SALISBURY — With summer right around the corner, people will be staying out longer and will need a place to hang out into the night. To plan for this, New Sarum Brewing Co. has worked with Salisbury officials on a 12-month lease agreement for use of a city-owned parking lot for putting on weekend events.

On Tuesday night, the City Council approved the request and the lease will run from Fridays at 5 p.m. through Sundays at midnight for one year. The lease includes 17 parking spaces, including 15 for the events and the other two for storage.

“They can have more consistent use, so that there can be some clear guidelines about how they use the space responsibly and still act as good neighbors to others in the area,” Downtown Development Director Sada Troutman said. “We want to make sure we do talk to the neighboring businesses, too. So that they’re all aware in plenty of time.”

New Sarum will be responsible for keeping the area clean, providing adequate amenities/facilities for patrons, towing vehicles, acquiring insurance, building fencing between event space and city parking, and making sure any live music performances will be completed by 10 p.m. Signs will be made to notify the public about the upcoming changes.

New Sarum co-owner Andy Maben started the application process last June in an effort to come up with a more practical approach than to request special use permits every time they had any plans.

“Obviously, we want to do something every single, solitary weekend. Bands, food trucks, pop up shops, all those things, it just opens up a lot more opportunity for us to not have to go through the process of doing the extension permit,” Maben said.

New Sarum originally planned for distribution to be the most profitable part of the business, but due to COVID and other supply chain issues, their taproom has taken its place, making the need for a lease like this more pronounced.

The lease is currently drawn up. It will officially go into effect once City Manager Jim Greene signs it in the next few weeks.

“It gives us the opportunity to create the revenue stream that we need and that the city is kind of asking us for,” Maben said. “It means a lot that they want to support our business, which is kind of what we were hoping for.”