The Whitefish Planning Board on Thursday will consider an alternate location for a proposed microdistillery and tasting room in Whitefish.

Late last year Tom and Danette Sefcak of Whitefish received a conditional-use permit to operate Whitefish Handcrafted Spirits in an existing building on the industrial south end of Baker Avenue.

When that location fell through, the Sefcaks regrouped and now plan to create their handcrafted distillery near the Whitefish River at 704 E. 13th St. They’re going through the planning process a second time for a conditional-use permit.

The microdistillery would be located in a new addition adjoining an existing building where the Wireless Connection and UPS businesses operate off Spokane Ave.

“It’s going to be a much better location,” Danette Sefcak said. “They [the building owner] will build another building to match the roofline and we’re taking the whole space. We’ll have almost 6,000 square feet.”

An outdoor patio for year-round use will offer comfortable space even during the winter months, she said.

A March 2016 opening is targeted.

Various clear spirits will be featured at the opening, such as potato vodka, huckleberry rum liqueur, orange spice rum and cranberry-infused white whiskey. Other products will be in various stages of aging, including a Montana wheat whiskey, along with a huckleberry rum reserve that will be aged for a year in sherry casks.

Food such as tapas will be served at Whitefish Handcrafted Spirits.

The idea for a microdistillery in Whitefish has been in the works for five years, Sefcak said.

“We have family in Kentucky and we have spent a great deal of time traveling around Kentucky; we did the whole Bourbon Trail,” she said. “We have a love of fine spirits to start with and a love of cooking, and in experiencing the Bourbon Trail, we were inspired by the microdistilleries and new artisans.”

That experience led them to take courses in how to make spirits.

Plans to create their own microdistillery developed when the recession hit about five years ago. They owned a mortgage brokerage that faltered when “the economy went upside-down.

“We were struggling to find ways to support our family,” she said.

Both Tom and Danette have been working in Williston, North Dakota, for Halliburton for the past five years, putting in long hours to save enough to open their microdistillery.

Danette, who left Halliburton last year to focus on their business startup, recalled working 95 hours a week and living in a “man camp” for 14 days, then traveling home to the Flathead for a week to get caught up on life at home. At the time, their daughter was in college but their two sons were finishing high school here. They arranged to have caretakers for them while they worked in the oil patch.

The Planning Board’s recommendation for the microdistillery permit, following a public hearing, would be forwarded to the Whitefish City Council for an additional hearing and decision on May 4.

In other business, the Planning Board will deal with a zoning “housekeeping” amendment that modifies the intent of the Whitefish general business district (WB-3 zone) to clarify the boundaries of the Old Town Central District and the Old Town Railway District, both of which have some unique development requirements in the WB-3 code.

Some confusion has arisen because the architectural review standards adopted as part of the zoning code define the two districts but have map and text boundary descriptions that aren’t consistent with the WB-3 intent, Planning Director David Taylor said in a staff report.

The board will hold a public hearing at the city’s request to remove references to the former extraterritorial planning jurisdiction and Blanchard Lake from Whitefish lakeshore protection regulations. Flathead County has assumed planning jurisdiction for Whitefish lake and lakeshore matters as a result of a state Supreme Court ruling.

The board meets at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 16, at Whitefish City Hall.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.