Legal & Legislative Committee — 2023-05-01
Attendance
Christopher Cinella ; Jack Eccles ; Jen Grigoraitis ; Maya Jamaleddine ; John Obremski ; Ryan Williams
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE LEGAL & LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MAY 1, 2023 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 Ryan Williams Chair Present Christopher Cinella Present Jack Eccles Present Maya Jamaleddine Absent Jen Grigoraitis President, Ex Oficio Present John Obremski Vice Chair Present
ORDER-2023-80 Acceptance of general law; decision; fund Acceptance of MGL Chapter 138, section 19C relative to Farmer- Brewery Licenses which will allow the City to amend local regulations to permit the operation of breweries within the City of Melrose. Ought to Pass City of Melrose Page 1 5/2/2023 9:33 AM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Ryan Williams: Here we go. Today is Monday May 1st 2023. This is a meeting of the legal and legislative Committee of the city council of Melrose. I'm the chair of the committee Ryan Williams and I'm joined by voting members councilor. Jack Echols counselor. Chris. Cinella councilor, John o'brimski and non-voting members counselors Mark garapay counselor Jennifer grigor Addis president, Jennifer garettus ex-officio and councilor manjula. Karmchetti. In accordance with open meeting law tonight's meeting is being recorded and is being broadcast by on TV by our partners at mmtv as well as live streamed on their website at mmtv3.org and we thank them for their service. At this time a motion by unanimous consent to open public comment.
▶ 0:44 Ryan Williams: Seeing no objection public comment is now open. As anyone here to speak on the agenda item for tonight. Madam clerk. Is there anyone online there are no participants who attendees online? Okay. Well in that case I'll motion by unanimous consent to close public comment. And hearing no objections public comment is now closed. We have one order before us tonight. It is ordered 2023-80 acceptance of Massachusetts General Law chapter 138 section 19 C relative to Farmer Brewery licenses, which will allow the city of Melrose to amend local regulations to permit the operation of breweries within the city of Melrose. And we have some representatives from the administration here tonight. So all motion Again
▶ 1:31 Paul Brodeur: by unanimous consent to suspend the rules. And I hear no objections. So the rules are suspended. Good evening, Mr. Chairman Member of the committee delighted that the tech has worked out and if we are able to meet today, you may recall perhaps not in my state of the city address. I mentioned something that I talked about before but maybe a little bit more formally introduced the idea of the potential for a brewery to come to the city of Melrose that has that idea has matured. There's been interest in the marketplace to to essentially to explore that opportunity that takes some fairly significant legal and Regulatory hurdles the first of which is the order before you this evening Brewers in
▶ 2:35 Paul Brodeur: Massachusetts. Excuse me. Oh my goodness. Brewers in Massachusetts work under a fairly unique licensing scheme prepared compared to any other operator restaurant or bar that sells alcohol for consumption on the premises and Carry Out essentially essentially retail, and that's why it's called farmer Brewer. It's again to fairly new construct in a statutory regime that really started in the 1930s here in the Commonwealth and cry Uncle when I'm giving you too much information, but essentially what a farmer Brewer licensed does is allows a brewer to set up shop actually brew beer on premises serve it on premises and sell it for consumption off premises in the in the lingo of the trade what it does not allow essentially is
▶ 3:36 Paul Brodeur: anything else by that? I mean they cannot sell Budweiser they cannot sell wine they can't sell anything except their own product could they sell their product other places if they choose to get into some kind of a distribution Arrangement? Yes, but that is not germane to the farmer Brewer license. So what we here to ask you for this evening is to take that first step in the process to accept this part of Massachusetts General law so that the city has the opportunity to go down that road. It does not guarantee that we will open or license or permit any particular place, but it does send an important signal to the marketplace that we are open to the idea and there is a certain ramping up of a business like this in terms of capital commitments and
▶ 4:32 Paul Brodeur: the the licensing that goes beyond that that makes that creates in the marketplace in need as you might imagine for some certainty if Going to do something like sign a lease. They have to have a reasonable idea of how the regulatory process is going to go and how it's going to treat them again, no guarantees. But but they need that roadmap my sense of this community is that You know the nature of our demographic today suggests to me that this will be a very successful Venture assuming it's run well and marketed properly. So it is amenity that will be enjoyable for our local residents. It will certainly bring additional traffic from outside of Melrose and by that, I mean increasing foot traffic with benefits to to our other businesses again,
▶ 5:24 Paul Brodeur: should we find should we find the right partner and this unlike some other business opportunities is does have a direct. Revenue impact because the sales at the brewery would be subject to the local option food and beverage tax that we apply to all our essentially all our Hospitality groups our restaurants. essentially that is a sense that that is that is kind of the the beginning of the story you both know Lauren grimmick and Shannon Phillips that can fill you in on any legal questions you may have or the business climate and you know based on some discussions that Lauren has had what what kind of the marketplace expects out of us in order to move forward. Do any counselors that questions for the mayor council records? Thank you, Mr.
▶ 6:22 Chairman. So just to be clear If This Were to be issued to someone there would still be one retail liquor license in Melrose. They wouldn't also need that. Is that correct? A very exactly I think I can answer it. But I'd rather have a practicing lawyer answer through the chair. Yeah. So this would be a separate it would be a separate permit that would be issue for the liquor licensing commission. So a lot of communities call them farmer series pouring permits. So they get the farmer series Brewery license from the state. They would have to come for a local permit. So it would be separate and apart from the retail license or even the on-premises license that we have even for the quota. The quarters that exist in our state law, right and do
▶ 7:02 Paul Brodeur: we have a limited number of the farmer Brewer license, or is it just that I would have to check on? Yeah, I would have to check on the 8th with the ABC on that one. If the liquor licensing commission decided to go that route and start issuing these permits. Yeah, which is still up in the air, right? Yeah, I will say that I think that's an important question, but I would ask first of all, there is a series of steps that would have to happen after this in terms of Zoning making sure that there are quite frankly. There are a heck of a lot of places in Melrose where an operational like this can locate we are not like a Woburn or a Malden where we've seen some of these places close to us grow up or Everett certainly with
▶ 7:46 Paul Brodeur: as a whole kind of District because we don't have empty industrial properties. So we're more I mean, we would probably know more akin to if you're familiar with oh gosh. I want to say it's true north up in Peabody, which is a lip a little bit closer to a store Front operation. This would be much more likely to happen here. So I would not expect a deluge of applicants seeking in business you're not honestly we've seen that with you know, we have three Quota is three retail licenses meaning for consumption off premises or carry out? We've had that for going out I'd say around 10 years and we still have one of the licenses. floating around Thank you. President Grigoraitis sex officio. Thank you Mr. Chair.
▶ 8:36 Paul Brodeur: Thank you all for being here tonight. I just wanted to follow up on the comment about that. This would possibly be a revenue generating operation for the city. Do we have at this point any back of the napkin calculations of what we might be looking at given that we're talking about it sounds like maybe one or two of these establishments in total in the city, probably one and the short answer is no it depends on a lot of different factors, but it certainly would be I don't need to be flipped but You know eight or ten bucks a beer we get three quarters of percent on that. So it would be it would obviously depend on market demand and things like that, but it would be I would expect it to be, you know a very
▶ 9:19 Paul Brodeur: You know net positive experience, but I would not suggest it's like everything else in economic development in the city of this size. There's no Silver Bullet. There's no you know where we're not bringing in a Raytheon or not gonna you know, bring in a bio lab or whatever the case may be. It's all building blocks and generating interest for more businesses to come and increasing the foot traffic all those synergies are part of part of Theory yeah that I mean that makes sense I was just thinking if we had some rough estimate maybe that comes further in your process when you have active, you know businesses that are looking and then it does sound like there's a lot of steps after this. Do you have a general timeline
▶ 10:03 Paul Brodeur: for when we might? Get through planning board Board of Health Liquor Commission. Is there or an optimistic timeline hopeful timeline? Oh gosh hopeful time. I don't know if you want to if you want to take that. I mean there should answer is no it is it's certainly time is of the essence. It depends on The Prospect and maybe a little Lauren talk about to the extent we've had discussions with potential folks with potential interest, you know, there's interest in an accelerated Thailand timeline. I would not suggest that that means we force it or do something. We're not confident that the community alike of the will commercially succeed but given the nature of change they can be acted on pretty
▶ 10:50 efficiently. But that's no guarantee that you know, the council will adopt zoning or that the Liquor Commission will feel a particular applicant has a good plan. So through the chair. Am I supposed to say that I think in talking with our colleagues in the planning department just like changing the table of use and doing zoning best case scenario would be like a three to four month process. Hopefully in parallel. Our goal would be then to have the liquor licensing commission be looking at its regulations and doing that in parallel at the same time. I think that's the best case scenario my understanding though then again from talking with the planning folks is that even once the zoning was established and we did all the steps that we needed to the applicant
▶ 11:37 right still needs to come before everybody. Right? If they need a common Vic license all of that steps that even like a new restaurant would take so I think best case scenario add on another two months to that. So let's say we're ready this, you know flies through Night, I think we're looking at six months minimum. But I also think that if we don't do this now, our neighboring communities are going to pick it up Stoneham Wakefield, right? They don't have this yet. But we look further out. We see it. I mean even need them just passed a bunch of things to have breweries open up there. So I feel like this is you know, if we don't do this now, it's we're not going to do it here. Someone else is gonna take it from us, so
▶ 12:21 Ryan Williams: Thank you. Any counselors? Counselors just make a motion to recommend to the full Council. Okay, we have section from councilor. Cinella seconded by counselor Eccles on discussion. I wanted to ask have we I know this is preliminary but have we talked to any of the other alcohol serving businesses and I would include Mount Hood in this about whether they're interested in carrying something that was brewed right here in Melrose seems to me like a real opportunity to have this stuff because they have a packaging assume a packaging facility or some up opportunity to package that we would be able to So a little bit of it kind of In-House so to speak I would want to speak for them. And I don't know Florence had specific discussions, but I
▶ 13:10 Paul Brodeur: can tell you from some of certainly some of our existing establishments already do serve. Craft Brews, and they would be freed to again depending on the distribution or even that's essentially a private Market. Opportunity and to Echo to reference the the place I talked about up in Peabody. That's essentially a storefront because of the way. The regulations work and what can be done on premises under a farmer Brewer license this particular Brewery did essentially create a an arrangement with a I'll call it a nightclub. Don't hold me to the that characterization where that place did a you know like True North night over North. I don't remember but so that was not you know, that was a partnership that evolved
▶ 14:03 Paul Brodeur: so certainly could again I don't want to speak for any business, but we know Turners has They're upstairs. They could conceivably do if they chose to if the relationship worked out they could do a you know, Melrose Brewer's night. upstairs and do it do it in a different way because they would be operating under excuse me, a traditional license so they could do that. But that is again that is not something. that the farmer Brewer could do. Yeah, it's fairly again. It's fairly restricted. They wouldn't be able to have any other. Any other products? Or beverages of obviously not knock officer, but no no other Brews could be in that could be on their premises. Okay, thank you. So time to take a vote.
▶ 14:54 Jen Grigoraitis: all in favor any opposed this will be recommended to the full Council. Thank you all for coming. Thank you committee. Appreciate. Motion from someone motion to adjourn right motion on the table from Mr. Snella seconded by president gratisficio. Wait, we got to vote. I great there we go. Turn. Good evening. Today is Monday May 1st 2023. The time is 7:45 pm and this 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 Madam clerk. Will you please call the roll Council of sonella? Yeah counselor Eccles here counselor. Garapay.