A lifelong Cape Cod lobsterman has acquired overwhelming help in his struggle for survival, serving to him claw via bureaucratic pink tape that would revive a virtually century-old household custom of promoting lobsters from his residence.
Yarmouth resident Jon Tolley says he’s nonetheless cautious of whether or not city officers within the mid-Cape Cod city will enable him to reopen his store subsequent yr at his residence, even after residents accredited a bylaw that opens the door for him to take action.
“The whole town was behind me,” Tolley informed the Herald by way of cellphone on Friday. “I knew they were going to be. It’s a sad thing. One person complains, and then I have to go through all of this, get lawyers and everything. For what reason? For no reason.”
The 66-year-old has caught lobsters out of Sesuit Harbor in Dennis and bought the recent crustaceans from his residence in West Yarmouth for almost his complete life. As a teenager, he helped his father, Fred, run the household enterprise on the identical property earlier than he took over operations in 1975.
Regardless of Tolley’s success over the a long time, city officers pressured him to function elsewhere this previous season amid an argument that blindsided the fisherman and his neighbors.
The battle with the city started in late August 2024 when Tolley acquired a violation discover that he stated startled him. Zoning bylaws banned retail lobster gross sales in a residential district, the discover said.
An unnamed West Yarmouth resident complained a couple of enterprise signal Tolley put out on Route 28, the city’s essential hall, prompting the struggle, in accordance with city officers. Tolley has argued that the grievance got here from a Yarmouth police officer.
Yarmouth allowed the retail sale of fish as a business use within the residential district by proper and with out additional permission till 1982.
The Zoning Board of Appeals shot down Tolley’s two appeals for a variance, which might have let him proceed promoting the regionally harvested lobster from the place his father opened up store in 1957.
City officers and Tolley settled on a compromise for the 2025 season.
The lobsterman discovered a non-public vacant lot alongside Route 28 to promote his lobsters, from the place he stated he discovered affordable success, whereas the Planning Board drafted an modification to the zoning bylaw.
Residents at a City Assembly this week eagerly raised their fingers in help of the modification, which permits fishermen to promote their legally caught reside lobsters at their properties by way of a ZBA-issued particular allow. Lower than a handful of attendees disapproved.
“In theory, even though it is a bylaw now, they can still vote no,” Tolley stated of the ZBA. “See what I mean? They can vote no, and of course, you take them to court, and you win in one second because it is a bylaw.”
“All of this is politics,” he added.
In a video previewing the City Assembly, City Supervisor Robert Whritenour known as the lobster bylaw his “favorite” article that residents can be voting on. He described Tolley’s scenario as “quite a kerfuffle.”
The bylaw, Whritenour stated, will “provide a process to enable a fisherman to sell live lobsters out of a residential location, obviously under certain safeguards to protect the integrity of the neighborhood, but that addresses … concerns.”
Residents on the City Assembly voiced their outrage over how lobster gross sales turned controversial.
Resident Sally Johnson stated she’s been a “very strong advocate” of Tolley’s. She pointed to how she felt the ZBA chairman was “very intimidating to his board and to the community in the building” throughout a gathering in April.
The chairman, Sean Igoe, blocked Tolley’s lawyer, Jonathan Polloni, from arguing his consumer’s case and the handfuls of residents in help, who flocked to City Corridor, from expressing how they considered the enterprise as not a detriment to the group.
Residents shouted out their sharp disappointment: “Read the room!” “Dictatorship!” “Generations are leaving Cape Cod!” “You will only have millionaires living here!”
“It is absolutely ridiculous that it’s gotten to this point,” Johnson stated on Monday. “It has mushroomed into chaos.”
Tolley has sued the city over his battle, submitting a grievance in land court docket. Following a July listening to, the court docket inspired the lobsterman and officers to “consider the possibility of mediation or remand of this matter to avoid the time, expense, and risk of further litigation.”
As of Friday, the case wasn’t scheduled to be heard once more till subsequent March, in accordance with data.
“It’s a shame Jon had to fight this battle,” resident Cheryl Ball, who leads the group, Cape Cod Involved Residents, informed the Herald, “but I’m thankful our community and several board members stepped up to support him. We need to continue to defend Cape Cod’s culture before it’s completely eroded.”
