Brewster herb store with 30-year history weathers permitting, zoning issues

BREWSTER — When Mary Ellen Greenberg went to Great Cape Herbs in Brewster to buy a Gingko tree recently she was shocked to find the shop closed after 31 years.

It was shut down because of a cease-and-desist order from the town.

“I’ve been going there a long time. It’s a really beautiful place. They’ve helped a lot of people, with Lyme disease, when they’re going through chemo. I’ve learned a lot with him,” Greenberg said of owner Stephan Brown.

The shop reopened last week after another inspection by the town on Tuesday, but the 15-acre property it sits on still faces a slew of violations, mostly from the zoning code and the town asserts the shop itself lacks a retail permit.

Brown, who owns the property through the Brown Realty Trust, operated the Eastleigh Nursery on the site starting in 1972 and opened Great Cape Herb Spice and Tea Co. in 1991. He’s run his business, farm and arboretum pretty much the same since then and was taken aback when slapped with nine code violations last April. Gingko trees on the land date from his nursery operation.

“Some of those plants have now grown to full-size trees,” Brown said. “So my dream was to run a nursery and garden center and then I have the arboretum. I’m a ginkgo nut. I used to pot them up and take them to herb festivals.”

The name of the shop was changed to Great Cape Herbs in 1995, a more precise name. In recent years, Snowy Owl Coffee Roasters moved into the front of the building and the herb shop went into the addition in the back.

“Thirty years ago they allowed our herb shop in the space I’m in,” Brown said. “Then a new guy (Building Commissioner Davis Walters) came in and has found all these violations and instead of sitting down and talking he brought down the sledgehammer.”

Walters, the Board of Health and Fire Chief Robert Moran all inspected the property last winter before enumerating the violations in an April 29 letter.

“There was a complaint the town received about living conditions on the property this winter,” Town Administrator Peter Lombardi said. “It wasn’t initiated by the town. The health department’s initial visit was in February and identified a number of health and safety code violations. The departments then worked together to identify specific issues and sent a letter to Mr. Brown outlining the town’s concerns prioritizing around the most pressing violations and subsequently followed up with an inspection in the summer.”

“The town desires to work amicably with you to bring the property into compliance,” the initial cease-and-desist order noted.

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Concerns included rental units in the Burgess House (the red home next to the hardware store) that lacked approval as accessory dwelling units or a certificate for occupancy, and the commercial kitchen in the building was missing a special permit.

Other violations include sheds converted into dwellings that were in a flood zone,  which require a variance and structures without occupancy permits. There were also septic concerns for a building that lacked running water and appeared to be occupied, according to the order.

“He showed up with the fire chief, Board of Health and an electrical guy,” Brown said. “They went up and down the house and around the property and inspected everything. I said, 'OK you give us a list of what we need to correct' and it never happened. We waited two months. And on Sept. 9, they issued the cease-and-desist order and revoked the permits and shut the shop down. They kicked me out of my own house. They didn’t do what they said they were going to do and didn’t sit down like civilized people.”

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The problem with the herb shop itself, the town said in the cease-and-desist order, is that the addition was approved for agricultural use, not retail.

“It has to be associated with agriculture on the land such as a percentage has to come from what we produce on the farm,” Brown said. “We use nettle, yarrow, Japanese knotweed, burdock, blue choose, echinacea and ginkgo.  Dandelion is one of the best plants going for a healthy liver. So we grow medical plants and from those, we make our medicine. He says it’s not permitted even though the Zoning Board of Appeals back in 2005 said we could do this. We have been closed for two months.”

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The herb shop is open now because Brown said he got a verbal OK from a town inspector. Lombardi, however, said the town has not sent him a notice in writing that he could reopen after last week’s inspection.

And more issues remain. The town asked for evidence of approvals to operate a farm labor camp on the property including a certificate of occupancy and pointed out that housing farm workers in a mobile home is prohibited by town zoning bylaws.

Additionally, 14 chickens were on the property without a permit. The re-inspection found unregistered cars and trailers that constituted an “automobile graveyard,” which is prohibited.

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Officials also indicated concerns the current septic system could handle all the uses on the property and certification by an engineer was required.

Also, the property included several campers powered by electric cords in a flood zone. The campers were not hooked up to a septic system and waste was wheeled out of one in a cart, according to the report.

“The campers out back are for storage,” Brown said. “Two people live in them. It’s not a campground and never was. My assistant manager and her 9-year-old daughter live in a camper. We’re very low-key here. Conservation (Commission) is on us for a puddle out back. We’ll get through it.”

A wood-burning stove in a bus constituted a violation of fire safety rules.

Some code violations in the restaurant were resolved, others remain

Over the summer, some of the issues, such as the stove and code violations concerning the restaurant were cleared up. But a second inspection revealed that not all the issues were addressed so a second cease-and-desist order was issued on Sept. 9. That’s the one that shut down the herb shop.

There is also a dispute over whether the property meets the definition of a farm. The property includes blueberries, an orchard, a vineyard with 40 grapevines and many planted trees and shrubs. There’s a greenhouse where nursery plants are grown and sold in pots. Then there are all the herbal gardens and their use in teas and tinctures.

“That (farm) designation has different impacts for tax purposes, zoning purposes,” Lombardi said. “The town has been trying to work with the property owner for many years to develop a farm plan to give him and us clarification on what the uses are. We’ve spent many hours trying to work in that direction.”

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Brown said he plans to submit a 10- to 15-year plan for the farm to provide officials with an idea of the property's future.

“The owner and his designee have appealed some of the zoning violations identified in the letter to the Zoning Board of Appeals,” Lombardi said. “The Zoning Board is scheduled to hold a hearing in mid-December. That doesn’t address septic, health, building code and fire code issues.”

Meanwhile, Brown said he would like to sell the 15 acres to a co-op that he and Dave Schlesinger are organizing.

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“I’ve been here 50 years and we’ve formed a co-op so it would preserve the land in the control of the people, not developers,” Brown said. "This could be a beacon to the whole of the Cape to show how property should be managed. It’s the Great Cape Co-op. We’ve got an EIN (federal tax Employer Identification Number), and a bank account. We’ve started a legal defense fund to get the issues with the town resolved.”

“It will be a multi-stakeholder co-op, with businesses, employees, general membership and investors,” said Schlesinger, who is the prime organizer. “The investor class would have no say but can invest up to $3 million. All the others have equal say. That provides the employees and members a voice into the future of the land.”

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The membership fee is $500 and members can cash out after 10 years with 6% annual interest.

Lombardi said the ownership structure wouldn’t affect the zoning, fire and health issues.

The most recent town notice indicated that the Fair and Just restaurant in the Burgess House was now compliant.

Brown said he may construct three or four tiny houses on the property for the caretakers of the gardens and the arboretum. He was renting two apartments to support the farm. He’s also considering a collaborative health center with an acupuncturist, a nutritionist and an herbalist. The herb shop could then move into a new building.

The December hearing at the ZBA will be crucial in determining what exactly the future — and present — of the property will be.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Great Cape Herbs in Brewster has been shuttered amid permit concerns