“I hope they do open it,” said James West, a scalloper from Sorrento who shrimped in the past. Even if it was only for a month, from February to March, he just wanted a chance to see what was out there.
“When [people] line up and pay $34 for a lobster roll, it goes beyond the imagination,” he said.
Officials with the lab said it was in line with the town’s comprehensive plan and would increase setbacks in the area for any future development.
“She was a lovely little skiff,” Toby Stephenson, a boat captain at College of the Atlantic, said. “We miss her.”
The fishery opened on Nov. 8 at 12:01 a.m. and then regulators called for it to close by 6 p.m.
The closure was set to start in mid-October, but was contested by the Trenton-based Maine Lobstering Union and Stonington-based Damon Family Lobster Co.
Before the hearing, people gathered outside to protest the farm, which recently had more than 115,000 fish die in a mass mortality event that was chalked up to low oxygen levels in the pens.
Without the zoning change, the oceanarium could either rebuild or renovate under the same footprint or ask to keep the same footprint and move to another spot on the property.
After emerging from a two-hour executive session, council member Gary Friedmann said that he was impressed with Sutherland, the lone finalist for the job, and the council decided to start negotiating with him for the town manager job.
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