complaints obtained by The Gleaner, one was filed by Brent Wilkerson, who owns property neighboring the winery. The second was filed byMike Scott. Information on whether Scott is also a neighbor was unavailable.
Scott's complaint was filed with ABC on Feb. 23, 2016, and Wilkerson's complaint was filed on Feb. 24, 2016.The complaints, according to the documents, were investigated and reviewed by ABC Agent Treg Brooks, ABC Supervisor Brett Bond, then ABC Acting Manager Michael Doane, then ABC Acting Assistant Director Josh Crain and then acting Director Ed Robinson. The final disposition from each was that no action should be taken against the winery.
Robinson closed both complaints in May of 2016.
Arnett, the attorney for F&F, confirmed for The Gleaner that a third complaint was filed in August of 2016 and that the winery's licenses have again come before the ABC for review. The nature of the complaint is, again, that the winery is operating in a dry portion of the community.
The Gleaner received unconfirmed reports that a review or hearing was originally scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 13, in Frankfort, but has been postponed. ABC officials declined to talk about the date of any review.
The Gleaner also asked the ABC spokeswoman Elizabeth Kuhn why after two investigations -- both of which ended with the complaints being dismissed -- is the regulatory agency, a third time, launching an investigation and review into the legitimacy of the winery's license on allegations that it's located in a dry area of the county?
The Gleaner also asked Kuhn if the ABC considers Henderson County a wet county?
Kuhn replied, "Thank you for your questions.Since this is a pending case, I cannot comment."
The Gleaner contacted Wilkerson, who said he didn't file the most recent complaint. He then declined to comment further. An email was sent to Scott, asking if he would like to comment on the complaint he filed in February of 2016 and if he was satisfied with the outcome of the ABC's investigation? He did not respond.
The F&F owners, Katy Groves and Hubert Massat, by way of their attorney Arnett, have also declined to comment.
The history
According to current county officials, a large number of "official" records and documents were lost in the 1960s while the current Henderson County Courthouse was being constructed.
However, it appears that there is some remaining historical record that at one-time certain magisterial districts in Henderson County -- in reaction to the construction of nearby Camp Breckinridge and an influx of young soldiers -- voted to go dry.
According to a Henderson Morning Gleaner article published on Jan. 6, 1943, the majority of voters in the sixth magisterial district cast their ballots for that district to be dry. In 1943, that magisterial district, according to the newspaper story, included East Robards, West Robards, Cherry Hill and Anthoston. The 1943 article says the sixth district joined the seventh magisterial district in going dry.
The sixth magisterial district mentioned in the 1943 newspaper article no longer exists.
Frank Boyett, a former Gleaner reporter and current historycolumnist for The Gleaner, published an article in December of 1999 that said the old (and no longer existing) seventh magisterial district voted to go dry in 1942. The communities within the boundaries of the old seventh district included Corydon, Dixie, Wilson Station and Cairo, according to the 1999 Gleaner article.
(Meanwhile, Ruby Moon Winery, located 9566 U.S. 41-Alternatein the Cairo area which fell within the old seventh district, opened sometime around 2007 and operated for nine years until its owners closed it down for reasons unrelated to alcohol regulations.)
Boyett pointed out in his 1999 Gleaner news articlethat there is no record that the prohibition restrictions were ever rescinded.
Boyett's article and the Gleaner map printed with it provide a visual, but not an official, representation of the wet/dry districts as they were believed to have existed in 1942 and 1943. Eighteen years after that article was printed, questions have surfaced again, this time drawing Boyett officially into the F&F saga.
In a legal affidavit as part of the ABC's current review of the F&F liquor licenses, Boyett said, "the map was intended for illustration purposes only, and that no metes and bounds were used in its creation ... this map is no more than an approximation of the magisterial district boundary lines as they existed during the 1942 wet/dry vote in the Anthoston Precinct" which was part of the old seventh magisterial district.
Also in this 2016 affidavit, Boyett said that he's "unaware of any official maps or boundary descriptions which would accurately depict the magisterial districts when the said wet/dry vote was taken in 1942."
In a supplemental affidavit in 2017, Boyett said he researched the magisterial districts by searching through court order books in the Henderson County Courthouse between September of 1937 and April of 1945. He said the only mention of magisterial districts he found was from 1942 redrawing the boundaries of six precincts in the East End of Henderson. Boyett said that based on his research, knowledge, and belief "the Sixth Magisterial District in Henderson County consisted of four precincts in 1943: East Robards, West Robards, Cherry Hill and Anthoston."
And only this past week, Boyett found hand-written boundary descriptions for the old magisterial voting districts from the year 1897. Those difficult-to-read documents include some landmarks and references that no longer even exist. Boyett forwarded copies to state ABC officials.
But the affidavits and documents aren't the only way Boyett has gone on record.
In a letter to ABC AttorneyHeatherMercadante, a copy of which was provided to The Gleaner, Boyett said, in part, "I feel some responsibility for the current controversy and wish to see it resolved in a manner that best serves not only the public's interests but also the interests of Farmer and Frenchman, who I feel have unjustly been caught in a mess, not of their making.
"...The official record should allow the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to better regulate the areas herein described. I believe, however, it would be a miscarriage of justice to use it to penalize Farmer and Frenchman. They have invested a substantial amount of money, taking at face value the ABC's records showing it was a wet area. Now, after official assurances and much financial investment, the pettiness of a neighbor threatens to scuttle their plans.
"That leaves a bad taste in my mouth. For years Henderson has been fighting a reputation of being unfriendly to business. A decision unfavorable to Farmer and Frenchman would serve only to solidify that undeserved reputation."
