South Beloit quickly approves licenses for wedding venue, declines to approve methadone clinic

Tuesday evening, the South Beloit City Council quickly worked its way through a many-itemed agenda, including the approval of a liquor license for the Hidden Creek Estates event venue, which South Beloit had pre-annexed two weeks ago. For the first time, the Council meeting was recorded on Facebook Live. The Village Boards of Roscoe and Rockton were meeting the same night.

Commissioner Tom Fitzgerald noted that fireworks were being sold in several local municipalities where fireworks are banned. "I don't understand how it's legal to sell it but not use it." He wanted to confirm that fireworks are not allowed in South Beloit. Police Chief Adam Truman confirmed that fireworks are not allowed anywhere in the State of Illinois. Mayor Rehl said they would discuss it further at the next council meeting

Fire Chief Dan Zerfass said the Chemtool disaster response resulted in $4,219 of equipment damaged or lost, including hoses and personal gear that were abandoned in the fire. He hasn't finished calculating how many hours of personnel time were spent. He will submit the claim to the Village of Rockton to arrange payment under their "spiller pays" ordinance. Rockton Fire Chief Kirk Wilson says he will send the bill to Chemtool.

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With hardly any discussion, the City Council approved a Class A, and Class J Liquor License for Seed Real Estate, LLC Hidden Creek Series." At least two neighbors opposed to the wedding venue were at the meeting but did not speak. A mistake in the Liquor Commission agenda suggested the venue was applying for a Boutique Gaming (BG) Liquor License, but the Liquor Commission amended that at the beginning of their meeting. Kerry and Dude Frank, co-owners of Hidden Creek Estates, were present, and Commissioner Tom Fitzgerald asked them if they intended to offer gaming. They repeated several times, "Oh no!" They seemed pretty certain about that.

Some of the venue's neighbors thought it suspicious that Hidden Creen Estates hosted a wedding on Saturday, July 3, three days before South Beloit granted them a liquor license. And Winnebago County has not responded to inquiries from Roscoe News about whether they had granted the venue a certificate of occupancy. But Joy Thomas, the venue's marketing director, explained that last week before hosting the wedding, they had "passed all of our final inspections and received our occupancy permit."  She added, "Thunder Bay Grill filed their permits necessary with the City of South Beloit to serve alcohol on Saturday to our guests. The wedding was beautiful!"

Speaking of beautiful events, the Gujarati Samaj of Northern Illinois received permission to hold a community picnic at South Beloit City Park in August. The park was closed from 2018 until May 1, 2021 because of flooding of Lake Victoria. Organizers of the picnic expect 300-350 to attend from their social organization, whose members trace their ancestry to the state of Gujarat in western India. Gujaratis have become one of the largest Indian cultural groups in America.

The  Sunnyside cannabis dispensary  in South Beloit has been negotiating with the City about a "freestanding electronic message sign and pylon sign in excess of height and size limits" and both parties have agreed on several conditions. One condition that hasn't been discussed with Sunnyside yet: using black instead of white to screen the windows. State law requires that the inside of a cannabis dispensary not be visible from the street, but the South Beloit zoning staff has found that black looks better than white from an architectural perspective. The City Council amended their approval to add the other conditions, with the expectation that Sunnyside will agree to the screening change later.

The City Council was asked to add "Methadone Clinic" as a new type of Special Use Permit for the Commercial General (CG) District, then to approve a special use permit to allow a methadone clinic at at 1409 Pate Plaza, South Beloit. Methadone is usually used in treating opioid addictions. Commissioner Ryan Adleman had reservations about whether South Beloit needed one, since there are already methadone clinics in Beloit, Machesney Park, and Rockford. He wondered about the wisdom of bringing opioid addicts to the City, though he hadn't found hard evidence that methadone clinics had caused problems for other cities.

Attorney Wiktoria Gościk, who advises the City on legal matters, explained that by law, the City is required to allow methadone clinics somewhere, though they were not required to approve one at this particular location. So the Council added "Methadone Clinic" as a special use option for the CG District, but when the special use permit came up for a vote, nobody seconded the motion and it died.

Near the end of the meeting, Mayor Ted Rehl expertly and quickly went through a dozen other agenda items, approving as a single unit all of Hidden Creek Estates' miscellaneous licenses and permits.