BZA tables winery production request, so the latest news about River City Winery's future isn't much clearer than the last update.

At this point, seemingly nothing about River City Winery's future seems clear. The last update came in late February.

River City Winery: "We are exploring the relocation of our entire operation to another part of Southern Indiana."

Beats me. As for winemaking in a pole barn off Old Vincennes Road: NIMBY, at least so far.

New Albany BZA tables request for River City Winery production site, by Brooke McAfee (Tom May Content Multiplier)

NEW ALBANY—The future of River City Winery remains up in the air after a Tuesday zoning appeals meeting.

The New Albany Board of Zoning Appeals voted 3-0 to table a motion on a land use variance regarding River City Winery proprietor Gary Humphrey's request to use his home at 1800 Old Vincennes Road in New Albany for wine production. Board members Marcia Booker and Steven Schmelz were absent from the meeting.

The River City Winery location on 321 Pearl Street in New Albany has been closed for months, and Humphrey is going through possible liquidation of the property with his ex-wife, he said. If the liquidation occurs, he would like to acquire a farm winery license for Old Vincennes Road and maintain the winery's tasting room in Franklin.

He also grows grapes at a vineyard in Washington County. However, if he loses the Pearl Street facility, he will not have enough space for wine production, so he wants to use the Old Vincennes Road property until he finds another location.

"If [liquidation] happens, River City winery will not have a place to go," he said. "This plan is a backup plan."

Humphrey is also looking at three other locations in Jeffersonville, Seymour and Evansville for additional tasting rooms, he said. If approved, the land use variance for the Old Vincennes Road property would be temporary, and it would need to last about three years.

While he is considering presenting private events and tours, there are no plans to create a tasting room or restaurant at his property on Old Vincennes Road. He hopes to move the wine production to a pole barn and plant additional grapes on the property, where he would be the only operator for the most part, he said.

At the meeting, a number of residents voiced opposition to Humphrey's request to move his wine production into a residential area. Several expressed concerns about agricultural runoff, including the use of pesticides and fungicides for the grapes.

Many discussed safety concerns regarding traffic and speeding on Old Vincennes Road. Susan Johnson Nguyen, who lives near Humphrey's property, said she is concerned about the "integrity of the neighborhood," and she does not want to see any kind of business operation in the area.

Board members cited the absence of two members and the need for additional information as reasons to table Humphrey's request. Board member Daniel Riggs said he would like to have input from New Albany's wastewater department about possible waste issues before making a decision.

Is last year's two-way street grid build-out to blame for a business slowdown? "Six months of confusing traffic patterns during peak season really put a lot of people in the hole."

At Facebook, Gary Humphrey, owner of River City Winery, shared last evening's SweetFrog revelation that it was experiencing hard times and would be launching a Go Fund Me in order to stay afloat.

SweetFrog: "Please help save your only frozen treat option in New Albany."

Gary prefaced his "share" with this viewpoint about the relationship between infrastructure and small independent businesses downtown.

Here it is, very lightly edited. What do you think?

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Downtown is needing your help! 

I know a lot of people are wondering what is going on in downtown with all these leaving or failing businesses. Well here's the skinny. I've had my pulse on downtown for two decades, with the last one as a business owner. So here's what happened ...

With years of slow sustainable growth we were able to slowly bring on new businesses while slowly increasing downtown's customer base. It was working.

Then something great happened. Downtown suddenly became the "IN" place to open a business and a flurry of new businesses came in all at once. That sounds great, but it's only great if a flurry of customers follow. That didn't happen as quickly but it was beginning to happen. By the spring of 2017 things were really starting to pick up.

Then, the dagger. Last spring a TV crew sat outside my business and wanted me to go on camera to talk about the changes and upcoming construction. What changes? What construction? I asked. I had no idea what was getting ready to have a huge affect on my business and certainly wasn't able to plan for it. The TV reporter notified me of the two-way conversion and road construction.

Great! I heard the rumors ... never heard the plan. I wanted two-way streets before and I want them now, and I love the two-way. Two-way streets are great for downtown, and I'm a big fan of them -- but here's the part that no one knew or had any input on. The conversion would put confusing cones, confusing lines, confusing signs, confusing lights all around us while all confusingly contradicting one other. 

We can survive this for a month, I thought ...

Then a month went by ... then two ... then three ... coming out of the slowest part of the year, winter, we now headed right into the slowest part of the decade and it was completely unforeseen and out of our control.

I was a cop in this town for 20 years and know these streets like the back of my hand but even I was confused. I'd look at the sign, look at the lines, look at the cones and I hadn't a clue what lane they wanted me to be in. It was confusing! 

I drove around town like I was in the bumper car ring at King's Island. There weren't many accidents but many people stayed away. They stayed away until October.

Six months after it started, the streets reopened to two-way traffic ... and I love it, but six months of confusing traffic patterns during peak season really put a lot of people in the hole. Right in a hole, heading back into winter. Many of them didn't make it and more probably won't unless that flurry of customers we needed then, happens now.

Gahan clears space in already bulging campaign finance coffers as his half-ass-two-way-street reform project limps toward the runway.

We will surmise from the evidence that John Boyle is Jerod Clapp's de facto replacement at the News and Tribune, although the reporter might be only a temporary pinch-hitter.

Boyle's page at Facebook shows a hiring date of August 2016 (he's a 2016 IU Southeast graduate), and until mid-January, all his bylines were in sports.

Where Boyle fits in the newspaper's "beat by topic, not geography" scheme is yet to be seen; he's done a fire, a Hobkbob Coffee profile, a school board meeting, and now the rumored Downtown Grid Modernization Project (Mayor Gahan's shameless bastardization of Jeff Speck's Downtown Street Network Proposal.

As such, he extracts an interesting nugget from city engineer Larry Summers, who'll probably face disciplinary action for speaking openly to the media.

Work underway on two-way: Initial phases of Grid Modernization Project begin in New Albany, by John Boyle

... Summers said the city's next step will be repaving Spring, Market, Elm, Pearl, Bank and Vincennes streets. An official date for this portion, however, has yet to be set.

"The paving itself is going to be independent of the federal aid, but we are looking to coordinate the two projects," Summers said. "It's kind of nuanced right now. [The start date] depends on who wins the bid for the federal aid portion of construction."

Summers said that if two separate contractors are selected, the repaved streets will have temporary dividers until the federal aid portion of the grid realignment begins. Bids for the projects will be selected in early March. The entire project is expected to be completed by Sept. 30.

Well, well.

Turns out the paving component wasn't part of the federal 80-20 largess after all -- and remember, annual paving contracts are an easily tapped source of campaign finance kickbacks. For those readers eternally curious as to why MAC seemingly captures every contract ... just follow the envelopes.

Boyle did good. "Nuanced" is the sort of code language John Rosenbarger usually deploys to evade scrutiny, and now we know about a potential timeline crack in the otherwise seamless propaganda narrative.

Meanwhile, Boyle also extracts two quotes from business owners, each bearing an important point. First, hitting the nail on the head with regard to traffic speed:

Gary Humphrey, owner of River City Winery, said he has long been in favor of two-way streets in downtown New Albany.

"I've been in support from day one," Humphrey said. "I prefer anything that slows down traffic. Two-way streets will do that."

Then, the enduring transparency bugaboo.

Leo Lopez, who owns Habana Blues, said that though he is not necessarily against the two-way streets, he has not been pleased with the communication between city officials and businesses in New Albany.

"Every time something is done around here, they don't tell anybody," Lopez said. "We don't know until it's about to happen. A lot of business owners will tell you the same thing."

Team Gahan already has botched what might have been, at least in terms of the Speck plan's magnitude. Mark my words, folks, because they're going to botch significant portions of their own diluted HWC street grid rewrite. This will not owe to engineering incompetence, but rather to political cowardice.

It's who they are ... and what they do -- and don't do.