ORDER-2020-38 : A Special Act to authorize the City of Melrose, acting through it's Liquor Licensing Commission, to convert up to three (3) retail food establishment licenses for the sale of wine and malt beverages to licenses for the sale of all alcoholic beverages for off premises consumption.

Transcript (~32 min @ 31:06)

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▶ 30:45 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: motion to close public comment motion to close public comments we have a motion to close public comment made by vice chair sanella and seconded by councillor Garipay all in favor any opposed that concludes our comment period thank you for coming forward to speak to us that was very helpful we have one order on our agenda tonight it is order number 2020-38 a special act to authorize the city of melrose acting through its liquor licensing commission to convert up to two retail food establishment licenses for the sale of wine and malt beverages to licenses for the sale of all alcoholic beverages for off-premises consumption um this is the first time this body of this composition has had a chance to discuss this so in previous meetings the city council last year amended our order so although it says on the agenda to convert up to two retail licenses you all probably know that your predecessors we agreed as a city council a majority of us to change that to three because we do have three licenses in town currently for the sale of wine and beer this would convert all up to all up to all three of those for all adult beverages and as has been referenced tonight a majority of the city councilors in 2019 added a section that would that currently reads any alcoholic beverages with an alcohol concentration of greater than 25 percent may not be sold in containers with a capacity of less than 749 milliliters so that's this current um the current draft proposal before us i see that our city solicitor is here tonight and other um members of the city administration so if we'd like to do

▶ 32:25 Shawn M. MacMaster: a motion to suspend the rules motion to suspend the rules madam chair so that we may hear from

▶ 32:28 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: members of the administration so we have a motion to suspend the rules made by councilor mcmaster and second by vice chair sanella all in favor aye any opposed thank you for being with us tonight

▶ 32:41 Speaker 5: mr van campen good evening thank you madam chair i am here really to answer any questions that members may have but i do want to provide a brief sort of overview recognizing the substantial majority of our members are fairly new and this was submitted in the last legislative calendar year this order before you was proposed by the former inferno administration and the purpose for the order was basically to as an economic development tool spur some further growth in our in our business community particularly with respect to the sale of enhanced liquor in the community in November during the first committee hearing on the order it was amended in two ways one one of the amendments resulted in expanding from two to three retail food establishments the ability for all alcohol licensing and in addition there was a restriction place on the bottle size i appeared at that november hearing i also appeared at the december hearing at which the city council basically decided to table it for your consideration in the new year and so i'm here this evening to answer any questions you folks may have relative

▶ 34:00 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: to the order as currently amended before you thank you and also i'd note for my colleagues and folks at home i had asked if you could provide a memorandum for us because at the last city council meeting there was some discussion of um an issue happening in chelsea um your memorandum is very helpful it's included in the public record um would you before we could you just briefly share for folks what your conclusion was about what's happening in chelsea i believe what i read was it's essentially not particularly relevant to us because we are moving forward with the um i requested the the state legislature to approve this as a law correct that that is

▶ 34:37 Speaker 5: correct as um as spelled out in my january 31st letter to you um an appeal was filed with the alcohol beverages control commission by a number of business owners in the city of chelsea in connection with a regulation that had been issued by the local licensing authority in the city of chelsea whereby they were effectively banning nips city-wide that was by regulation what is before you tonight is um sort of two levels legally above what a regulation is this would effectively be a state law that would a allow for enhanced liquor sales in the community and be at the will of the city council provide for some kind of a restriction on bottle size that appeal in chelsea remains pending i had a conversation with the general counsel at the abcc a couple of weeks ago and she confirmed for me that she was not aware when the decision would be made in

▶ 35:40 Christopher Cinella: connection with the Chelsea case and it hasn't been made as of today so as I

▶ 35:49 Speaker 5: said at the beginning mayor Inferno and then mayor-elect Broder were both supportive of enhancing retail establishment licenses to provide for all alcohol at that time there was no proposal to impose a restriction on bottle size by the administration or the incoming administration one of the benefits of mayor Broder is he has a number of relationships at the state house that have proven helpful early in his administration and indications are that because of the pendency of the Chelsea appeal and the sort of unresolved legal question as to whether or not a community can outright ban NIPS in that fashion the indications we're getting are that the legislature may either delay or not favorably receive any special act that contains that kind of a restriction that's not to say it wouldn't pass but the indications we're that it would potentially either delay or stall or result in the special act coming back to the city for further revision so having said that is it

▶ 36:56 Christopher Cinella: within the authority of our local liquor Commission to then add restrictions later like the city of Boston's done so that that's a that's a great question

▶ 37:11 Speaker 5: counselor Sinella and one of the one of the things to consider is that the the The regulation of liquor sales in any community are really governed by the local licensing authority. State law sort of sets this 35,000 foot view of how things are to operate on the ground in each city and town in the Commonwealth, but local licensing authorities, by their own promulgated regulations, govern how the stores are to look, how the displays are to be presented all sort of conditioning each license based on the sort of individual needs both of the community and in some cases the individual requirements to be placed on separate licenses and i'll give you some examples about nips in the city of boston for example the city liquor commission in boston does restrict bottle size they do it and again you have to think of it in the context of making sure that the local licensing authority is not acting in an arbitrary way that there are sort of objective reasons for doing what they do for example the city of boston has determined that in some neighborhoods if there's a an overwhelming litter problem or an overwhelming school-aged population that could be exposed to certain products in the in the windows etc they restrict bottle size they've restricted nips in certain parts of the community in other parts of the community where those issues are not as prevalent they've allowed the sale of nips so the point i'm trying to make to members of the city council this evening is that what i know of as far as the legal landscape is this evening is that some communities who have banned nips are doing it almost on a license by license location by location basis but that the question of whether or not a a blanket city-wide ban can be valid is the open question that's pending in chelsea so i don't know if that answer is sort of a long-winded approach but i did want to i did

▶ 39:15 Jack Eccles: want to address that for you tonight thank you councillor eccles thank you for being here um is could you confirm whether or not this is a realistic timeline that tonight we pass the special act with no restrictions it goes through the legislature without hindrance because it has no restrictions and then by the time it gets to the liquor licensing commission um the chelsea the sort of questions have been answered and then they can proceed with the restrictions that they were looking to do whether or not they wanted to restrict nips in the two licenses

▶ 39:45 Speaker 5: that we have outstanding or not that's a good question i don't i don't have any sense of the timeline counselor eccles in chelsea i know that case has been pending for i want to say over a year in the city of chelsea and i have no sense from their general counsel as to when a decision will render there what i what i would represent as far as the city of melrose is concerned is that assuming the special act before you passes this evening without the amended language included my sense is on a best case scenario the legislature would act on it and we have to bear in mind we have a currently vacant rep seat so that could somewhat slow us a bit um my sense is that on a best case scenario it would take the legislature two to three months to have the governor's signature on a bill at the end of the day while that process is unfolding at the state house the intention of the administration is for the liquor commission to begin the public process of revising of reviewing and revising its existing regulations and the purpose for doing that would be to ensure that our regulations can actually reflect whatever enhanced licensing authority this city council wants to to give the community so i'm not sure i answered your question in that respect but the process about three months best case scenario at the state house and as far as chelsea i just don't know when that will

▶ 41:18 Shawn M. MacMaster: be done thank you yep counselor mcmaster thank you uh madam chair good evening mr van camping just for the edification of this council can you talk a little bit about if we were as a city to look at loosening other types of restrictions relative to alcohol moving forward what would that process look like and how is it determined whether or not that would be in the form of a special act or the liquor license excuse me the liquor commission having the purview to address

▶ 41:53 Speaker 5: issues sure I just want to make sure I answer your question as you asked me so the it's difficult to explain so the city of Melrose I'll use the term dry town the city of Melrose deck many decades ago was a dry town and then over the course of let's say the last 40 or 50 years the city petitioned the legislature to sort of loosen the ability to license initially private clubs in the 1970s restaurants and then sort of to expand further from that to allow restaurants to serve not just wine and malt but also all alcohol so the the sort of authority for issuance of liquor licenses is at the state law level but But the question of licensing hours of operation, seating capacity, you know, the types of things in our case in Melrose, in order to have a restaurant license, you've got to show wait staff, you've got to have dine-in establishments, you can't have a walk up to the counter and get your roast beef sandwich and a beer at the same time. So we have sort of stricter requirements along those lines. Those requirements are born out of the Liquor Commission's regulations. liquor commission anytime it wishes to change those regulations is required by state law to hold a public hearing which we did in 2008 we did in 2014 or 15 I believe as well when we were looking at expanding restaurant opportunities so the the idea of the Liquor Commission having some control over licensing authority in the city of Melrose is really born out of the fact that their regulations primarily govern what our establishments look like what they're able to sell what their hours of operation are as opposed to the state laws council McMaster which really just dictate that there is authority to issue

▶ 43:51 Shawn M. MacMaster: those licenses so the bigger picture issues have to go before the state legislature where some of the intricacies of regulations would be

▶ 44:02 Speaker 5: handled at the local level correct like the Liquor Commission for example cannot give retail establishments the ability to sell all alcohol that authority has to emanate from the legislature but the Liquor Commission can regulate the hours of operation of the retail establishments just as an example thank

▶ 44:19 Shawn M. MacMaster: you mr. van Kemp any you are you in a position to discuss the vision of the administration relative to future changes I mean I and I realized that this was an order that was filed by the prior administration I know that mayor broder issued a memo to the last council saying that he supported it and offering some counsel about the amendment or the amendments that passed in committee but what is what's really the next step what is the vision of the administration and what should we expect in the future moving forward i'd like to know within what context we'd potentially be voting on this tonight

▶ 45:03 Speaker 5: so I think the I you know as far as vision is concerned I think mayor Broder's priority at this point if this passes would be to convene the Liquor Commission and to have the Liquor Commission conduct that public hearing process because I think the mayor is going to want to hear from the community and allow the the idea of these licenses to sort of socialize in the community and and and really generate some input from the community as to what the future of retail food establishments in this community should be as far as liquor regulations is concerned the mayor doesn't have a directive to the Liquor Commission at this time councilor McMaster I think he really wants that to be a more collaborative process to have some conversations with stakeholders in the community with the Chamber of Commerce with members of the City Council with folks from zero waste with other folks in the community and then figure out what is the best revision to our regulations to accommodate expanded liquor

▶ 46:07 Shawn M. MacMaster: sales in the community thank you you may recall mr van campen at the uh the last uh meeting i raised the question not to you but uh during our discussion period about whether or not we are looking to legislate this issue incrementally or in a more comprehensive way and I know historically in the city we've done it more incrementally I understand and appreciate that mayor Broder is looking to involve stakeholder input I'm just wondering though why we would potentially be voting on this tonight rather than holding it to consider the larger implications of loosening restrictions throughout the city as it relates to alcohol is there some pressing reason that we should be considering this tonight no but I think

▶ 46:54 Speaker 5: the opposite is true i actually think the liquor commission would be looking at tightening restrictions and not loosening them if there is expanded liquor sales in the community i don't i don't envision a scenario where the liquor commission would be looking to exceed the authority that is granted to it by state law

▶ 47:19 Shawn M. MacMaster: i think that's all i have for now thank you mr van campen president Grigoraitis

▶ 47:24 Jen Grigoraitis: thank you thank you for being here tonight i just wanted to follow up just to clarify that should this proceed without restrictions that there would then be an opportunity for significant public engagement when it came before the liquor commission so really this is the beginning of a conversation with the communities depending on what happens here correct correct and can you speak to and you may not know this though i know you know many things um what are the current bottle size limits for beer and wine for example i know anecdotally you can buy a single can of beer in both of our retail establishments um is that you know when you say bottle size limits i'm like we're talking about the difference between 50 ml 100 ml for spirits do you know what the current

▶ 48:05 Speaker 5: restrictions are on wine in here currently um there are no restrictions on size as far as um those cans are concerned this um nip restriction or i heard the word which i kind of like small format adult beverages that type of a restriction is fairly new we don't

▶ 48:24 Speaker 2: currently have any restrictions thank you sure counselor make the rally

▶ 48:28 Leila Migliorelli: councillor Greger I just asked my question just to clarify that there this is not the only opportunity for public process that after this goes through if it should go through then they'll be opportunity with the Lake Commission so

▶ 48:41 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: correct I ask just a couple questions so I was looking back in my notes last time when we met in December my note suggests and this was the my memory and recollection as well that it was your recommendation that if we wanted to put restrictions related to size we do it through this ordinance and not defer to the Liquor Commission licensing group and in part maybe because Chelsea is showing us what the likely result of that could be that if the Liquor licensing Commission is the one that then regulates based on our essentially local law it opens itself up to a legal challenge exactly what is happening in Chelsea correct is that still your advice or is it changed no my advice

▶ 49:29 Speaker 5: hasn't changed bait at the end of the day my view was then and remains imposing this type of a restriction with the with the stamp of the state legislature has much greater legal effect than doing it via a locally promulgated regulation which is what Chelsea's dealing with today but as we've discussed earlier in this meeting indications from the legislature are that they may be somewhat gun-shy to pass a restriction on nips given what is pending in the city of Chelsea and I suspect that the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission may have some conversations with folks at the legislature about that issue before a bill like this is passed but but my advice remains the same that putting it on par with state law has much greater force than by by local regulation okay and that's helpful to hear again because

▶ 50:28 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: one thing that I'd mentioned before is our body is elected by the residents of Melrose and the Liquor Commission is you know a very important group of three appointees by the mayor and I'm glad to hear there will be a public hearing and engagement of that nature but to me this is a big decision and the City Council I'm glad that we're here tonight to sort of discuss how best to proceed in what our role should be in this but in some ways we're more accountable to the public perhaps than the Commission itself is and more maybe visible so I will hold back on any further comments because there may be other I think I've seen some other hands but I'm happy to continue to think this through with

▶ 51:22 John N. Tramontozzi: everyone here councillor Tramontozzi Thank You madam chair so if I if I get you correct so if we send this to the legislature which section 2 intact our or some form of Section 2 restriction on the bottle size. Do you think the legislature would be a little gun-shy in overall passing this act because of that section? In other words, is it sort of an all or nothing thing?

▶ 51:51 Speaker 5: Correct, I'm just looking at Section 2, which was the amended language from the November meeting. The indications that we are getting from the relevant committee that this would go to that that language could potentially be problematic with my assumption is that

▶ 52:13 John N. Tramontozzi: is due to the pendency of the Chelsea matter well is does the legislature have the power to strike out any portion of the act that we sent to them so if the legislature like section 1 the number of liquor licenses were converting to but chooses to strike section 2 is it within its authority to do so or does it have

▶ 52:37 Speaker 5: to act on the entire the legislature does have the authority to reject language that we present via the home rule amendment and in this case there's a there's a fairly good likelihood that section 2 would raise a flag and if the lead to your point I think your next question is going to be well can't the legislature to strike that out if they don't like it and pass the thing the problem with that is at that point that becomes a substantive change to our home rule petition in this case and my assumption at that point pretty likely assumption is that it would be returned to the city of Melrose for further consideration because that would be considered a substantive change what

▶ 53:18 John N. Tramontozzi: resulting in it of course the delay of the entire process of it would basically

▶ 53:30 Mark Garipay: restart the process here okay thank you sure counselor gary page um if the legislature was to um decline our home rule petition as is with um with some restrictions in there is there

▶ 53:41 Mark Garipay: um can we how long until we can reapply and go through the process again is there a cooling off

▶ 53:47 Speaker 5: period a waiting period no there's no there's no there's no um six month reintroduction like in your roles there's nothing at the legislature you would just have to restart re-vote and then resubmit to the legislature thank you councillor mcmaster i'm sure at this time i would make a

▶ 54:12 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: motion to uh holding committee motion to hold this in committee made by councillor mcmaster second the second by councillor stewart on discussion councillor mcmaster thank you

▶ 54:20 Shawn M. MacMaster: madam chair um in light of uh what mr van campen represented about the current language being potentially problematic i think it would behoove us at this point to ask the administration to take a second look at it and make a recommendation to the council to potentially amend that language you know going forward or reconsider some of the input that we heard tonight from the public i also am just concerned about i i do realize that there will be an opportunity for the public to be heard during future public comment before the liquor commission but if we pass this tonight that that process is going to happen separate and apart from the legislature considering what's before it so to me it makes more sense that we um get a sense from the administration what the long-term vision is relative to liquor laws i just don't i think there's an appetite and i think and i support what's what's before us uh and i support loosening other regulations but um and i think we've all heard from constituents that there is an appetite to do that across the city so i don't necessarily understand why we would be taking baby steps to do so if we could do so in a more comprehensive way this would essentially be laying the cornerstone of a much larger issue for which there is no blueprint right now so i would ask that it be held in committee for those reasons and that we ask the administration to provide us with a policy memo explaining what its long-term vision is so that we can consider that before we take any further steps

▶ 56:03 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: on this thank you madam chair thank you any other counselors wishing to speak about this motion that's been duly seconded or the topic at hand and madam chair excuse me i just realized

▶ 56:09 Speaker 5: the mayor is behind me and he is certainly willing to address the administration's long-term vision if you want to indulge him for that certainly we'd be happy to hear from the mayor thank you

▶ 56:25 Speaker 6: i think i'm actually trying to speed things up so the football team can be taken care of

▶ 56:32 Paul Brodeur: and we can easily we can um adjourn or i'm just kidding i think i can do this pretty quick um i certainly defer to your wisdom i don't think we have much more to offer quite frankly as administration there is a lot of questions certainly about the future of how where and when we will sell alcohol this is designed to be a very simple change designed to help the business leaders that you've already heard from tonight expand their marketplace a little bit I don't think that necessarily needs to be part of a wholly confident as a matter of fact that That doesn't need to be a part of a larger conversation about what we may do in terms of changing the nature of sales at restaurants or carryout or whatever the case may be. This is a discussion about whether or not the three licenses that exist can expand their marketplace in the way that you all have discussed. I really don't think we have much to offer. We're certainly interested in other opportunities that might relate to economic development related to the sale of liquor and in what form, be it, again, for on-site consumption. The retail piece is a very, very small part of our marketplace. I am mindful of the fact, in terms of public participation, that this has been before the public since Mayor Inferna first introduced it. Do you recall when that was? October. In October. So it seems to be, it is time, particularly given the way the legislature acts, and I'm somewhat familiar with that from my experience. and I am mindful of the fact that they are somewhat parochial about these things sometimes, and we can't expect quick turnaround. I know there was a little bit of discussion about the wisdom of baking a restriction into the ordinance versus doing it in some regulatory or local fashion. What I suspect is going on, the gold standard, if we can do whatever we want whenever we want which quite frankly was my preference when I was in the legislature not having to go and see cities and towns go into Boston to have that debate I think cities and towns are competent to make that decision on their own that having been said I do not think that the legislature will will do that I think the legislature is going to treat this as an all-or-nothing proposition given that we are in between those two things I would prefer to take the all and let the Liquor Commission do some of the things that they can do and again to be clear about what the Liquor Commission could do they would not I suspect be able to say there's going to be a citywide ban on a particular size because the ABCC wouldn't let you do that to echo the point that i think the city solicitor made there would have to be another level of analysis that would allow us to differentiate essentially on a non-discriminatory way about why vendor a might be able to sell something the vendor b can't and that would relate to things around proximity nature of other products that are in the mix at the store um things like that but i i don't think we will be able to get to through the legislature uh that that that ban on nips only and if that is the case we're really making a decision about whether or not we're going to expand the marketplace

▶ 1:00:30 Cory Thomas: at all or not uh counselor thomas thank you madam chairperson mr mayor mr van campen thank you very much for being here um as miss mcneil from zero waste melrose stated um bottles with a deposit on them have an 80 more likely chance of being recycled do you know at the state level is there any plan in place to implement a deposit on single-use bottles at this current time there's

▶ 1:00:51 Paul Brodeur: legislation where that where that goes is somewhat unpredictable to say the there is uh the you know the coalition that has kind of grown up around this is different than um really the god almost 20-year effort to expand the bottle bill i wouldn't want to hazard a guess as to where that's going to come out i mean i think the fair thing to do is to you know assume for the time being that that is not going to be in place or pro it won't be in place at the time that we that this uh should you decide to move it forward would be what's available in the

▶ 1:01:34 Paul Brodeur: marketplace in melrose thank you i would certainly encourage uh this body to lend its lend its voice to any particular piece of legislation like that that is going to impact what cities and towns do

▶ 1:01:47 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: so two things we have a motion to hold on committee that's been duly seconded and additionally i do hear the friendly chatter of some of our state champions out in the hallway so one thing we can also do is maybe vote on this motion and then depending on the outcome we could recess appropriations and return to it after we have an opportunity to do the full City Council meeting to honor including to honor the guests so any further comments on the motion so the motion to hold us in committee duly seconded all in favor opposed opposed how many I don't can hands for holding it in committee four is that right four five five okay so

▶ 1:02:33 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: that motion fails for now so this is still before our committee but maybe we

▶ 1:02:42 John N. Tramontozzi: should yes Councilor Tramontozzi I'm inclined to fight I'll make a motion to strike section two of this act motion to strike section two made by

▶ 1:02:49 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: councilor Tramontozzi and seconded by vice chair sanella i would want to speak to that i don't know if anybody else does um so i would also entertain a motion for recess so we can do the city council meeting and then come back to this motion point of recess made by councillor eccles

▶ 1:03:14 Shawn M. MacMaster: yes don't we have to withdraw that initial motion in order we have two motions on the floor right

▶ 1:03:20 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: now i mean we can i i thought maybe a recess can occur and then when we come back we'll still have that as our duly seconded motion for discussion but perhaps i'm incorrect i mean i would defer