•February 17, 2016•

By Derek Pope
for the News Progress

Bethany city council members have shown a renewed interest in renovating the village’s downtown buildings following a proposal by the four co-owners of Bethany’s newest business—The Publisher.

The new establishment, currently Bethany’s only operating bar, took the place of the beleaguered Hired Hand Winery and Saloon after opening up shop in the now closed business’s buildings and purchasing the liquor license originally granted to the previous owners.

Although it is a fresh start for the bar’s proprietors, Ron Martin, Mike Sweeney, Pam Barker, and Heidi Bruns, they will still have to face some of the same obstacles that the Hired Hand encountered when alcohol sales became legal in Bethany nearly four years ago.

Not the least of these challenges will be repairing the image of open alcohol serving businesses in the village, chiefly in the eyes of Bethany’s board of trustees.

Last May Bethany’s city council members soured to the idea of subsidizing tavern style businesses after a dispute with the Hired Hand’s owners led to the revocation of a $48,000 TIF (Township Investment Funding) loan to renovate the heating and cooling system of the downtown buildings that housed the business. The deal ended up costing Muzzy’s Hometown Heating and Cooling, a locally owned HVAC business originally contracted to do the work, a sizable injection of business. At the time, village officials expressed their dismay that the downtown buildings would not receive necessary repairs and that the botched deal would have various other ripple effects beyond that.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.