#

Pramod Nyaupane and his wife, Bibhuti Thapa, may take a moment to enjoy their award as the 2024 NH SBA Small Business Week Minority-Owned Business of the Year—but only after they’ve finished working.

“We work seven days a week. Hard work and long hours at work help keep peace at home,” Nyaupane said. “Our goal is to cut back. We want to work five days a week…starting 10 years from now.”

The owners of Bunny’s Superette, the convenience store that’s been a Manchester fixture since the 1950s, were among this year’s New Hampshire SBA Small Business Week winners honored during a celebration held Tuesday at the Tupelo Music Hall in Derry.

SBA Director Administrator Isabel Guzman, who took photos with the winners, delivered a message on behalf of the Biden administration.

“The SBA can power up business success stories,” Guzman said, touting the $50 billion in funding the agency handles annually to aid small businesses. She noted the Tupelo Music Hall itself needed SBA help at one point.

The small businesses honored on Tuesday are among 170,000 in the Granite State, according to Guzman, who said her agency has received about 40,000 new business applications from New Hampshire since 2021.

Nyaupane and Thapa both came to the United States separately in the early 2000s and made their way to Manchester. The couple got together in the Queen City, married, and began their business life.

After buying Bunny’s in 2010 and working hard to keep it successful, Nyaupane and Thapa expanded the business. They opened a new Bunny’s location on Elm Street in 2017, betting the store would thrive with the city. Nyaupane said Thapa is the secret behind their success.

“When your wife works twice as hard as you do, things go well,” he said.

District Director Award winner Richard Tango-Lowy was a physicist when he fell in love with chocolate in the 1980s. He spent years researching chocolate and teaching himself how to work with a confection with a history dating back to the Mayan civilization. When he decided to leap into the professional world of chocolate, Tango-Lowy’s wife was skeptical.

“I never planned to be a chocolatier. My wife said, ‘You’re going to make a living doing what?'” Tango-Lowy said.

He spent more years studying chocolate with masters in the field. He went to Vancouver to take the Ecole Chocolat’s Professional Chocolatier course, to France and later Tuscany to earn his Master Chocolatier certifications, and to Ecuador to learn how to go from chocolate bean to chocolate bar. In 2011, he opened Dancing Lion Chocolate, which is a shop, cafe, and production kitchen in Manchester. Dancing Lion has gone on to be recognized as one of the premiere chocolate shops in the country and Tango-Lowy as one of the best chocolatiers.

Both New Hampshire Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan were on hand to honor the small business owners.

Businesses like Bunny’s and Dancing Lion drive the economy and innovations, Shaheen said.

“I think most of us know that about two-thirds of jobs are created from small businesses. But my favorite statistic about small businesses is that you create 16 times more patents than large businesses. I think most people don’t realize that. And I think it’s one reason that the U.S. Patent and Trade Office just decided to locate its northern New England office in New Hampshire, which is very good news for all of us,” Shaheen said.

Hassan’s message was that freedom is essential to small business success.

“All the small business owners here are also a testament to the difference that freedom can make. And I want people to just focus on this for a minute, a lot of things that we can take for granted living in New Hampshire, living in the United States. I think one of them is democracy and freedom, and it’s something that is essential to the kind of progress and the kind of strength that you all exhibit here today,” Hassan said. “Because to be individually free is to be free to innovate, to be free to do the thing you love to do, to contribute your talents, to be able to try something and fail and then try again. There is no limit to our creativity, but we all have to be free and live in this democratic society in this democratic system.”

Among the other winners Tuesday:

Small Business Persons of the Year, Susan Borchert and Betsy Harrison, Counseling Associates, PLLC, New London; Home-Based for NH and New England, Logan Snyder, HasOptimization, LLC, Canterbury; Young Entrepreneurs for NH and New England, Bryce Harrison – Ian Lubkin – James Gaudreault, Cheese Louise, Portsmouth – North Conway – Portland, Me.; Veteran Owned, Ken Whitten and Joseph Whitten, Apparel Impact, LLC, Hooksett; Woman Owned, Danielle Jones, Abenaki Trail Restaurant and Pub, North Conway; Financial Services Champion, Patricia Grauwiler, Enterprise Bank and Trust Co., Salem; Small Business Manufacturer, Justin Sousa, Sousa Signs, LLC, Manchester; Jeffrey Butland Family Owned Award, Tom and Sally Wilkins, Wilkins Lumber Co., Inc., Milford; Micro-Enterprise, Andrea Lee Daniels, and Quality Press, Inc., Concord.

To Share Brewery in Manchester is known for tasty beer served in a fun environment. Its Hugs & Belly Rubs Oatmeal Stout features a drawing of a cartoon dog with a big grin getting plenty of love.

But the New Hampshire Liquor Commission (NHLC) says you will never see it, because an artistic rendition of a dog might make the 7.1 percent ABV stout too appealing to children.

“I’ve been doing this for five years, and this is the first time we’ve been denied,” said Aaron Share, one of the owners of the To Share Brewery in Manchester.

NHJournal has learned the NHLC is implementing strict new rules on what beer makers may put on their labels, and they are doing it based on a questionable interpretation of the agency’s current power, along with a proposed law expanding that power but hasn’t been passed by the legislature.

In fact, it hasn’t even been written.

Information obtained by NHJournal indicates the Liquor Commission has been cracking down on brewers in part using the state law that says it has the power to ban advertising with “any subject matter or illustrations that the commission determines is reasonably likely to induce minors to drink.”

Critics say the rejected art, like Kettlehead Brewing Company’s “Buggin’,” doesn’t come close to meeting that definition.

And so, to reject labels like Kettehead’s “Swoll” brew, the NHLC is also relying on its understanding of changes to the law that have been proposed by progressive state Sen. David Watters (D-Dover). But those changes have yet to be drafted, much less enacted.

Many of the brewers contacted by NHJournal were hesitant to talk about the issue, not wanting to get on the wrong side of a state bureaucracy with the power to kill their business.

CJ White with the New Hampshire Brewers Association declined to comment, saying she hoped to get more information from the commission in the coming days.

Share is mystified by the rejection since the same “smiling dog” label has won approval from the state for years. An email to Share from Liquor Examiner Angel Harris cited pending changes as the reason for the label’s recent rejection.

“In consideration of current legislation and anticipated legislation change on restricting product labels, the product label you have recently requested is not approved,” Harris wrote.

The Hugs and Belly Rubs product was changed this year from an American Stout beer to an Oatmeal Stout, and the only change to the label for this year’s brew is swapping out the word “American” and replacing it with “Oatmeal.”

Other brewers told NHJournal they are having the same experience with previously approved illustrated labels. Some are even getting labels approved by the federal Alcohol Tobacco and Tax Bureau, only to have those same labels rejected by the Liquor Commission.

When reached by NHJournal, Harris declined to comment, referring the matter to Lt. Matthew Culver. Culver also declined to comment and referred the matter to the commission’s public relations firm, Montagne Powers. 

EJ Powers, with Montagne Powers, did not acknowledge the commission had changed the review process, or address the apparent use of pending rule changes, as cited by Harris.

“The Division takes its process seriously and closely reviews approximately 5,400 labels each year – approving 96 percent of them,” Powers said via email.

Share and other brewers said they had not been able to get answers when they reached out to the commission. Instead, they have all been referred to as Montagne Powers as well. 

Some brewers suspect the problem is Watters’ ongoing war against alcohol advertising that he believes targets children. Watters confirmed to NHJournal that his efforts may lead to changes that have yet to be enacted. 

“Some decisions might have been made prematurely,” Watters said.

Watters has filed an LSR — a notice he plans to file a law — that would tighten alcohol advertising standards and make the appeals process more transparent. But, Watters told NHJournal, if the NHLCX is making decisions costing small businesses tens of thousands of dollars, they are doing it based on an LSR that doesn’t even have a complete draft yet.

Asked if he supports the treatment Granite State brewers are receiving, apparently as a result of his political influence, Watters deflected.

“I can’t speak to the way the commission makes decisions,” Watters said.

Watters said the commission will issue a new communication to the beer industry shortly to clarify the guidelines. He wants the state to adhere to common sense rules about labels and advertising. Those rules should allow for illustrated labels, he said.

“I don’t think it’s the case you can’t have a dog on a beer can. Maybe Scooby Doo isn’t so good,” Watters said. 

Share is fighting his label’s rejection, going to the Liquor Commission to request a review and possibly an appeal. His message for other brewers in the Live Free or Die State: “I suggest we all fight this. That’s what we’re doing,” Share said. 

But being a pragmatic businessman, Share also has a Plan B: a plain black label explaining why there is no art.