ORDER-2021-144 : Application of Bitty and Beau's coffee , d/b/a- 426 Main Street, Melrose for a Common Victualler License

Transcript (~11 min @ 49:19)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 49:04 Mark Garipay: seeing no objections public comment is now closed tonight we have one order before us it is order 2021-144 and it is the application of biddy and bo's coffee dda 426 main street Melrose for a common visual license at this time if there's no objections I will with unanimous consent make a motion with unanimous consent to suspend the rules in order to bring in the participants seeing no objections Ms. Fook can you please bring the participants sorry madam clerk coming in now hello hello hey i believe we're waiting for

▶ 50:08 Speaker 7: for one more i'm here too i'm not sure if you can see me or hear me

▶ 50:12 Mark Garipay: um we can hear you but we cannot see you are you on a phone or do you want to use

▶ 50:17 Speaker 7: um i'm on my laptop and i'm i can see all of you but i'm not sure why you can't see me oh Start video. There we go. Brilliant.

▶ 50:30 Mark Garipay: That's all right. I keep myself on mute all the time, I guess. Thank you for being here and thank you for your application. What I'll do is turn the meeting over or the floor over to you, and if you want to say a little bit about your order and your business, and then some of the councillors may have some questions. so at this at this moment I'll turn it over to you okay so I'm Mary Ann O'Donnell I have to

▶ 50:56 Speaker 7: apologize my car I'm actually parked but kids are flying in late so I was parked and still be here to pick them up so that's why I am where I am and your thing is my brother Dave O'Donnell I'm going to say hi, Dave. Hello. Dave is my partner in the business venture. The way I like to phrase it is I'm the heart and he's the brains. So two of my kids go to college in Charleston, South Carolina, and that's where I happened upon me and Bo's coffee shop. coffee shop and um much fell in love with it first time I walked in as I got a feeling of what it was all about um and all the words and employees have intellectual or developmental delays um and it's just a really nice play of inclusion and acceptance and um every time I've been in there just you walk out feeling better than you did before and it's not because of the coffee because of the company um and they started offering franchises um last summer and i am biochemist by training i am not a coffee shop owner but um kind of had it in my head that this might be a good venture and in all directions i kept looking for reasons not to do it um including going to the guide and my parents and my brothers um who all said it sounds like a good idea you need to do it um so here i am i applied for the franchise back in about november um and was accepted i'm there they just started offering franchises so none of them are actually open yet i was the i think fourth or fifth to sign on um and it looks like given how um rose has been so welcoming to us in terms of you know get us in these meetings and the building department it looks like we should either be first or second of the franchises to open nationwide they have 10 signed up so far um and we are doing construction and hoping to open i would say early july if um if everything goes as planned um yeah so that's kind of the background of i don't know I don't know if anyone's looked up Biddy and Bose, but it was started by a family with four children, two of whom have Down syndrome, and the family had recognized that about 80% of people with intellectual and developmental delays are employed or employed. They just saw a need and are trying to find a way to fill that void and I'm happy to bring it to Melvin. I'm happy to answer questions and anything, any comments.

▶ 54:12 Speaker 1: To field or David, but thank you. Mr, would you like to say anything or do you want us to just go to questions? No, I think just just following up a little bit on Marianne's comments. Obviously, I've never been to 1 of their coffee shops. But I can tell you that just dealing with the family and just seeing how passionate they are and how much they care. I mean, I think the tagline is, it's more than a cup of coffee. It's really a social cause wrapped around coffee. And it's, um, it's inspiring even just as kind of doing some of the business stuff in the background. It's really inspiring just to be part of it.

▶ 54:50 Mark Garipay: Thank you very much. Um, I have, uh, presidents and all are in the queue and, uh.

▶ 55:01 Christopher Cinella: Councilor Stewart, is there anyone else? President Sinella, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Garipay. I just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood. I'm right up the street on Main Street as well and I love this concept. So I really look forward to coming down for coffee and wish you all the success in the world.

▶ 55:26 Mark Garipay: Thank you. Councilor Stewart, you were next in the queue.

▶ 55:28 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you Mr. and Ms. O'Donnell for coming to our committee tonight I think this is tremendous I think this is a wonderful well received and and I think it's it's a great statement that our community can make in supporting this I just cannot say enough how I'm moved by um the efforts and that this can be uh something that is a wonderful addition to our community so with our reservation I plan on supporting this and I thank you for bringing this to us thank you

▶ 56:15 Mark Garipay: thank you thank you Council Stewart uh Councilor McNaught I just wanted to echo my counselors and say

▶ 56:26 Jeff McNaught: What a wonderful match this is. Not only do I agree it's an incredible concept, I think you found the perfect downtown area to bring this to. I know the whole community is looking forward to your opening and welcoming you. In that vein, I would like to make a motion to recommend for passage.

▶ 56:50 Speaker 2: Second. Second.

▶ 56:55 Speaker 7: Thank you. It's funny. Maybe the 1st, or the 2nd zoom meeting we had with the family there. CFO, you know, basically said in the questionnaires, we had to fill out it said, you know, your 1st choice for location. I said. you know Melrose and my second choice is Melrose and my third choice is Melrose and I said that selfishly I have six kids I'm not going anywhere else so you know during that meeting I was thinking to myself they might say no way because their shops are in Charleston and Annapolis and Savannah you know really hubs in their locations and you know they said well you you know, you're not talking about Boston. I said, well, to the rest of the world, you can call it Boston, but no, I'm not interested in Boston. I said, if it's our hometown or it can't be here. And I was half expecting them to say, well, you know, thanks for your time, we'll keep moving. And then, you know, we just want a little bit into Melrose and what it's like. I said, I hope you guys will go back and just look it up because nevermind the fact that Boston is closed nobody commutes to Boston. This was, you know, six or eight months ago. I said, but Melrose is a special place. Like, you know, it's hard to describe unless you're here and unless you experience it, but, and so they ended up agreeing. And the other day they said when we had applied for the building permit and, you know, Paul had all of our paperwork for a while and, you know, I finally brought the application down with the contractor um and the next day i had my business permit my building permit and i i emailed the franchise um and they they were floored they were like wow i guess

▶ 58:51 Mark Garipay: melrose is that good thank you very much we uh we have a motion on the floor to recommend for passage by councillor mcnaught i believe it was seconded by councillor vigoritis so um adam mcclurek if you can please call the role chair Garipay yes counselor stewart

▶ 59:15 Speaker 1: yes yes counselor mcnaught yes counselor Grigoraitis yes counselor thomas

▶ 59:26 Speaker 1: Yes, yes, president. Yes. Yeah. Let me correct the record. Vice chair, Stuart 6. Yes.

▶ 59:36 Mark Garipay: Thank you. This, uh, this order will be recommended to the full council for, for passage. Um, you do not have to be at the next, uh, and this will come up at the next council meeting. You don't have to be here. Um, you're more than welcome to get on and, and they're, they're fun meetings as you can tell but uh you do not have to be there and i believe the next meeting is would it be next tuesday the full council meeting after the holiday of the following meeting i'm sorry the following week i'm sorry following june 7th june 7th so that that's when you'll come up thank you best of luck um thank you for being here thank you very much bye-bye