Courtesy Alichia Knight The Clubhouse Bar and Grill in Charlestown at night.
CHARLESTOWN — One of the few restaurants and music venues in Charlestown is currently closed after a dispute over its site plan.
Last week, the town’s planning board voted to revoke the Clubhouse Bar and Grill’s site plan approval, saying the business violated the plan, according to meeting minutes.
Approval can be pulled if a business or building doesn’t resemble what was described in the plan OK’d by the planning board prior to the business opening.
Town officials allege the Clubhouse isn’t adhering to hours, noise levels and exterior lighting that the town required before approving the business to open last year and argue there’s been a change of use from the family restaurant they approved. Owner Alichia Knight says she’s being unfairly targeted.
Meeting minutes show Knight says she’s also been trying to adjust the site plan to add changes she’s made since the business opened and not succeeded due to technicalities she said she was not aware of.
Those minutes show the planning board considered revoking the site plan at meetings in August and September due to what the board described as uses of the property that diverged from the original site plan.
At a Sept. 1 meeting, the board opened a hearing on whether to revoke the site plan. The board is allowed to take that step if an applicant “has performed work, erected a structure or structures, or established a use of the land which fails to conform to the statements, plans of specifications upon which the approval was based, or has materially violated any requirements or condition of the approval.”
The Clubhouse is in a mixed-use zoning district but its abutters are residential, according to the planning board minutes. The board imposed seven conditions on Knight’s site plan prior to approval last year. Those included limitations on hours of operation, noise levels and exterior lighting.
The planning board says there’s evidence those conditions have been violated. But Knight and her supporters argue the business is being unfairly targeted.
“It’s mind-blowing and it’s so frustrating,” Knight said. “... I’m beside myself with all of this.”
An online petition to support the Clubhouse has more than 1,000 signatures.
At the hearing Sept. 1, neighbors complained of music and light impacting their homes. Many of those complaints stemmed from an outdoor concert the venue hosted in August.
Elaine Van Velsor described the noise as “constant” and said a continuous strobe light crosses her windows.
Several maintained that the outdoor concert violated the decibel limits in the site plan approval.
Other locals spoke in support of the Clubhouse, the minutes show. Connor Sawyer said the business provides jobs and a sense of community and is one of only a few local places that’s open late.
Jim Jenkins encouraged the board to work with the owners on the issues, noting the town doesn’t have many options for people to go out.
In the minutes, Putnam said that the restaurant, including entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights, was approved on Jan. 7, 2025. The board “wanted this business to succeed and wanted it to be a harmonious relationship between the business and the neighbors,” he said, according to the minutes.
But “what now stands at the site is entirely different from what was approved,” Putnam said in the minutes.
Departures from the plan include a stage and an enclosed area for mechanical bull riding, Putnam said.
Knight maintains the stage was a temporary structure for an Aug. 8 concert that was permitted. As for the bull riding building, she describes it as a “multipurpose building.”
One violation Knight acknowledges pertains to hours.
Conditions on the original site plan approval say the Clubhouse is supposed to be open on Sundays only from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. At the request of patrons, Knight said those hours shifted to later in the day.
As for the noise levels, Knight said she had the decibel levels professionally checked and the results came in under the planning board’s limits.
At the Sept. 1 meeting, the board voted to give the Clubhouse two weeks to come into compliance. Minutes say Knight was notified by a certified letter and regular mail of the list of violations and given two weeks to fix them.
After that two-week delay, the board voted to revoke the site plan approval at a Sept. 15 meeting, denying a request for a 30-day extension. Knight now has 30 days to request another hearing.
Knight’s attorney said she was willing to comply with the originally approved hours and remove the mechanical bull, but the board remained concerned about whether the overall use of the property, which they said was pitched as a family restaurant, has changed.
Knight told The Sentinel she believes her business is being unfairly targeted by planning board members whose decisions are impacted by personal issues with her husband — an allegation those members deny.
State law — RSA 673:14 — describes the types of conflicting interests that can disqualify a board member from serving on a particular application. They cannot serve if they have a “direct personal or pecuniary interest” or if “that member would be disqualified for any cause to act as a juror upon the trial of the same matter in any action at law.” It’s up to board members themselves to decide if they have a conflict of interest.
“We’re not going anywhere,” she said. “We’re going to fight this.”
Abigail Ham can be reached at 603-355-8554 or aham@keenesentinel.com.
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