Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2020-02-10
Attendance
Christopher Cinella ; Jack Eccles ; Mark Garipay ; Jen Grigoraitis ; Kate Lipper-Garabedian ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Jeff McNaught ; Leila Migliorelli ; Robb Stewart ; Cory Thomas ; John N. Tramontozzi
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Comment
- Motions
- Orders
- 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.
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● FEBRUARY 10, 2020 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose City Council may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the City Council consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Kate Lipper-Garabedian Chair Present Christopher Cinella Vice Chair Present John N. Tramontozzi Voting Present Shawn M. MacMaster Voting Present Jeff McNaught Voting Present Jack Eccles Voting Present Mark Garipay Voting Present Leila Migliorelli Voting Present Robb Stewart Voting Present Cory Thomas Voting Present Jen Grigoraitis President, ex oficio Present The Appropriations Committee is called to order by Chair Lipper Garabedian. This meeting is recorded and may be viewed on www.mmtv3.org
ORDER-2020-38 Home Rule Petition/Special Act 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. Recommend as Amended City Council City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 2/25/2020 12:24 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:01 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Without a gavel tonight, but good evening. The hour being 7 o'clock on Monday, February 10th. I call to order the meeting of the Appropriations Committee. This is a full, this is a committee meeting of the full Melrose City Council. I am the chair, City Councillor Kate Lipper-Garabedian, and I'm joined tonight by Vice Chair Cinella, as well as members, City Councillors Tramontozzi, McMaster, McNaught, Eccles, Garipay, Migliorelli, Stewart, Thomas, and President Grigoraitis. This meeting is being recorded in accordance with the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law and is available on MMTV both on television and streaming and it will be available through the City of Melrose website hereafter. At this time I would entertain
▶ 0:51 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: a motion to open the floor for public comment. So moved. Second. We have a motion to open the floor for public comment made by City Councilor Tramontozzi, seconded by Vice chair Sunilla all in favor any opposed this is the portion of the meeting where any member of the public with us tonight can come forward to speak on the one item that is on the Appropriations Committee agenda and if you do want to come forward please state your name for the record thank you so much good evening my name is Elizabeth Parsons I am NOT a resident of Melrose but I work for the city of Melrose I'm a regional substance abuse prevention coordinator and I work technically for the Mystic Valley Public Health Coalition it's a
▶ 1:37 coalition of seven cities and towns and I work to support those communities and their use substance use prevention work I would just wanted to speak this evening about the special act to provide just some brief information about what we know for public health science and research. But first, to help understand where we're coming from when we're speaking about preventing adolescent substance use, we think of the adolescent brain as a pot on a stove. And we can influence whether we turn the heat up on that pot the community is the stove and we can influence whether we turn the heat up on that pot by increasing the factors in the community that put youth at risk for substance use disorders or by decreasing you know turning the heat down and decreasing those risks for youth
▶ 2:41 so you know one of the things that we try to do in our communities is to turn the heat down on that pot right so the factors in our community what they look like that affects adolescent substance use so i just wanted to let you know i support seven cities and towns in our surrounding communities um small bottles of alcohol or nips it's in the news everyone has seen it that young people there have been two two or three uh recent violations um abcc violations for compliance checks where they found underage youth trying to access alcohol and what they were buying were nips in each case so you know that you nips do appeal to youth and young people so that's first thing I wanted to say and then secondly how we
▶ 3:31 support communities is raising their understanding increasing their understanding and raising their awareness about local effective regulations that can protect youth from a harmful substance like alcohol the The Mystic Valley Public Health Coalition has served to educate and provide information to cities and towns, and we would be more than willing to support Melrose in any regulations that they choose to look into or to draft or explore. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Robin Peavy. I'm Michelle Carson. Carson we're representing Buckelews General Store on 529 Main Street Melrose we have been in business here in Melrose for this is going our fifth year where
▶ 4:35 we have been selling craft beer and wine and we're here tonight because we want to talk about our support for the availability to be able to sell distilled beverages and in Melrose we currently do sell it's a craft beer and wine and we will be very interested in selling craft beverages as well that would also be in line with the type of products that we sell currently we brought this is not a raffle even though we did think about that walking in the door that would be fun but this is no gifts but it's actually just to show you as an example these are the types of things we're thinking about when it was brought to our attention that this might be something going through the City Council and the looking at the the availability or the possibilities of
▶ 5:26 selling distilled beverages this is what came to my mind we do a lot of gift baskets our stores basically back based on selling things that people have fun enjoyment of giving giving gifts to people especially obviously around the holidays distilled beverages are something that people like to exchange as presents as gifts and so this is something that we're thinking about we were also told there was some issues around the small bottles being able to sell small bottles these are 500 milliliters and 300 375 milliliter bottles so these are smaller than the 750 that was discussed previously I have no interest like zero interest of stacking a wall in my store with half gallon jugs of vodka that's not who our store where store represents that's not
▶ 6:18 who we are I'm also not interested in selling nips I really do appreciate what the previous speaker brought to our attention I think it's really important to think about who we are in the city what kind of influence that we have over youth in our city and it I have no interest in nips I have no interest in selling anything that could be concealed or you know drank it at another location I have absolutely zero interest in selling to anybody who is under the age of 21, and I have no interest in selling to somebody who is going to then give it to somebody under the age of 21. In our store, we've been very strict about that, and we will continue to be very strict about that. That's not in our interest.
▶ 6:57 In the city's, I personally live here in Melrose. I have a high school freshman. This stuff is very near and dear and on my mind at all times. The other thing I'll just quickly say, as I know we're running out of time, is that this is not a license that we owned. The ability to sell wine and beer is something that is oversight with the alcohol commission here in town. So if a business is not doing what it should be doing or not being a good community member, that's something that at any point in time can be taken away from us. We understand that clearly. Every business in the city should understand that clearly. Every citizen should understand that clearly, that if we're not doing what we should be,
▶ 7:38 then we won't have that license. so there are many guardrails on this topic thank you thank you very much good evening ladies and gentlemen of the council my name is Rebecca Baraldi for those of you who don't already know me I am the owner of Beacon Hill Wine and Gourmet located at 538 Main Street in Melrose we are going in our 11th year here in Melrose my husband Gene and I built the store we also are going into our 20th year of business on Charles Street, which is a full-service adult beverage retail store, 400 square feet of only adult beverages, including distilled spirits. So we have quite a bit of experience in this industry. So at the last meeting that I attended, I wasn't exactly prepared to speak because I wasn't really sure about what the
▶ 8:48 concerns were and it seems like the main concern is the small format adult beverage I personally product size does not predicate who the consumer is there seems to be a little a little perception about who drinks the small adult format adult beverage the small format lots of people do I do i don't keep large bottles of any alcohol in my home i'm not a big drinker and so i bring things in small format for when i entertain or if i want to personally consume i know that there's conversation about communities like chelsea that have banned the small format i think the demographic here in melrose we can all agree is probably a little bit different i think they face different challenges than we do here in our community and i say our even though i don't
▶ 9:52 live here i work here and own a business here um i think there's a higher demographic of liquor stores there as well as a different demographic in general and i understand that they have challenges but i don't necessarily think that melrose melrose will face those same exact challenges um pollution i saw is definitely a concern and the the careless disposal of small format bottles i totally understand and appreciate that i think there's a real importance to have a clean community but again i don't think product size nearly i don't think that predicates pollution either i think there are consumers who will just as carelessly toss a coffee cup or a gum wrapper or a candy bar potato chip bag as easily as they will anything else and i just don't know
▶ 10:43 if you eliminate a beverage form in a smaller size that that's necessarily going to solve your pollution problem i do know there's legislation that's i think even as recently as yesterday that was being seen at the state house about possibly putting a um a bottle return similar to with cans and i think that would be very advantageous i think that's win-win i think if somebody thinks that they're going to be able to maybe generate a little bit of revenue they'll be less inclined to throw something away if they don't there's definitely a community i don't know if people are aware of this i see it but there's definitely a community in melrose who they get a little bit of their revenue from canning and so there's always incentive for them to actually
▶ 11:32 possibly aid in that cleaning up because there's there's revenue for them um size restriction with regards to competition so we're in this as a business right when we competed for the license here 10 years ago 11 years ago now everybody was well aware of the type of business that we were running in boston and that was the desire to expand upon and bring into Melrose to bring in a fine wine and craft beer shop with the anticipation of moving towards adult beverages, distilled spirits in the future. The novelty of wine and beer, truthfully, has really faded here in Melrose. That actually happened several years ago, to be honest. If you restrict small format adult beverages, consumers will opt to shop in other locations
▶ 12:30 they can buy in smaller quantities at lower price points it will drive them to continue to shop at neighboring communities offering full service i have people telling me now that they love us but they don't shop with us all the time because sometimes they need things that we're not selling and so it still ties it still ties our hands a little bit with regards to offering the same thing as stores one and a half miles in each direction one and a half miles to malden one and a half miles to saugus one and a half miles to wakefield they're offering the same thing so if they're not shopping locally they're shopping elsewhere um it would be a great idea also to keep the tax revenue in melrose we pay an excise tax on every bottle that we buy so it's certainly not
▶ 13:17 doesn't hurt anything to keep it local um it also brings me to something different i am a different format store than buckaloos okay um what they're looking to do obviously i offer gift baskets and things like that i would absolutely do that but we are without a doubt an adult beverage retailer okay gifts are secondary gourmet food it's the balance is the way the license is written but my format is different than theirs okay i don't even know if they're aware because they're not part of this industry but on the peripheral the buying format as a retailer is incredibly challenging buying adult beverage spirits distilled spirits is very different from buying beer and wine beer and wine you can buy by the case you can even buy by the bottle you'll be
▶ 14:14 a little bit more expensive but you won't you won't be astronomical buying spirits is a very different game the landscape in the adult beverage industry through distribution is entirely different you have to buy things in five to ten case minimums if we're restricted to 750s that's an awful lot of bottles that need to move and turn our bills are due with some distributors net 45 some net 55. that's an awful lot of product that you have to move in a very short period of time plus if you're not allowed different format sizes it's really hard to be able to to spread that around at least when you have the different format sizes you're able to buy it in a manner that allows it to sell in a quicker right a quicker amount of time if we were if we were
▶ 15:08 to be restricted to that 750 limit we could buy once i don't know when we'd get to buy again you know the reality is is that not everybody wants a large bottle they don't want to spend that amount of money and also when we're looking at small adult uh small format adult beverages which is how i like to call them instead of nips which is why i'm stumbling on this not everything is really inexpensive there's some really pricey small bottles when you think about your bourbons and your scotches and your whiskeys, not everything is inexpensive. You can spend a good amount of money on a bottle that's 500 ml. So I just, actually what I put here was something really nice that I wanted to really stress
▶ 15:56 is that the approval of the modification and the inclusion of the small format adult beverages, In reality, for our business model, if we were restricted, it would be really hard to stay in business, and I'm just being brutally honest with you. That's just unfortunately the way the industry is right now. While I'm not your only license holder in the community, I am the only location that truly embodies the adult beverage store model, and I just really appreciate you allowing me the time to speak, and I urge you with the utmost respect to please carefully consider how a decision like this will impact business today and moving forward. Okay? Thank you. Hi. My name is Janine Venuti. I live on Altamont Ave.
▶ 17:07 I've had an adopter site for actually over 20 years now in Maros in the parking lot behind Papa Gino's, and for years and years I've had a problem with litter back there, and number one thing is nip bottles but surprisingly once Papa Gino's went out of business that that just cleared up and I no longer have that trash and I have to assume that basically the teenagers that were working at Papa Gino's after work were going out in the parking lot and drinking and just leaving their stuff there it's a small change but for me I've noticed a big difference just with that that small change Gina McNeil here tonight of Maple Street here tonight representing zero waste Melrose I wrote my notes because I get a little nervous in these contacts I don't want to want
▶ 18:17 to make sure I don't forget anything so you know I know some of the previous speakers tonight have alluded to the the litter problem associated with nibs so I want to talk a little bit too about you know litter is certainly something that we think about as part of zero waste Melrose but you know it's a little bit bigger than that as well when we think about the implications for NIPS and how those are disposed of. So I want to just provide a little bit of context first and then speak specifically to NIPS. So I also want to say that the focus of what we're here at Zero Waste Melrose to talk about is really not about the contents. It's really about the container and the implications of how that container is disposed of. So just to be clear about that. And also when I use
▶ 19:06 the term nips I'm also speaking very specifically about 50 milliliter containers you know otherwise known as nips or minis so just to clarify that so you know as I mentioned I think it's easy for people to say oh you know it's just a nip bottle what's the big deal you know it's this it's the small format container as many of you are probably aware at Zero Waste Melrose one of our goals for a number of years now has been to really focus on the reduction of single-use plastics as many of you are probably familiar with unnecessary and wasteful production of plastic contributes to climate change and it's also causing serious and irreversible damage to to our environment in the form of plastic pollution and litter I think you know everyone's aware that if you
▶ 19:55 walk around Melrose it's hard to not see the the litter problem that we have here and while it's unsightly it's also you know a permanent source of pollution so we think about where those plastics go, you know, it's on the streets of Melrose, it's in El Pond, it's in the deepest parts of the ocean, it's in the water we drink, in microparticles and nanoparticles, and it's in the food that we eat. So it's really, really pervasive and everywhere. And so again, getting back to that idea of what are the implications for us as a city in Melrose, going back to 2017, there was really the beginning of, you know, what I hope is a longer-term trend in Melrose to say that we need to be able to use our laws to
▶ 20:38 protect our environment and to protect our health from further plastic pollution caused by this you know usually disposable single waste or single-use plastic types of containers and packaging so that's really kind of the broader context that we're trying to think about here with every decision that happens in Melrose and I think there's also just again kind of thinking about context I know in every order that comes to the City Council I think every order there's a line that says financial impact many of you you're probably familiar that many businesses are now starting to think about not just starting but really acting on the idea of a triple bottom line right so it's not just about the dollars and cents ultimately it's about the financial the
▶ 21:22 social and the environmental impact and really considering all three of those things when a business decision is made and trying to optimize you know across all of those things and i would like to see the city council and the city of melrose start to think about that too you know maybe ideally there's that financial impact but also the the social and the environmental implications as well and i think that this decision around whether or not nips can be sold in melrose is really an opportunity to start to do that not not that it hasn't been done before but to kind of start to do that maybe more more explicitly so with all of that background i want to just specifically address some of the concerns and ideas that we had around the liquor law expansion. So the reality is, as some of the
▶ 22:08 other speakers have commented, that the 50 milliliter lips are another instance of single use disposable plastics that is usually not recycled and it's frequently littered. And in that sense, it's really not that different from the plastic bags, right? That we, again, passed a law to say we're not going to have those here in our community nips are in theory recyclable but like many single-use plastic disposable kind of on-the-go containers they're often just not recycled they're littered etc so that's just not happening even though they are recycled to give you a little bit of sense of this scale of what we're talking about here in Massachusetts on a daily basis there are 70,000 nips sold so over the course of the year that's
▶ 22:52 more than 25 million nips and i know that's nowhere near the number of plastic water bottles you know single serve water bottles that are sold but still it's a lot 25 million of any little package thing is is a lot to think about and that really does add up especially when you think about if those are being littered at a high frequency some of the cities where nips are a significant litter problem include not just chelsea which we've heard a lot about chelsea because they actually went so far as to ban NIPS but Woburn, Salem, Gloucester, Bridgewater, Charlestown, Worcester, Southbridge, Falmouth, Mashpee and others are ones where if you kind of do some googling and see where this is in the news and
▶ 23:31 where it's been discussed by City Council those are some of the ones that are listed and those are just in Massachusetts and you know the state of Maine had such a problem with NIPS that the governor I think really advocated banning them outright when you couldn't do that they settled for a deposit in the state of Maine so it's not a Massachusetts specific problem and then lastly keep Massachusetts beautiful which is this state chapter of keep America beautiful reports that nip litter is in the top five most common categories of litter that they find in community cleanups around the state so it really is unfortunately it's a pervasive issue with with respect to the specific kind of container size and what's really special about the decision
▶ 24:16 that you have before you is that it's one of the very rare instances where we as a community actually have the opportunity to prevent something you know how many times do you think about you know it's always about trying to recover trying to mitigate a problem that's already there and so this is an opportunity to not create the problem you know we can't control nips coming across the town line and that sort of thing but we can do you know we can do something to limit the extent to which they're actually sold right here in Melrose and again that's a really unique opportunity that I think is very very important to consider one of the earlier speakers also brought up the idea of the deposit so we know that deposits are really effective the types of containers
▶ 25:05 that have a deposit on them like 80% of those are recycled if something like plastic water bottles where there isn't only like 20% of those are recycled right so we know that that's a really effective thing unfortunately getting that kind of action at the state is you know not optimistic so just to give you a little bit of history in about 2010 there started to be an effort among lawmakers to modernize our current bottle bill to cover things like plastic water bottles right because there's been such a huge increase in that kind of consumption got bogged down eventually in 2014 it was on this state referendum and if folks remember that it was one of the referendum closed questions in November on in 2014 things were looking good everyone thought that was going to
▶ 25:58 passed until folks like the American Beverage Association and some other business concerns got involved and spent eight million dollars right here in Massachusetts to defeat that so updating the bottle bill while there's actively hearings there was a hearing on just in January January 23rd to talk about it and to talk about including nips in it I think that that's a bit unrealistic and I'm sorry to have to say that but just based on the history and in fact at that that hearing um a gentleman by the name of robert melione who's the executive director of the massachusetts package stores association told lawmakers that liquor store owners would likely offer quote a lot of opposition to the proposed bill to add a deposit to nips so there may be
▶ 26:47 some very good reasons for the package association to oppose that but that tells me that that's a pretty long haul to add nips to the bottle bill I think in theory it's a great idea but I just don't think it's a realistic solution to this problem that's going to happen any time in the near term so that's kind of the last point that I wanted to make I just wanted to say thank you so much for hearing the zero waste Melrose point of view on this issue and I would leave you I know I made a long statement so I'll leave you with two summary points again And you have a really unique opportunity to prevent this kind of pollution, the expansion of it here in Melrose. And so I really hope we can take advantage of that.
▶ 27:27 And lastly, just to reiterate that local municipalities truly are on the front lines when we think about some of these things that need to happen. It's when local municipalities make changes and act that it bubbles up to grass, that grassroots activity bubbles up to action at the state level. So that's my statement. Thank you all so much for your attention. Thank you. Any other members of the public wishing to speak? I'm Kim Kerrigan, and I'm speaking just as a resident here in Melrose. Litter is a huge problem in Melrose. My husband and I travel a lot all around the world, and we love to come home. but we are always acutely aware when we do get home about the amount of litter we have in Melrose.
▶ 28:28 We moved here about three years ago, three and a half years ago, and I was shocked at the amount of litter that was on my street, Cottage Street. A lot of it was plastic and Styrofoam. And so if I didn't pick it up or someone else, it was probably gonna be around for a long, long time. And so I started picking up trash. on my street, in my neighborhood, down Main Street, on the parks, in Elk Pond. And it's not really something that I wanna do, but it's something that I feel as a citizen I should do. And I am happy to say, I mean, the good news is in the last year, I've seen less plastic bags. And I do think that's a direct result of the ordinance that was passed. Unfortunately, I do still see lots of nips.
▶ 29:26 And it's one of the most common things that I do pick up when I'm picking up trash. And I know it's not unique to my street. I know it's not unique to Melrose. I know it's not unique to Massachusetts. Nip pollution is a huge problem. And so I am very much in favor of limiting the sale of NIPS because right now we don't even sell NIPS here and we have a problem. I can't even imagine what the problem will be like if there's more availability to it. So thank you for letting me speak. I strongly support any expansion of our spirit laws, laws but i am feel very strongly that we should not sell nips if we can avoid it in melrose thank you thank you seeing no other members interested in coming forward i'd entertain a
▶ 30:43 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
▶ 31:26 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: 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
▶ 32:17 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: solicitor is here tonight and other um members of the city administration so if we'd like to do a motion to suspend the rules motion to suspend the rules madam chair so that we may hear from 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 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
▶ 33:04 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
▶ 33:57 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 correct as um as spelled out in my january 31st letter to you um an appeal was filed with the
▶ 34:44 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
▶ 35:35 connection with the Chelsea case and it hasn't been made as of today so as I 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
▶ 36:37 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 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 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
▶ 37:30 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
▶ 38:18 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
▶ 39:07 Jack Eccles: i don't know if that answer is sort of a long-winded approach but i did want to i did 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 that we have outstanding or not that's a good question i don't i don't have any sense of
▶ 39:48 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
▶ 40:43 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 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
▶ 41:28 Shawn M. MacMaster: 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 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
▶ 42:29 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
▶ 43:14 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 those licenses so the bigger picture issues have to go before the state legislature where some of the intricacies of regulations would be handled at the local level correct like the Liquor Commission for example cannot
▶ 44:04 Shawn M. MacMaster: 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 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
▶ 44:57 i'd like to know within what context we'd potentially be voting on this tonight 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
▶ 45:48 Shawn M. MacMaster: 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 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
▶ 46:35 Shawn M. MacMaster: 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 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 i think that's all i have for now thank you mr van campen president Grigoraitis thank you thank you for being here tonight i just wanted to follow up just to clarify that
▶ 47:28 Jen Grigoraitis: 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 restrictions are on wine in here currently um there are no restrictions on size as far as um
▶ 48:11 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: 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 currently have any restrictions thank you sure counselor make the rally 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 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
▶ 48:57 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: 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 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
▶ 49:54 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: 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 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
▶ 50:47 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: 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 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
▶ 51:41 John N. Tramontozzi: in overall passing this act because of that section? In other words, is it sort of an all or nothing thing? 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 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 to act on the entire the legislature does have the authority to reject
▶ 52:41 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 resulting in it of course the delay of the entire process of it would basically restart the process here okay thank you sure counselor gary page um if the legislature
▶ 53:32 was to um decline our home rule petition as is with um with some restrictions in there is there um can we how long until we can reapply and go through the process again is there a cooling off 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 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 madam chair um in light of uh what mr van campen represented about the current language being
▶ 54:26 Shawn M. MacMaster: 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
▶ 55:18 Shawn M. MacMaster: 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 on this thank you madam chair thank you any other counselors wishing to speak about this
▶ 56:06 Paul Brodeur: motion that's been duly seconded or the topic at hand and madam chair excuse me i just realized 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 i think i'm actually trying to speed things up so the football team can be taken care of 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
▶ 56:54 Paul Brodeur: 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.
▶ 57:49 Paul Brodeur: 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,
▶ 58:47 Paul Brodeur: 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
▶ 59:37 Paul Brodeur: 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 at all or not uh counselor thomas thank you madam chairperson mr mayor mr van campen thank you very
▶ 1:00:33 Paul Brodeur: 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 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
▶ 1:01:24 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: that we that this uh should you decide to move it forward would be what's available in the 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 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
▶ 1:02:16 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: 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 that motion fails for now so this is still before our committee but maybe we 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 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 yes don't we have to withdraw that initial motion in order we have two motions on the floor right
▶ 1:03:19 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 to the chair and ruling of the president okay if people are okay with that we'll we'll have a okay so all in favor of recessing aye aye any opposed so we'll be in recess and we'll return to that motion that is before us all right the meeting of the Melrose City Council is called to order I am president Grigoraitis in accordance with Massachusetts open meeting law this meeting is recorded by Melrose cable access and will be available for viewing in its entirety on MMTV and through the City website link will the clerk please call the roll
▶ 1:18:09 by Councillor Migliorelli. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. We are now adjourned. Okay we are reconvening the Appropriations Committee. We have before us a motion duly seconded to excise the second section two of the current draft of the proposed ordinance. So this would retain the section that enables up to three licenses to be converted to include the sale of liquor and it would remove the section that has a size limitation on discussion uh yes counselor stewart thank you madam chair through the chair I think the crux of the matter is that we've heard from many of the constituents. I've heard them personally from many constituents in my ward. I've also gotten a lot of memos via email, a couple of phone calls regarding the littering.
▶ 1:20:10 Robb Stewart: I get actually quite torn about this because it is a real problem. out walking the dog, you see it all over the place, particularly in spots. And so when I see Section 2 and I look at the less than 749 milliliters, that's a very large bottle in my opinion from the standpoint of what a retailer would be limited to sell. But I think there could be a compromise here. The crux, the major problems are the 50-milliliter bottles. Those are the tiny little ones that you see. And I would like to entertain the thought of having consideration for less than 100 milliliters as opposed to 749 milliliters. Because I think that shows the spirit of what we're trying to accomplish with reducing the littering and the waste within the town,
▶ 1:21:11 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: but still has consideration for the businesses that can go down to a certain size of the bottles. They're not just limited to the full-size bottles. So I'm sure I'd like to have that under consideration. Thank you. Other comments? So I support, certainly, an economic development proposal, and I think it makes sense at a time when the city council recently approved for licensing a recreational marijuana dispensary within city limits to enable licensed businesses that currently sell wine and beer to include spirits and i haven't received much to counselor Stewart’s point i haven't i don't think i've received any feedback from residents who are concerned about that component of this proposal I have heard not only I think we all have not only tonight on issues related
▶ 1:22:11 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: to litter as well as substance abuse and accessibility of small bottles particularly for young youth that's a redundant but under big folks under 21 the availability of nips is concerning to people I think there's also for me the history of Melrose and what our city has been in the sense that we have been conservative when it comes to certain things over time and then I've seen us move incrementally to to modernize so we did that most recently last year when there was a proposal to enable up to two licenses for recreational marijuana but we selected as a City Council to start with just one and so I I support and agree with councillor Stewart’s suggestion that perhaps the language that we currently have here is too restrictive because we saw some of the
▶ 1:23:07 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: examples physically here tonight I'm really glad Bucklew's brought those and I suggested it so that we had a vision a visual of sort of 750 is quite large so this I agree that we should change this but I am inclined to support a restriction on nips I hear the conjecture from our esteemed colleagues that that's likely to be rejected on beacon hill but i think we have a right as a city council to to put forward a proposal that reflects the kind of feedback we've heard from the com from our community um and have this the legislature tell us no and then we could decide what we want to do with that information but i would be inclined personally to vote in favor of this uh ordinance um and revising section to um to limit it to um to restrict the sale of alcoholic beverages with
▶ 1:24:05 John N. Tramontozzi: concentrations of greater than 25 percent in containers with a capacity whether that's of less than 100 milliliters like my colleague has suggested or 50 milliliters which i think is the standard size for a nip so that is my inclination counselor Tramontozzi thank you so the uh the The rationale for my motion is because I am not all that certain that the legislature would take the appropriate action that we suspect that is possible, and that is that if they decide that Section 2 is unlawful, that they would strike it, ultimately would end up getting it back potentially. My thinking is that we strike Section 2, send it to the legislature to increase and convert the licenses to three and then work with our local licensing commission to adopt a provision
▶ 1:25:04 John N. Tramontozzi: that would eliminate MIPS or reduce the size of the capacity of the bottles. I agree and I would be in favor of reducing it to 100 milliliters capacity size, but I'm concerned about sending it to the legislature with that language in it in light of the research that I've done in terms of the Chelsea case in Boston, they're talking about it, there's no clear consensus that the legislature would see that as a lawful attempt to restrict. Thank you. Thank you. yeah i'm um i'm torn also on on which way to go um you know i'm a i'm a supporter as we all are of wealth auto change i believe melrose has taken a slow pragmatic approach towards changing the liquor laws in our city over the last decade we've allowed retail sales of beer and wine
▶ 1:26:09 Mark Garipay: for off-premises consumption as a result since that ordinance and the change we've had responsible retail beer and wine sales with with no violations um and according to a statement by chief lyle morris has seen no noticeable alcohol related incidences at any of the licensed establishments as an elected official we all want to do everything we can to support our local businesses so we can stay sustain a vibrant downtown that we've become accustomed to i was I was prepared tonight to, or the other day, to fully support changing the 750 milliliters. I thought it was too constrictive. I was looking to amend it to about 200 milliliters, but in light of what I've heard over the last few days with conversations with a number of city officials regarding the size limitations
▶ 1:27:05 Mark Garipay: in this ordinance and the feedback that has been presented regarding the state legislation's potential of looking unfavorably on the whole rule home rule i will support this order without any any restrictions i would however encourage the liquor commission um to follow closely the abc ruling with regards to chelsea and if the abc rules in favor of of the chel of chelsea's um law then then i would uh you know ask that the morris looking commission looks to ban nips going forward thank you thank you vice chair sanella as somebody who walks main street daily all day yes i come across a nip bottle here and there but i mainly see dunkin donuts cups brugers cups starbucks cups blowing into my doorway i see pamphlets from cvs
▶ 1:28:03 Christopher Cinella: that come in and out both entrances so unless we're going to ban all that i don't see why we would penalize these other businesses i mean allow this to get go through the legislature without the restrictions and then let our commission take up the rest should there need arise to then put the restriction on so i would be in favor of um this ordinance removing section two councilman mcnaught i'd just like to thank you madam chair i'd just like to say i agree with the remarks of council's trim and tozy Garipay and sanella and we've heard from business owners tonight who have done a very good job for the last 10 or 11 years or so i forget the exact amount of time we haven't had a problem selling to minors or having alcoholics laying down on the ground
▶ 1:29:00 Jeff McNaught: outside of stores drinking the products that you sell um that's not melrose we we don't we wouldn't allow that to happen in morose i suspect that if litter of nips became a huge problem we would not sit here and do nothing about it um i it sounds like we have a major litter problem but we also have a problem for bringing in more revenue for business owners who who need it not just deserve it through their actions but need it and if we are seeing nips on the ground then they are going to melrose wakefield saugus malden and they are getting it and they are bringing it back so i would suggest that we should set our let our business owners in melrose sell the nips no restrictions passage is almost certain from what i've heard from our colleagues who have more
▶ 1:29:58 Jack Eccles: experiences in this than i do and i would rather pass without restriction and have the local liquor commission amend later if possible any other counselors wishing to speak councilor eccles i'm also a little torn but i think that one thing that's important to think about is that this isn't the last word on whether or not we can sell nips from what i've heard tonight the liquor commission can expand on whether or not and that's from what i heard from mr van kempen what what is generally the intention is that minutia such as hours of operation and other details would be handled by the liquor commission and sort of the broad perspective is what is handled by the city council as far as the issuing of licenses i also am concerned about the timeline as far as
▶ 1:30:49 Jack Eccles: if we do put it forward with the intention that it possibly could get rejected that's two to three months from now something that was introduced in October has been pushed to now two to three months from now is rejected and then it goes back to the legislature we're looking at almost a year so I think that's something that should be considered I'm inclined to support it if it without restriction if it were the last word on nips I would be definitely inclined to vote to put it forward with restrictions but it is not it sounds like we're gonna have from the administration a public process about the overview of the way that we issue liquor licenses and all the restrictions that are put forward with that bearing that in mind I think that I look forward
▶ 1:31:33 Leila Migliorelli: to that and I look forward to the liquor Commission's public process counselor make La Reale I'm so sorry I'm gonna just echo the rest of my counselors and that this is a difficult decision to make I think that there's a lot of compelling evidence that these nip bottles have create a litter problem I'm concerned that I don't know that we can make the argument that you know we just you know if we start to you know create restrictions on nips you could create restrictions on anything I think we Melrose has made some great strides as mentioned earlier about restricting single-use plastic that all being said like my other fellow councillors have stated I do have concerns that if we don't move forward on this it will be held up I also think we have to bear in
▶ 1:32:25 Leila Migliorelli: mind that we're really talking we heard from our two business owners tonight one whom is not going to be selling nips one who is this is one business selling nips I don't know that that will increase the litter by that much but I do look forward to continuing conversation with the liquor Commission I think we can follow what's happening in Chelsea if for some reason that you know passes I would I would like to kind of pursue it through that Avenue versus here so I would go with not no restrictions and taking out section 2 okay all right we a motion uh to excise section two of the current order um duly seconded all in favor aye aye any opposed opposed so that was three opposed um so that passes so now um what is the will of
▶ 1:33:22 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: the committee yes just one of the clean it up a little bit uh sections where it says section three we should that should now be section two i'll make a motion to uh insert that instead of section three okay we uh is there a second on that second we have a motion to uh admit uh edit where it says section three and change it to section two made by councillor Tramontozzi second by president Grigoraitis all in favor all right any opposed opposed yes councillor Tramontozzi i make a motion for passage as amended second our recommendation i it should be a motion to recommend to the full board um as amended we have a motion uh to recommend to the full city council uh this order as amended made by councillor Tramontozzi and seconded by councillor mcnaught
▶ 1:34:15 Shawn M. MacMaster: on discussion yes councillor mcmaster just madam chair just just so my vote is very clear to the public i support loosening liquor regulations in the city but again i'm just not comfortable legislating what is really more than what's been described tonight as an economic development opportunity it's a larger community issue it's a public safety issue it's a public health issue it's an issue that we've heard from members of the public impacts our environment i think it would really be most prudent if we address this in a more omnibus fashion and you know i think it's tantamount to you look at the the state level and there's talk right now about you know reforming our transportation system and i think you know if there was a bill right now
▶ 1:35:03 Shawn M. MacMaster: that went before the legislature relative to transportation in light of what we're seeing at the state level it wouldn't pass unless it was for some emergency reason and that's because there is a larger plan in mind based on a greater policy intention and i think that's what's lacking here i i don't think um it's in really the best interests of the community for us to delay the inevitable which is what will eventually be i think large scale reforms relative to alcohol so um that's the only reason i'll be voting against this tonight thank you madam chair thank you and in that spirit i will say i will vote in favor of the recommendation that is before us now even though i preferred to include a second section because what what is before us i do support in terms of
▶ 1:35:53 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: enabling our local businesses to sell spirits and i am hopeful that my colleagues comments will prove true that the liquor licensing commission will be able to regulate on this topic i am somewhat concerned about that probability but um certainly will support them in attempting to do so so um all in favor of the recommend recommended passage as amended opposed opposed so that recommendation will be taken up by the full city council at its next meeting and that concludes um the orders on our agenda motion to adjourn made by councillor Eccles seconded by councillor mcnaught all in favor aye any opposed we are adjourned