A busy dining room and bar at Rise Pizza & Pub on a Thursday night in May.  Brianna Soukup / Portland Press Herald

A request from a relatively new pizza restaurant in Cumberland to push out closing time by one hour on Friday and Saturday for establishments in the Town Center District has sparked a community conversation about the future of Main Street.

The request highlights a tension between the desire by some to keep Cumberland’s rural, residential feel intact while simultaneously accommodating business growth.

The conversation about the hours change began when Town Councilor Michael Edes visited Rise Pizza & Pub on Main Street in early 2024 and learned that because of the town ordinance, the business can only operate between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. One of the owners told Edes that they would prefer a later closing, because it would allow them to capture business after sports games and other school events.

Rise Pizza & Pub is right next to Greely High School and across the street from Cumberland Foodstop. Other nearby businesses include a credit union, a dentist office and the restaurant Dara Bistro.

In February, Edes proposed changing the hours for all businesses in the Town Center District, by allowing them to close at 11 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. The Town Council held a public hearing on the issue and referred it to the Planning Board.

When the request appeared before the Planning Board, a number of community members spoke out against the change, and it was ultimately tabled.

Objections included concerns that the change would cause more light pollution, more noise, and that it’s not appropriate to change the ordinance just to accommodate the request of one business. Some also said that the business that was previously there, Louie’s Grille, operated there within the prescribed hours without issue. Rise took the place of Louie’s Grille when it opened last summer.

“(11 p.m.) is simply too late for a small town like ours; had we wanted nightlife, we would have chosen Portland,” Jessica Privler, who lives on Main Street, wrote to the town in March.

Rise’s owners, Simone Burdet and Tobey Moulton, are back with a new request, to extend permitted business hours in the zone, this time to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

“It’s a mere two-hour change, but we feel very strongly that the community needs an accessible and convenient place to gather and eat dinner or order takeout after school events such as sports games (especially given the new turf project) and school plays, concerts, talent shows, etc.,” Burdet wrote in a letter to Town Manager Matt Sturgis in July.

Burdet also wrote that the extra hours would be helpful for them from a profit perspective.

The Town Council heard from Burdet and roughly a dozen members of the public about the issue on Aug. 12, and then agreed to have a workshop on the item at their Aug. 26 meeting.

At the Aug. 12 meeting, public sentiment was largely in favor of Rise’s request. The council heard from residents (in person and via email), a majority of whom were in favor of the change.

“We have all acknowledged that this town is growing and expanding in different ways, and at the end of the day, 10 p.m. on a Friday and Saturday is completely reasonable within any context,” said Andrew Stern, according to town meeting minutes. “We have to find a way to work with our business owners.”

During their workshop on Aug. 26, Councilor Robert Vail said he supported waiting until the comprehensive plan update process – which the town is set to start soon – to decide whether the hours in the zone should be changed.

He said there were other issues at play, not just the hours, including “what (should) Main Street look like?”

At the previous meeting Vail said his objection was not to the change of hours, which he called “minuscule,” but to the spirit of the request.

“We are looking at a wholesale change by one individual requesting us to change an entire section of town,” he said, according to meeting minutes.

“Putting this in the (comprehensive) plan is the epitome of kicking the can down the road,” said Councilor Edes. “We’ve over-thought this,” he said, making the point that the hours change wouldn’t be all that impactful and would ultimately be positive. Edes said he supported putting it to a referendum and was confident that voters would pass it. “Stevie Wonder could see where this is going to come out,” he said.

Councilor Andrew Magoun said he supported having a trial run of the new hours to see what the impact would be.

Councilor Denise Thorsson said she wanted more data before making a decision. She said the number of people who had spoken publicly about the request did not constitute a large enough sample size, which would happen during the comprehensive plan process.

“Supporting business is one thing, but having to make concessions to keep particular businesses in business is not the way to make decisions,” she said.

Town Manager Sturgis suggested referring the idea of a trial period to the Ordinance Committee to flesh out what that would look like, but the council didn’t make a formal motion to do so.

In a follow-up email, Sturgis wrote that he believes there was consensus among councilors that the question will be taken up as part of the comprehensive plan process.