Business

Vialet Assailed at Boisterous Town Hall to Address Zoning Changes For Rum Distillery Made Without Community Notice

Senator Kurt Vialet should be gearing up for a general election battle with Governor Albert Bryan, who just won the democratic primary on Saturday. Instead, Mr. Vialet is locked in an issue that is threatening his campaign, and at a boisterous town hall in Frederiksted on Monday night called by the senator to address the matter, community outrage, it appears, only intensified. At the core of the issue is Raising Cane, a sugarcane-producing company spanning over 200 acres on Estate Prosperity on the west end of St. Croix.  The company intends to form local partnerships to grow 9,850 more acres of sugarcane, a feat that would see Raising Cane supplying Cruzan Rum and Diageo with almost half of the molasses they need to run their operations, according to Raising Cane, which says it plans to partner with the companies to provide them with molasses. The idea was conceived when company owner Robert Apfel, a New Yorker and well-known Wall Street entrepreneur toured the Cruzan Rum Distillery...