South Portland to tackle beekeeping rules

SOUTH PORTLAND — South Portland city councilors go their first look a “greatly simplified” beekeeping ordinance at a workshop session Monday, promising a first reading “sometime in December or January.”

In June, apiarists Phil Gavin and Paul Jacobs appeared before the council to complain about an ordinance passed three years ago in response to the only known incident in the last 20 years involving a backyard beekeeper, in which a Cash Corner family complained a neighbor’s beehives repeatedly drove them from their own backyard. Gavin and Jacobs said new rules imposed were “overly detailed and restrictive, confusingly worded and imposed unreasonably large fines.”

According to Councilor Tom Coward, who met with Gavin and Jacobs, as well as Councilor Tom Blake, to answer the complaints, the result has been to essentially gut the ordinance of its regulatory minutia, replacing it instead with references to the “Best Management Practices” of the Maine State Beekeepers Associating. That way, said Coward, the city does not need to continually monitor and update the ordinance.

The only question, however, was whether the Best Management Practices are to be seen as guidelines, or requirements. On this point, Coward and Blake appeared to part ways.

“Our code enforcement needs to be able to go out and say you’re doing it right, or not,” said Coward, lobbying for local control, even if the expertise is to be left to state officials. “Our code enforcement officer needs to be able to say, ‘You’re not doing what you’re supposed to, fix it,” rather than getting into a debate over which Best Management Practice really is best.”

“Our code enforcement has enough to do,” said Blake, stumping for state enforcement. “Let’s rely on the state, where the technical expertise lies. What’s important to us is who, what and where.”

The new draft slashes fines, from $1,000 per day for each violation, to $100 for a first offense, $200 for the second, and $300 for the third and each subsequent violation, with clarification that fines are per beekeeper, not per hive.

“Now, if Attila the Beekeeper moves into town, we have the ability to do something without frightening the normal beekeeper,” said Coward.

Other proposes changes include allowing any resident of Maine to keep bees in South Portland, not just city dwellers, and allowing commercial (though not industrial) operations.

Gavin pointed out that many hobbyists prefer to put their hives in the ownership of a limited liability corporation, even if its one that operates in name only.

“That way, if my bees do sting someone, I don’t lose my house,” he explained.