Larry and Christina Cary outside their tasting room in Seaside in October. Cary, who changed the name of his distillery to Pilot House Spirits after a trademark challenge to North Coast Distilling, is now facing another copyright challenge.

SEASIDE — North Coast Distilling is now selling its spirits at a new tasting room and retail establishment in Seaside. On Sept. 14, proprietor Larry Cary successfully appealed an earlier City Council denial of the business license, giving Cary the go-ahead to open the tasting room.

Located at 10 N. Holladay Drive, the bottled spirits sold are created by Cary at his craft distillery in Astoria. He runs the business with his wife, Christina.

North Coast Distilling, adjacent to the Liberty Theater in Astoria, opened its first tasting room on Duane Street in February 2014. The Carys describe the beginning of the company as much earlier, “as a thought after tasting some moonshine” in Tennessee.

Cary crafts a variety of spirits, including vodka, whiskey, rum, gin, aquavit, liqueur and plans to release an agave. The second tasting room in Seaside “gives a broader blanket or netting to sell our products,” he said.

Not quite in the heart of downtown, he determined the North Holladay Drive location is “more sophisticated” and the best fit for the tasting room. Under the company’s current license with the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, North Coast Distilling is allotted five tasting rooms.

Cary originally planned for an Aug. 1 opening for the Seaside business. The delay was a result of an earlier business license denial. In an August letter to Cary, City Manager Mark Winstanley wrote, “unfortunately Distilling Liquor Licenses are approved by the OLCC and are not approved by the City Council, and for that reason the business license cannot be approved.”

“I assumed I would be granted a business license, because the state has approved my application,” Cary said.

Cary said there was a misunderstanding with the Seaside Police Department — which denied the application — and the city over the type of business North Coast Distilling planned to establish in Seaside. The second site is solely a tasting room with retail sales, not a shot bar or second distillery.

“We offer more of a history lesson on spirits and the sampling of craft spirits,” Cary added.

Under state law, the company is permitted to sell 2.5 ounces per day to patrons 21 years or older. Each sample is about half an ounce. At present, they offer flights of three samples for $5 and sell bottles ranging from $28 to $50.

“We can only sell factory sealed containers of the product we created, which has been federally licensed and approved,” he wrote to Winstanley in response to the denial.