MARION — A request by a mobile coffee shop to operate for just over a month at Silvershell Beach was met with unanimous denial from the Marion Select Board.

The board turned down an appeal made Tuesday, July 16 by New Creations Coffee owner Liz Gummow for permission to set up shop in the beach’s parking lot.

Gummow had petitioned to sell coffee, tea and prepackaged pastries out of a 1958 all-aluminum camper from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. until Labor Day, according to Town Administrator Geoffrey Gorman.

Gummow did not attend the July 16 Select Board meeting.

The Marion Select Board denied the request on the basis that Gummow’s camper would compete with the Silvershell Beach snack shack and would not pay the same taxes as other stores in town.

“You got all these other people that are paying real estate taxes, and they’re down there using the place for nothing,” Select Board member Randy Parker said.

Parker listed Marion coffee establishments — Marion General Store, Kate’s Simple Eats, Uncle Jon’s Coffee, Dunkin Donuts, Cumberland Farms.

The stores are “all brick and mortar” and “all paying taxes,” Parker said.

“I don’t know how you can consider letting someone go down there with no dog in the hunt and not pay anything and do the same job,” he said.

New Creations Coffee, which opened in October 2023, had previously operated from the parking lot of the Marion Masonic Building at 13 Spring St. during the town’s Fourth of July parade, Gummow said.

Gummow said she was not requesting to park at Silvershell Beach for free but to see if the town was “on board.”

Gummow currently pays rent at one of the locations where she sets up, a parking lot in Taunton off Route 44, she said.

Other fees can “add up,” Gummow said.

A permit is required from the health department of every municipality New Creations Coffee operates in, according to Gummow.

For the Fourth of July parade on Spring Street, Gummow purchased a one-day permit from the Marion Health Department. That permit was $35, according to Marion Board of Health administrative assistant Maureen Murphy.

To operate at Silvershell Beach until Labor Day, Gummow would need a permit that costs $100, according to Murphy.

After Gummow’s request was presented at the July 16 meeting, the Marion Select Board first heard from Arnold Johnson, who operates a snack shack at Silvershell Beach.

Johnson said he didn’t “have a problem with the coffee.”

But the snack shack — which Johnson pays rent for — sells cookies and brownies, so pastries sold by New Creations Coffee would be “duplication,” according to Johnson, who also owns Fieldstone Farm Market.

“I wouldn’t have her competing with Mr. Johnson,” Select Board member Toby Burr said.

Gummow, whose fiancé is a Marion native, said it “wouldn’t have been an issue” to not sell pastries at Silvershell Beach.

Gummow had also previously asked to operate at Fieldstone Farm Market, according to Johnson.

Johnson denied the request, he said.

Gummow said she’s looking for other potential places for New Creations Coffee in the Tri-Town.