OLD ORCHARD BEACH — Kate’s Homemade Butter agreed to meet again in two weeks with its residential neighbors and the Old Orchard Beach administrative review board to try to resolve complaints about the creamery’s noise, truck schedule and hours of operation.
During a two-hour meeting Wednesday attended by about 20 residents, neighbors complained that Kate’s had outgrown its home-based business location and needed to move out of the neighborhood.
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Kate’s, which produces more than one million pounds of butter a year, as well as buttermilk, has been trying to move to a 17,600-square-foot facility in Arundel. That effort has been held up by construction problems and a stop-work order that Kate’s owners said they are trying to resolve. The company produces its current volume of dairy products in about 1,000 square feet of space.
“We don’t want Kate’s Butter put out of business. But we want a control on the size of the trucks and the hours of operation,” said Harry Bailey, who lives across the street from Kate’s.
Kate’s, which started in 1981, has grown to the point that it needs two tankers of cream delivered per week, and a 48-foot truck picks up finished butter and buttermilk each day between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Residents said Kate’s starts loading pallets of butter in its driveway in the middle of the night, which disrupts the neighborhood.
While no agreements were reached on Wednesday, Lucas Patry, son of Kate’s owners Dan and Karen Patry, told neighbors that smaller trucks could be used instead of having one large truck pick up the butter.
“We do care about running a responsible business,” said Timothy Bryant, an attorney with Preti Flaherty Beliveau & Pachios, who represented Kate’s.
If Kate’s and the neighbors fail to resolve the disputes at the next meeting on Sept. 18, the Old Orchard Beach Town Council would then hear the complaints and weigh whether to revoke the company’s business license, said Town Manager Mark Pearson.
Staff Writer Jessica Hall can be contacted at 791-6316 or at:
jhall@mainetoday.com
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