Buyer pitches art gallery and small-scale wine bottling at former Kamas fire station; council flagged zoning and state licensing checks

Paul Hunt, a prospective purchaser of the former Kamas fire station parcel, told the City Council Oct. 14 he plans to convert the property into a mixed-use art gallery and small-scale wine bottling operation.

Hunt said the business would be primarily a gallery and display space for local and visiting artists, with a small wine-manufacturing and bottling area sited in an existing garage. He described the wine operation as light manufacturing: the wine would arrive already fermented (in barrels), be transferred into modest stainless-steel tanks (100–300 gallon), bottled and labeled on-site, and stored in a refrigerated room. He estimated on-site inventory at any time would be a handful of 60‑gallon barrels (5–10) and gave an example of his current production scale of roughly 2,000 bottles per year.

Why it matters: Hunt says state and federal licensing is required for a manufacturing and package (retail) license to sell wine direct to consumers,…