News has come out that the Tampa City Council is threatening to shut down Cigar City’s Tasting Room at their brewery.  Head Brewmaster Wayne Wambles took to Facebook to let everyone know what is going on.

This is a preface to our own post.

The Tampa City Council is close to eradicating our tasting room.

Do you enjoy coming to CCB for growler fills, fresh beer and company?

This will no longer exist in early December(Dec. 4) if the city council votes against us by gaining a majority vote.

This will put many of our staff members out of a job(we started with 2 employees and we now have 22). In this economy, it doesn’t make sense. We are a small business that caters to and cradles/represents local culture. The members of the council that consistently vote against us are not concerned about eliminating jobs in this economy. Their main concern is their political and personal agendas regardless of the outcome.

I hope that you value our beer and our tasting room enough to make a stand at the next council meeting on Dec. 4th. This will make a big difference for us.

Speak out…tell the council members how much you enjoy what we have provided and how much you enjoy having a local craft microbrewery in Tampa.

I am going to post this link…it encompasses the idea but I must tell you that I will put anything that I want in my beer if I can get it past Statement of Process. The statements in this video apply on an international level but right now it is local and we need to protect our local culture:

This is what we believe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev5OZS75qaY

We hope that you feel this way about your local breweries:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh2oDdTHXQU&feature=related

Please support our movement lest we be at the mercy of arbitrary politics based on personal agendas that will defeat the nature of our intent and the nature of our culture(and ultimately disrupt the income of many of our employees in a poor economy). More to follow…please read and support Cigar City Brewing.

Thanks for your interest,

Wayne Wambles
Head Brewer
Cigar City Brewing

Fellow #FlaBrew member Sean Nordquist is in the middle of trying to find out which members of the council have the big issue with the tasting room and intends on naming names.  Might I also mention that personal friend of mine and many other #FlaBrew folks, Tom Barris, is employeed by Cigar City in their tasting room.  And a shut down would pretty much mean Tom will no longer be working for CCB.

As more information comes in I will be posting it.