Amid Controversy And Pushback, Rainbows Pottery Abandons Plan To Open On Nantucket

Rainbows Pottery, the controversial Boston pottery studio, has abandoned plans to open a new location in downtown Nantucket amid intense community pushback on the island, according to its owner.

Allison Carroll had said it was her dream to open a satellite location on Nantucket. But last week, instead of opening the doors to Rainbows Pottery in the space she had leased at 1 Cambridge Street as planned, Carroll was packing up her things and cleaning it out.

"Countless emails were sent to the owner of the building," Carroll told the Current about her decision to walk away, referring to the Cotton family, which owns the property. "We jointly decided, for the safety of the property and my family, it wasn’t a good idea to move forward after the countless emails they received from supposed community members. This was my life dream and it’s devastating not only for me and my family, but also the community would’ve loved what we were going to bring. We would’ve had the most beautiful shop in the world, never mind Nantucket."

Mike Cotton declined to comment on whether Carroll's version of events was accurate, but told the Current, "I can confirm that Rainbows Pottery will no longer be opening in the Cambridge space. We do not as of yet have plans for the summer."

Carroll, who had posted numerous videos on her business's Instagram page about opening the Nantucket store, said she still plans to open a second pottery studio in another location.

In the months leading up to her decision to pull out of the Cambridge Street spot, Carroll and Rainbows Pottery had been at the center of a social media storm and the subject of a withering front-page story in The Boston Globe in February.

Carroll previously declined to discuss the specific allegations raised in the Globe story, stating she simply had no comment. The story was published after weeks of criticism on social media, which began with a viral TikTok post that alluded to the behavior of Carroll’s former employee Andrew “Drew” Giampa, a convicted Level 3 sex offender, who was accused of a series of troubling encounters around the store on Newbury Street. The Globe reported that ​​Carroll had known Giampa for almost 10 years, and that “At various points, she has described him as her personal assistant, and as her adopted son, and had credited him in the past with helping to grow her business.”

Carroll told the Current in February that Giampa was “abolished” from her life, and would have had no part in the store on Nantucket.