Newtown Planning and Zoning Says No to Dunkin Donuts Drive-Thru

If you live or commute to Newtown, don't look to get your coffee fix at a Dunkin Donuts drive thru.

If you're at all familiar with the zoning laws in Newtown, then you know the town is pretty strict when it comes to drive-thru businesses.

As of now, there are no strip malls, no box stores and no drive-thru windows allowed within the town, and residents and political leaders alike all agree. According to newstimes.com, residents want to protect the look of Newtown and small businesses, and convey a certain image to people who are visiting the town. This proposal to have a Dunkin Donuts drive-thru location as part of the Mobile service station on Route 6, (Church Hill Road), just off I-84, right next to the Blue Colony Diner didn't fly with either group and was rejected.

Zoning Commission board members cite the location being overly crowded already, and adding a drive thru in that particular location would just be adding to the congestion due to drive-thru traffic, cars getting gas and using the stations convenience store, and traffic from the other local businesses in that busy area. Add to that the road, Route 6 is just off the highway, and is normally crowded, especially during the morning commute.

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The Zoning and Planning board's other main concerns were that if approved, it could start a precedent which would eventually lead to other businesses putting in drive thru proposals in areas where service stations and convenience stores already exist.

Meanwhile the Zoning and Planning board is giving the owners of the service station a chance to rework their plans and come back with a more narrowly tailored solution that would make it more difficult for another service station or convenient stores to follow the Mobil's stations example.