Hoping For Solar Carports At One Time, Benoit Reveals What He’s Gonna Do With The Plot Next To The Hot Dog Ranch

On Thursday's "Slater and Marjo In The Morning", Hot Dog Ranch owner Craig Benoit was on to tell us what's up with the now-vacant lot next to his business. I can be pretty nosey, and I just had to know. 😂

"Five years ago there was an SREC program in the State of Massachusetts for solar, so our plan was, we were gonna put solar carports along with charging stations in that area where the two buildings were and there was an SREC program that would have paid us money to do that, we would have generated electricity, clean, green electricity, instead of going into a golf course or a field, it would have been in a parking lot.

We started the process, we started the permitting, I removed all of the asbestos and we had to go to the historical commission because the building out front (which we just tore down) was over 75 years old. It took over a year for it to be determined that it was in fact not historical. In the meantime; however, I lost all of my SRECs, so that project failed. 

Having removed the asbestos and the flashing, the weather eventually got to it and it got to a point where the building had to be torn down for safety reasons and it looked like crap, so I finally tore it down.

Being that I didn't have a plan, I couldn't put a parking lot in the middle of my parking lot, because I'm within 200 feet of the river. So, at this point, we tore it down, we're cleanin' it up and we're gonna plant some grass and edge the sides with blacktop and make it look neat and trim and that's all I can do with it." -Hot Dog Ranch owner Craig Benoit

The good news is that the Hot Dog Ranch outdoor patio looks SWEET from the street!