East Lyme — Local shellfish farmer Tim Londregan said he is prepared to take town officials to court after they recently issued a cease-and-desist order that, if carried through, threatens the future of his business.

Issued by zoning official Bill Mulholland on Oct. 7, the order directs Londregan to stop operating his commercial shellfish business at the Marker 7 Marina just west of the Niantic River Bridge. Londregan said he has based some minor elements of his business out of the marina for the last two years, but recently moved more of his operation there, including both his shellfishing vessels, after a bad storm in fall 2018 uprooted him from his previous location in the Niantic River.

Town officials say Londregan’s Niantic Bay Shellfish Farm is not permitted to operate out of the Marker 7 Marina based on a Coastal Area Management site plan that restricts the marina to only “recreational and pleasure boating” activities.

[naviga:img hspace="5" vspace="5" border="0" height="407" width="800" align="middle" alt="" src="https://projects.theday.com/maps/londregan-shellfishing.jpg"/]

The blue marker represents the approximate location where Tim Londregan of the Niantic Bay Shellfish Farm parks his shellfishing vessels at the Marker 7 Marina in Niantic. (Google Earth)

It also claims that Londregan is violating wider town zoning regulations barring the “processing” of shellfish at the marina. Town officials told The Day this week that Londregan is processing his shellfish by putting them through a large, cylindrical metal tumbler for cleaning and sorting before then landing and shipping them.

Londregan, however, maintained earlier this month that his operation does not violate any zoning regulations and disagreed with the town's meaning of “processing,” which by his definition means “cooking, curing, smoking and restructuring (shucking and filleting).” He also questioned, among many other stipulations, what authority the town has over his business given that he believes much of his business activity takes place beyond the coastal jurisdiction line.

Londregan is represented by the New London-based Conway, Londregan, Sheehan & Monaco, P.C. law firm, with whom he officially filed an appeal to the order Thursday. Londregan now will go before the Zoning Board of Appeals for a hearing, which has not yet been scheduled, Mulholland said.

Londregan said that if the board sides with Mulholland and does not issue a variance to his business, he is prepared to go to court. 

Londregan operates the Marker 7 Marina, previously known as the “Bayview Landing Marina,” but does not own the property. The property is owned by Niantic River Marina Inc., whose president is Alfonso Morgillo and who also was included on the cease-and-desist order.

Londregan’s business, which he registered in 2014, has become a major point of contention among marinas and residents lining the Niantic River in recent years after Londregan proposed using six acres of space in the Niantic River in 2017 to grow juvenile shellfish before moving them into the Niantic Bay. If passed, the move would have expanded his shellfish farming business, which now functions from a three-acre farming area in the Niantic Bay.

That proposal originally was passed by the Waterford-East Lyme Shellfish Commission but later was rescinded after residents reacted with an uproar of opposition.

Londregan said he believes the town’s cease-and-desist order is fueled by complaints from the same individuals who opposed his hatchery plans and whom he described as a specific group of “friends,” many of whom own marinas along the river.

“They want to deny any advancement on my businesses within the Niantic River. Period,” Londregan said. “That probably stems from some belief this will harm their business. Some believe it will detract from aesthetics. Some believe that it will pollute. Some believe it’s an inappropriate use of public waters. Some believe it will smell. Some believe it’s a safety hazard. None of it is true.”

Mulholland and First Selectman Mark Nickerson said that after receiving several complaints outlining noise disturbances, seagulls and foul smells Londregan’s operation was creating, they held a meeting with Londregan last spring, informing him that his business was likely violating town zoning laws.

Both said Mulholland then continued to investigate Londregan’s operations throughout the summer and spoke with town attorneys to confirm that Londregan was indeed violating regulations.

“We tried to work it out with him,” Nickerson said. “Bottom line is that he is in a zone that does not allow for marine industrial. It’s (zoned as) marine commercial, which is much different in use.”

“We are very confident in speaking to our attorneys that he is processing,” Nickerson continued. “We tried to work with him and let him know how we feel and that these are the zoning regulations, and he didn’t change his habits.”

Londregan's metal tumbler, which seems to be the source driving resident complaints, according to Nickerson, is located on top of a barge-like vessel that Londregan owns and calls a shellplex.

Previously, Londregan tied his shellplex to wooden pilings in the middle of Niantic River just north of the Niantic River Bridge and west of Mago Point in Waterford, where the noise was not as clearly audible to nearby marinas. But after a storm damaged the pilings in the fall of 2018, Londregan said he started docking the shellplex and another boat of his at Marker 7, where he said he also has been landing his shellfish, after he sorts and packs them on the shellplex, for the last two years or so.

While giving a tour of his business to The Day earlier this month, Londregan said he keeps the shellplex parked at the marina docks where he typically runs the tumbler almost daily, for a total of about 25 to 30 hours a week, during summer months and for about an hour a week in the winter.

Londregan said he is aware that the tumbler creates noise and may be disruptive to boats docked at nearby marina slips and he has installed metal covers around the machine to mitigate the noise. He noted that from the neighboring slips, the sound from the tumbler does not reach more a 60 decibel level, or the range of normal conversation. "It's distinct, I'm not saying it's not," Londregan said. "But it's not ridiculous."

“(My business) is not violating zoning rules,” he said. “I knew it was not violating zoning rules. I looked it up before I moved here. I think the town is playing a card that is not accurate whatsoever.”

m.biekert@theday.com