Public Participation

Transcript (~7 min @ 9:07)

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

▶ 9:00 Peter D. Mortimer: Alderman Boisselle, Alderman McAteer-Margolis, Alderman Lemmerman, and President Kahn. We have one order before us, but before we proceed, would someone please make a motion to open the floor for public participation, please? So moved. Second. Alderman Byrd has made a motion to open the floor for public participation, duly seconded by Alderman Inferna. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we are open for public participation. And I would also point out that this meeting is being recorded and it's available on our website and the website of MMTV in the form of a video for future viewing for any members of the public who may be interested. participation has been opened appropriately and i saw sir that you had wished to come forward and make some commentary on the one order before us tonight which is the petition to lower the number of seats required for restaurants for various potencies of alcohol my name is derek

▶ 10:05 Speaker 2: gary uh residing at 21 greenwood street apartment 8 melrose massachusetts i also speak on behalf of the residents of 21 greenwood street norris massachusetts and my family which owns the building i would like to begin by bringing this board's attention to an incident that took place saturday night into sunday morning as you may or may not know we are abutters of corinthian hall and we have had ongoing noise issues with corinthian hall this past saturday night uh there was an event taking place that continued until 12 55 a.m in clear violation of city noise ordinances the participants in that event proceeded to stay in the parking lot until about 2 25 in the morning at which point a significant fight broke out between at least 10 people 9-1-1 was called this was a very serious situation and honestly one of the the more disturbing things I've ever seen having been raised in the City of Melrose. I don't oppose liquor licenses. I don't oppose 35-seat establishments having liquor licenses. I don't necessarily oppose 25-seat establishments having beer and wine licenses. My question to this Board and to those of you thinking about this is how we're going to enforce this because having licenses opens the door to a lot of problems they don't need to be serious problems I can point to the city of Cambridge which I believe does an outstanding job in policing its establishments I can also point to other communities around here that are less successful in that this is a very significant change that we're bringing to the neighborhoods in Melrose if we're gonna have outdoor seating we're gonna have conflicts in areas where there is residential right alongside business and that's a lot of Melrose if we're going to have no enforcement of our laws and our rules we're going to have ongoing chaos around these establishments my hope would be that whatever the board decides there is a very solid enforcement component built into it so that those who get these licenses understand that under certain circumstances they will lose these licenses so thank you very much

▶ 12:28 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you sir and I see you're writing your name and address there on this sheet and we thank you for that good evening madam I'm Linda Cruz I live at

▶ 12:44 Speaker 3: 611 Franklin Street in Melrose and I'm here about the seating the outdoor seating and the number of seats that you're going to do with alcohol I really I am opposed to the outdoor seating. I did read in the paper that there'd be fencing around it. There are already seats outside in front of La Cucera and it's difficult to get by them now. If you put fencing around that and you have beer and wine out there, there'll be people out there talking in the evening. I can hear the gates go down from my house. I don't need to hear people chatting and everything else in the evening during the summer when I've got my windows open. If you're going to put them inside, I don't object terribly to that, But I strongly object to them being outside with beer and wine and the other night was bad enough in the parking lot behind Corinthian Hall and I'll put my name and address down here.

▶ 14:14 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much and thank you for your input.

▶ 14:18 Speaker 3: I just, I really think it's a slippery slope.

▶ 14:35 Speaker 3: Good evening. Good evening. Julie DeLillo, I'm at 13th Circuit Street, so I'm on the other side of town. I'm at the Wyoming Heights area. My concern is, in everything I read and every time I hear this, it talks about building up Wyoming Heights. And I always say, come spend a week where I live on the corner of Circuit and Heard. There's so much activity that goes on, weekends, people out at night, late, up and down the streets. to then put something in there that's going to have beer and wine is only going to make that worse. Also, the parking, I don't even know where people would park. And I'm also very curious every time I hear Wyoming Heights where they would put it because the only thing I can think of is the diner that sits in the train line. I'm not opposed similarly to having the licenses. I think 25 seats is too low. it potentially yes they have to have wait service but it's nothing for someone to hire wait service and so you know Melrose Gardens puts in one more booth and they could have 25 seats you know it so for me living where I live it's a concern it's already a very very active neighborhood with a lot of stuff going on so I would just take into consideration the areas that you're looking to put these in or a lot you know that you want to build up and look at parking look what happens there already on the weekends and look what it's going to do to that area

▶ 16:05 Peter D. Mortimer: thanks thank you very much seeing no other members of the public present wishing to speak on this order before us this evening is there an order to close participation here is it is made by alderman mcateer margolis and seconded by alderman lemmerman alderman lemmerman has I second the motion to close public participation. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?