Black Rock Brewing Company awaiting inspection

POTTSVILLE, SCHUYLKILL COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — After a small fire nearly a year ago, a brewery in Pottsville remains closed by order of the city, but that hasn’t stopped them from making use of their outdoor property.

The brewery will host its second event since the fire in the upcoming weekend, the prior one ended with multiple fines .

Black Rock Brewing Company will host an outdoor event this weekend just about a month after being fined for their free beer party .

I had the chance to speak with the owner and at this point, he says his biggest concern is getting the city of Pottsville to allow him to re-open his doors.

Just one month after their battle with the city of Pottsville over a free beer party, black rock brewing has decided to throw another outdoor gathering this weekend even though the property has been deemed unsafe by the city.

“While we wait for all this stuff to hopefully resolve itself, we’re going to keep doing these really simple outside events. The building is still not allowed to be occupied by people. The building itself is condemned. And yeah, we don’t know what the future for black rock even holds. If we’ll ever be able to reopen again,” said Black Rock Brewing Company Owner Bobby Weaver.

Although their previous party was held outside of the condemned building,

Black Rock was still presented with three separate fines.

Weaver says he’s not sure what will happen this weekend but intends to fight any fine.

“We gave away free beer and they decided to throw the book at us, they fined us for three different things totaling out to be $1154 for what was a great community evening,” Weaver explained.

Weaver pled not guilty to the three citations and is awaiting a court date, saying he hopes it comes sooner rather than later.

“We’re really hoping it’s as soon as possible because, you know, they could still fine us for this weekend’s event. It’s up to them because we haven’t won in court yet but we just, we want to work together. We want to see how to get this business back open,” Weaver continued.

The owner claims he’s done everything the city’s asked in order to re-open, but says he can’t get them to cooperate.

Weaver says it’s been 336 days now that they’ve been waiting for an inspection, regardless of their multiple requests to the city of Pottsville.

“Our business black rock is on the exact same street as city hall. They could walk down and inspect this at any point and time, but they’ve stopped talking to us. They won’t interact with us. They won’t help us,” said Weaver.

Black Rock says they’re involved in another court case with the city, trying to urge the courts to force Pottsville to inspect their building in order to open their doors once again.

“Their stance is that we are not going to re-inspect your building, we are not going to approve any plans that you have, and that kind of leaves us, our community, and this historic building in a really bad spot,” Weaver stated.

I did reach out to the mayor of Pottsville and he declined to comment on this weekend’s event and also declined to comment on the awaiting inspection of Black Rock.

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