Turtle Stone scores some key financing

A fresh round of financing for Turtle Stone Brewing.

Turtle Stone on Monday got the green light from city officials in Vineland, the planned brewery's host town, for a $50,000 low-interest economic development loan.

Founder Ben Battiata says the cash will help pay for the production brewery's kegging equipment. "That's the last bit of equipment we have to get together," he says.

The kind of financing just approved for Turtle Stone is essentially collected state sales taxes being put back to work in the local economies that generated them.

Loans originated under the city's Urban Enterprise Zone program (part of a likewise-named New Jersey program to boost hard-pressed local economies) are partly funded by the sales taxes, and when those loans are repaid, the pool of available cash for future loans grows.

Turtle Stone applied for the funds around the beginning of last summer and was approved for a round of financing bankrolled by loans that were or are being repaid.