 Oh, there he is pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted by a remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so in the following manner by emailing Steve McCarthy at McCarthy s at Amherst m a dot gov. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. I think that we are unable to do so and for for reasons of economic hardship and despite best efforts, we will post on the town website and audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings, as soon as possible after the meeting. And that done, we'll call the meeting to order at 502pm. Take a roll call of attendance Dylan. Here. Kelly. Here. Best on here. And I'm here. So we're all here. So hello. Let's see public comment. Is there anyone here for general public comment, not related to any hearing or discussion item. On the agenda just if so please raise your hand inside there so we can see you. That's right raise your hand. Thanks, Steve. Nope. Okay. No public comment. So, moving on to licenses. Section three. So special short term alcohol serving licenses Steve you said that Raymond Barry has withdrawn his. Yes. Okay. That was to be for the block party but it did not work out as planned and there won't be enough time for a revised application. So, okay. All right. So we go on to SST dash 22 dash 37 bill Pete top of campus incorporated alcohol fine art seven or sharp center on September 16 that's 630. And is Mr. Pete here for someone from top of the campus. Okay. I believe so. This is the UMass did submit a big batch of of liquor licenses. And this was just the first of them. I wanted to make sure this one got on the agenda because it will be very close to the. Okay. The next hearing date the rest of them should be on for next time, but they haven't been reviewed by the police chief. The maps from the, the fine art center lobby liquor site plan. And the fine art center hall site plan that's what those are connected to right. Yes. And this is just like a lot of their previous ones. Yeah, they did do this for all the events there I believe are a lot of them anyway. Okay, great. Well, does anyone have any questions or comments about this license application. Yeah, or do we just want to move into just look okay to everyone. And willing to entertain a motion at any point. Looks all right. I'll move to approve the short term liquor license SST 2237. Thank you Doug. For the motion is there a second. Thank you Dylan, any further discussion. If not, we'll take a vote Dylan. Yes. Hi. Hi. Hi. And I vote I, and the license is approved. So that one's done. Okay. Moving on to the common pictures license CV dash 102 goddess green LLC 19 more pleasant street. And we also got paperwork for this one. Okay. So if you have anybody who wants to speak on behalf of this application, just raise your hand inside there so I can. I believe our two guests are here for that, but. Oh, great. Okay. So if someone would like to. Introduce this to talk and if you are not here for this, then we can. Hi, we're both here. Shondra, heart and Jana Samson. Oh, this green. Hi, great. Thanks. Welcome. So, could you give me a bit of a little background what your business is like. So we are opening up an organic juice bar in the old please donuts location. All of our products will be locally sourced. It is a franchise. We're doing just juices, movies. It's going to be a little cafe in the center town. Okay, great. Thanks. And I was looking for the paperwork. It's no BYOB. Fantastic. Does anyone have any questions for the representatives of goddess green. Thank you. Good morning. Any concerns about the license application? No, if not, is there a motion to approve? So moved. Thank you, Doug. Is there a second? Second. Thanks Dylan. Any further discussion? Nope. Okay. Let's take a vote. Dylan. Hi. Hallie. Hi. Gaston. Hi. Doug. Hi. And I vote I that is five to zero. Thank you so much for coming in and best of luck with your enterprise. Thank you. Thanks. Bye. Bye. Okay. Licenses are over with. So onto discussion items. Adult youth marijuana regulations. Everyone got the draft. And then the draft with correction or suggestions on it. So who's where Steve was at your work or. Yeah, the. The changes in the comments were mine. Okay. Great. Do you want to just walk us through this quickly? I think I was reading through them, but. Yes. Yes. Okay. That would be great. Thank you. So I did speak with Doug about this earlier today. So. We, he, he, this was just kind of a placeholder in the title. So, so we will remove that for the final. Addition. Just a couple. Formatting things there. Moving down. This is all as a, as Doug provided to me, just kind of reformatted to. I'm sorry to interrupt Steve. There's one quick thing if you go back to definitions. They'll point out now. You know, we have a definition for license premises. You know, there was a longer conversation that Steve and I had later. Regarding topics further down in the, in the. You know, in the document where we, we may want to fine tune that a little bit. It may be. It's pretty broadly defined here. And it may be. Poses some headaches for us. Later on. So we just, we were thinking about some ways to kind of. Refine that definition a little bit. You know, I think that in, in some ways, having it broad like this is helpful, but there are, there are circumstances and, and. In current actual. Businesses, you know, in this, in this area that, that it could make certain things kind of a headache for them. Because they're in kind of a block. It's not a standalone building. So that was the case. That we started thinking about is like, Oh, if you're not in the standalone building and we say, you know, sort of the area around you. Does that start to. Make the question about inclusion of a bunch of things that we may not have intended when we sort of wrote this. So I think that's an area we may fine tune that license premises a little bit to, to be a little more. Precisely or narrowly defined. Thanks for, let me interrupt Steve. Oh, no problem, Doug. Please. Interrupt ahead as we go through this. So, yeah, a question I had, but this one was, you know, if this is a new application, would this be referring to others, thousands owned by the applicant, or it be a condition for renewal? And would this be a hard condition where if there had been any issues, the license wouldn't be renewed or issued. Doug and I had a little conversation about that. Maybe something. Yeah, it's a consideration, I think in, in our determining, you know, whether to grant a license or not, I think it's the way I would, would imply that I think is, you know, part of it's about developing a plan. And then, you know, whether that, you know, they've been able to be successful. In implementing that plan is a factor in the, in the process of, you know, I think the, the intent of the language is to be broad. So we have a rationale if we choose to, to deny, but we don't have to. So if there's certain circumstances or whatever, I think that's. Or what we're doing with that. I wonder if we can address the, the comment simply by, after the and doing, if I may, if I may, if I may, if I may, if I may, if I may, if I may, if I may, if I may, if I may, if I may if I may, if I may, if I may, after the and doing if applicable. The applicant has developed and if applicable successfully implemented. I do like that. I didn't even get the first time. Track changes here. And I'm thinking about this a little bit more. Maybe, maybe instead of there have been no, since it's something for the LA to consider whether there have been any reported incidents. So, wait, so this, are you talking about renewals or initial licenses, or both, like this. I think both, both. Yeah. So someone's like recent employment history has something in it. I think the we've got an issue with the, the English or syntax at this point. So it's the, yeah, okay, so you want to use the applicable to relate also to reported incidents. Is that it or should we just do a new sentence or a new number. Yeah, maybe we'll just do a whole new number. Okay. I mean, what we can consider is just reported incidents, any reported incidents right. Yeah, I like that. Should we be in basically should we include a concept of affiliates in case the applicant owns or is affiliated with other retail establishments and though the what happens at the other retail establishments are also relevant for our consideration. Yes, I would suggest yes, because I think when we think about liquor license applications, you know, on those on the ABC form I think it has them list other licenses that they own or a party to and whether they've been any violations recently so I think that was the intention here was to kind of capture something similar so yeah I would say yes. We can include that as a consideration. You know, a deal breaker but it's something to consider. I wonder, I mean just as a matter of drafting we can kind of say the applicant and and it's affiliates where where that's relevant. I wonder if we could also just include the affiliates in the definition of applicant. It's something that we can try to resolve now but I think there's different ways to skin the cat drafting was. Yeah, yeah actually I actually had an interesting conversation with the Towns of Finance director yesterday and this is not a fully baked plan or a discussion that's been conclusively had but he said there may be changes and I'm using this to actually completely replace the host community agreements next year because I believe there's been some changes with the legislation for that and all of them come up for expiration and a couple or I think next year or the year after so we may actually end up getting quite in detail with a lot of different things about application form and what information is required and you know almost to parallel the alcohol methodology and I think we can get we can get a lot a lot deeper in this and and maybe a fellow you know kind of a difference between initial application and renewal and what's looked at for that kind of thing. If I can just ask a side question. Is the idea that we're trying to kind of clean up a nice draft that we then use to get the conversation going with the council is that the kind of conception of steps. I think in some respects I think that's the idea that we have a clean version, because you know, we will actually the actual first step is then granting us, you know, creating the license by by by creating bylaw that allows for it. But I think by having this as soon as they do that we're ready to sort of enact these and they have a frame of reference of what we're going to try to do and. I think that's it's sort of cart before the horse in some respects but I think it's also just shows that we recognize the complexity so we try to put it together a little bit in advance. Thank you. I think, you know, especially if it was to replace the host community agreement we need town town council action anyway but it would be certainly a several months long process at least to get to get that through the town council and to confirm the administration is does want to go down that path. So having a nice a nice tight draft in place that can be expanded upon and kind of put in more detail as as it comes closer to full fruition I think would be would be a good way to go. Right. And Doug you're already working on language for the bylaws that correct. Yeah, I put something kind of simple together for that. I think. I think I've shared that with you Steve right. I, I don't know if you have or not actually. I will and then we can kind of reach out to to manage Joe and answer or through the process with the council they've got a. I believe the subcommittee is the GL I forget what it stands for government operations and something I think which is one that deals with this is from the bylaw creation stuff I think that's the right way to go to but that's where it will tap into existing and see what they think is best as far as, you know, going through their subcommittee and then full full council process so we do have that as as next steps but yeah I think we'll tidy this up a little bit more so that's part of, or we'll need to have ready. So, what was that, can we just go back to that, the, you put another number in there and so the, the current three has to do with this except the current plan and then for is going to be anything in the employment history or. And then do you want to expand that right now or just wait. I think this would take some restructuring because I think we'd want to consider. You know, how would we define the applicant because if they're spinning up, you know, separate LLCs for everything I mean, if it's a liquor kind of parallel then it would be, you know, whether each we'd be looking at each person who's involved in the business. Right. And maybe we do want to move in that direction but that's kind of how liquor captures is, you know, have you ever been involved in a, a business that had a, you know, a violation or something. It would be good to kind of disambiguate new applications where I think we'd have a, a pretty high, pretty high level of information required versus renewals where we would be looking at compliance and things. I think if you think about that probably would make some sense to split that out. Okay, great. Thanks. This is just kind of just a little nitpick that, you know, if any inspectors or contractors or public safety needs to go in when the, the, the business is closed, they can actually do that. Yeah, Doug and I had a conversation about this one. And the idea was kind of loitering. But this is kind of another, another thing to look at with the license premises is that, you know, if it's, you know, the new red card and I believe it is that went into the Kelly's building. And that somebody just standing outside of Kelly's would be, you know, could be caught up in this. So, you know, I think there could be, could be something to having almost two definitions of the actual license premises like alcohol where sometimes knife and the whole restaurant or maybe a grounds type of thing. What's the, what's the problem with gathering outside. So I think the distinction, you know, that the word loitering implies sort of. Well, the thing we get to think about is like with COVID or just if they're busy. I mean, I think the net of place in Northampton was so busy at the line out the door and into the parking lot, while you're gathered outside the place, but you're staying in line for the for the business that shouldn't be problematic other than just general safety kind of things, whereas loitering implies, you know, you're hanging about for no particular reason. And so I think that putting the word loiter in maybe a little more specific to what we're attention is is that we don't feel just kind of hanging around in some trouble or potentially, but if if they're, you know, they have purpose for being there that's, that's not as problematic. So, right. So, yes, I still wonder what's the problem with loitering. I don't really see it. I don't. I mean, it seems, I mean, I remember I, when I was practicing on Springfield I was asked to kind of dig up all the parts of the general laws that could be used to harass homeless people and because the business district client didn't like them. Right. I mean, you know, it's a lot of First Amendment violation and I mean, I just don't, who cares if people are hanging around. Yeah, I think the other the other thing that we might put in there in that regard, you know, maybe loitering itself is not, you know, I always think of that as being, you know, In the eye of the cop. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's a harass somebody. Maybe it's maybe it's something that's more prescriptive relative to their, you know, to their actions or their, or, or their activities or something like that. Yes, it's the tricky one. I agree. I mean, I think the idea is just, you know, it is a place. And maybe the thing to do is look at if we have anything or if the state has anything relative to outside of bars or, or package stores that kind of thing I think the intent there is that you know you are trying to, you know, keep the place safe and functional and that sort of thing really it's not about, you know, somebody enjoying the weather. So how about this approach, what you are suggesting Doug, how about the applicant tells us how they want to use outside space, and then we're kind of, we decide whether to approve that. And then, when we're renewing then we check on whether the space was being used in that way, or, you know, kind of like, tell us how you want to use the space. Yeah, that could be part of the management plan so when we, we asked for sort of management plan we could say, including exterior spaces and you know we can just in this sort of materials that Steve in the conversations he has with with the applicants he could say what we're looking for here is like, you know, does it bother you if there are people loitering that we want to, you know, or does it, or do you have intention of having, you know, table and chairs out there people sit and not obviously not for take because it's still a little tingle but but to, you know, to sit and relax because you've got a nice little green space and it's, you know, whatever so yeah I think we could, we can put it put something like that in a management plan and kind of clarify that for sure. Wouldn't wouldn't part of that involve the landlord whoever owns the building that discussion, like, we obviously like some of those places they can do whatever they want once they're inside the door but you know the current. Yeah I think there's a certain, you know, especially in a mall like down at the Kelly's building. Yeah, you know they, there are several stores there which I Yeah, I mean I think that that would be probably a question we want to pose if they, if they put something into their plan, you know, oh have you checked with your landlord to make sure this is okay and and you know, you know I think that the intention here and in this case is we, you know, we want that proof that they have access to the property just like we do liquor license. So we have them, you know, share their lease, you can read through the lease and see what it says because a lot of times that'll be spelled out in their lease. Right. You can't do so. Okay, they can't run counter to their own lease. Okay, great. Well, do we all just agree? I think we should probably just take that sentence out altogether. Does anyone do do we want to even keep language in there about loitering because I think we should just get rid of it sounds like we deal with it at another time. You know, maybe we could just just leave it in there with some note that we come back to it and change it and just as a placeholder for that we know to address the issue. Is that everyone okay with that. Yeah, because I would agree with me just come out of that location but then nonetheless, you know, be be mentioned or or maybe we leave a line that references Oh your management plan should include, you know, your activation of outside spaces or something like that. Right. So we'll, I mean we'll have to. And just make sure that we, you know, talk if there's a landlord involved that we have information also right. Okay. Great. So if this is kind of just there to remind us in the next revision to address it elsewhere. Right, right. Okay. Yeah. Well one thing I should also mention that isn't that informal conversation with the finance director I had social consumption does seem to be coming at one time or another and it might be good to to kind of have, you know, even if we don't have that specific section those specific regulations to have a kind of future proof for that. Okay. I kind of misread this I made the comment that didn't see first there so that I think that clarifies a lot of it. But we might want to expand their kind of what what that kind of assignment would be very spelled out with the state for alcohol but you know to my mind if it's going to parallel that would almost be like another new full application. Yes. I mean certainly my intention was that like when there is a change of assignment. You know that this is parallels that same that same process in some respects, you know you can you can. Yeah, the transfer of a license from one, you know, of a liquor license from one person to another is not quite the full effort of a brand new license but it's, it's pretty close so I think we want to be cognizant of that is the intent here. Let me ask a question here because the. I think they're the big companies have been trying to buy up right and I guess my say that say that I just say with a lot of success with a lot of success so I guess my concern is is this that the buyer the intended buyer to come to us before they've paid so that we don't have the pressure of of having to feel like we're screwing up a deal I mean that's already happened. Right. And I think that, yeah, and that may have been what I intended by that single sentence, certainly as my thought as well is that, you know, if they're considering a change in, you know, a transfer of license that the new, the new license holder would be that at the same way, or very similar way to a brand new license or. But that's certainly the intent there and if we need to sort of, you know, bolster that a little bit, you know, that's, that's, you know, appropriate I think. Yeah, one thing I'd be interested to hear. Here you're all you hear your thoughts about this is that all the, you know, I've all the transfers I've ever dealt with anyway I mean in liquor in liquor licenses if you need to. Even if there's a change of stockholder you know something might be owned 50% by one person 50% by the other and that needs a specific transaction. I think we've seen that too often because usually it's all or nothing but that is a transaction you can do and we don't have any publicly held liquor licensees. But I wonder how they deal with that in towns where they might you know there's places where CVS or Walgreens has has a has a liquor license and I mean I can't imagine if. It's obviously impossible if you have a publicly held corporation to, to be doing that kind of change of ownership form every time somebody buys or sells stock. Yeah, it's, it's curious, I think, I think in those kind of large held companies like that I think it's, it is. I think, I think what most places do is probably lean much more on the manager, as far as determining whether or not they feel the proper structure to replace for the license. But, you know, again, I think that that's, yeah, corporate ownership is it is a curious circumstance because you know it. And, you know, in most cases and even this is true for us in a liquor realm, they're more often, you know, modest sized, you know, companies they're not, you know, national organizations and that sort of thing and so it, but that may not hold true in the marijuana realm. But that's, that's a, that's a pretty significant difference and so I, I think in Steve you and I talked about today when we spoke on this is just whether or not the state liquor laws sort of have, you know, thoughts or advice, you know it in, and the state website has some thoughts about that kind of thing or procedural things that you do in those circumstances. You know, I mean, think about like big why owns table and buy in North Hampton, that's pretty big company. You know how is it that they, it may, it's still probably privately held I would guess but still, you know, there's a good chance that there's some place in the eastern mass that's that's like a liquor license where it's held by a sort of a national corporation that kind of thing and so how did those. Those get dealt with and how do they get managed in evaluating those and changes in ownership. So, yeah. Yeah, Gaston. I wonder if maybe we can just kind of break out a new section 14 call it transfer of licenses and just kind of say to come I mean that we need to kind of. Yeah, because it's it's it's a it's a technical area and it's and we kind of the kind of thing that the intended buyers are going to see how they can game whatever we've written. So I think we need to kind of think about it carefully. Yeah, yeah. And also, like, like has been suggested I think the likelihood of larger, you know, economic entities, larger businesses are are likely to get into this and into these businesses and have a, you know, I mean we had a franchise tonight on our common Vic, you know, the parent companies are probably going to be even bigger and, you know, significant players in in this market I think and so we need to be ready for that case. So this comment here. Yeah, what we were going for is really just something like a vote of the corporate board properly authorized and executed. You know, that's, that's what the liquor liquor licenses use for everything it's always called a vote of the corporate board I guess they don't really provide for sole proprietorship but I think it's tremendously unlikely would ever see sole proprietorship for a marijuana retail business anyway so But I was where I was stealing from somebody else and and left it as as it was, but I think we can parallel the liquor law language there, exactly if we choose to there. So this I think was just kind of whatever whatever Doug took this from was just kind of poorly worded. The intention is to reference, you know, the mass general laws, and then some specific laws related to marijuana and regulation related marijuana, and then also mentioned the local bylaws and rules regulations, and basically say, you're responsible for behaving well within all of these different constructs that that apply. And we take that into consideration when we're, when we're, when we're dealing with with you. So it's a little, it's a messy read for sure. You know, when it references all those different sort of aspects of, of, of law and regulation, and then adds a few more it becomes a sort of overly difficult to read compound sentence so I think we can. I think that's, I think the intent of it is just, we're going to take this stuff into consideration and it's part of what we expect you to do is to abide by all the laws and regulations. So it's a matter of sort of, can we phrase that a way that reads a little more easily. Yeah, I think it's kind of just a syntax thing but we can probably clear that up pretty easily. We had a conversation about this and I think you said Doug that it would really be, you know, perhaps you suggested Crest or the fire department might respond to things. I don't really know. I think public safety organization is, is, is probably fine. I don't know how much press would ever be responding to kind of business. Yeah, I wasn't sure whether they would or wouldn't and I think, you know, in the, in the conversations I've seen them have their, you know, they they're working with police to sort of figure out how best to all interact, whether it come up in this circumstance I don't know but I really thought, oh well, you know, fire or even to some extent you could consider, you know, health inspectors to be a public safety organization so I want to leave it broad I mean that's why I use that language to make it broader and and inclusive in case some case like, you know, like fire enforcers things like number of occupants and that kind of stuff and those are all public safety related. That was the intent there. Yeah, I think that makes sense. I'd probably revert that change. People agree. Now this is, this is somewhere where the license premises issue really comes into focus, because if you take that the definition that we have now, this would mean that red cardinal, you know, let's say they're only open nine to five Monday through Friday. If the if Kelly's burnt some toast on Saturday morning and set off the smoke detector. They would have to manager would have to reply submit it to the town manager in the LA within 24 hours. So I think both the, it wasn't my tip by the way. I like to I try to read everything adversarily so so nobody else will be able to. But so I think I had a couple of concerns of this I think I think we already discussed kind of pairing down the definition of license premises to kind of remove some of those issues. I also don't know if every every incident needs to be reported and I guess if license premises we just take that to mean is inside the building. I think that would probably be be fair. I think 24 hours is a very quick turnaround. Especially if you know somebody importance on vacation or something and you know if there's just a false alarm or something. Yeah, I think, you know, I think that you know the manager, you know should be around or, or, you know, delegate of the license be, you know, should be able to, if we want to make it 48 I'm not wedded to that I just think. The intention here with this is that if something happens in or around your property that that's concerning what you know and whether something's going to have an interior I think that's very unlikely because you've got staff right there but I think there's, you know, if you start to have activity immediately outside your, your facility that is, you know, problematic. We want you to be aware of it we want you I mean if you look at the host community agreement there's a there's a ton of stuff most of the post community agreements have a fair amount of language around safety and security around the location and you know the things that the the license, you know the licensee or the host, you know, the business is responsible for and so it's trying to kind of parallel or track that that piece so we might be able to look at that. Some of the languages in our host community agreement to maybe refine this a little bit but I think the intent was that, you know, if something happens you need to make sure that people are aware, because that you know and, and if it becomes chronic, you know that I think about it in terms of like you're having chronic problems that are things that you as a business owner should be you know, attending to, you know, we want to know that as we think about, you know, our good, you know, neighbor to your, you know, in a good corporate citizen within our community and want to factor that in when we're renewing licenses and that sort of thing so that's the broader intent I think in putting something like that in and again barring some of these things from some other folks and looking at some of those host community agreements and languages that knows about safety and security the premises and and it may be overly prescriptive or dramatic here I think that you know the concern because of, you know, this is such a change and there are a lot of folks that are still pretty uncomfortable with, with, you know, like, you know, legalized marijuana is is, you know, maybe not a concerned neighbor so much but but you know there are, I think places and people that want to see a little refined approach because of the nature of the, of the, of the product in much the same way that you know alcohol has, I mean, you know, if you look closely like, if you want a tavern license, you know, you have to have like windows that open and are not open but are visible to the street. I don't think you guys have ever looked at that section of the law but but you know there are there are some really it's interesting and so it's, you know, antiquated and but it, it, it's what you're seeing there I think in that sort of antiquated language of the alcohol stuff is, is that concern, like in the prohibition about, you know, the difficulties that might, you know, come with a, you know, alcohol establishments and so I think that that's, you know, the intent here is to try to have some, some way to kind of measure that but again we don't want to be, you know, don't want to be temperance movement sort of folks either so. Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean that that idea of approaching marijuana kind of like alcohol after, after prohibition. Do we think a lot of that was was overblown, or do we think that that was a good transition from prohibition to where we are now because I, I think lesson learned with that one is, I don't think we necessarily need as over the top straight with it, especially when we're talking about something like marijuana as opposed to alcohol. Yes, I don't think I've seen it's been years but I've seen people, you know, thrown fists outside of McMurphy's years ago I think we're going to see less of that was something like marijuana. I mean, I would agree with you and I think the other thing I would say is, some of this is about, you know, at least somewhat of a frame for those people that have some anxiety about so if the, if the public and as a whole, you know, we, we think in case of in terms of worst case scenario so yeah, we try to think about those things so it's really about that I think for me. I mean, I mean I guess I completely disagree with the idea that our job is to deal with people's anxiety, unless it's reasonable anxiety, and I unless we're prepared to create a duty to file report for all the package stores in town. I just, you know, I disagree with having a requirement for retail cannabis that we don't have for retail alcohol. And I suspect that if we tell all the liquor store spirit house etc, that they have this kind of duty to file report we're going to get an earful and that's fine if that's if that's really the standard that we think is necessary I don't know if there's any. If we can point to any single fact of something that's happened that warrants this and so I guess number one I don't think we're here to deal with unreasonable anxieties and number two. I don't think that there's any justification for a stricter standard for cannabis retail establishment then an alcohol retail establishment. I was going to say I actually, I agree with Gaston and maybe the, what we start with is just with every renewal part of that is filed with emergency services or a check in with the police department to see if things have been called because I do think that this is vastly illegal to have alcohol regulations which is fine, you know, but I'm afraid that we're going to have a reputation then for being hard to do business with in town. Yeah, I mean, I, I appreciate these comments I'm going to, you know, I sort of put that in it was, again, I was definitely leaning on some other communities and sort of things that they were doing and thinking about this and and I think that, you know, the intention here. And I fully sort of understand and respect this and it does beg the question should we, you know, if we're going to have something kind of like this, even if it's more prepared down than this, you know, should we have something similar outside of bars, or outside of package or whatever I mean, you know, sort of, I do think that's the case is that if we enact this for this circumstance we certainly, you know, need to look at whether we need to do that somewhere else. I also think, you know, the, the, I think the intention behind this when in some respects was was really about, you know, putting some, some onus on the on the licensee to be and continue to be an active and neighbor and partner with the community around issues of safety. And I think that, you know, I think because, you know, and I think that what may have driven this section from into into some other people's sort of regulations was, was some concern that because it has formerly been an illegal activity. And I think that there may be, you know, a larger number of, you know, concerns with who might be there and they may want to operate in a way that that would be the case if it was still an illegal activity so I don't know I mean I haven't heard it from any of those people if they, you know, they want to come to our meetings and tell us their concerns that we can hear. I think, I think we can take it out or or modify much more significantly, you know, I think we want to think of it, I would suggest if something like this is in, in place, you know, and again I think looking at like host community agreement sort of see what we have around the sort of safety and reporting kind of concerns within there that may be sufficient and this doesn't need to be here at all I mean, I'm not, I'm playing some of what I'm saying today is kind of playing devil's advocate. Good, because I'm not. I wouldn't say I'm, you know, like, going to follow my sword for this pretty by any rate, any measure you know, and I think there's some, some authority questions at races and so that's, that's good that's I'm glad we're having a conversation about it. Great. Why don't we keep going Steve, and we can come back to that later. This is a change I made to, I think this was taken from Halley's liquor license guidelines I just made this in both of them that have more than three in a year, or one year or three years, three years. And fees we would just put that at the top to be consistent with formatting and everything else. Okay. Great. So, what, so next up Doug you're just going to go over it again and yeah, the changes and think about the what we discussed about the reporting section. Yeah, some really, you know, some helpful and useful sort of feedback on on some of these points that that, you know, seem rather benign when you sort of glance at it but then you start thinking a little more deeply about them and it's like, oh wait a minute. We have some ripple effects and unintended consequences that we want to, you know, we don't want to over regulate because that's just an untenable situation for us as well as the owners and I think it gets to Halley's point we've become sort of business and I think we do this role, you know, serve as a sounding board for, you know, thinking about those things that can go badly and what does that mean and what how do we want to react to that as a community. And so it's, you know, there's a balance to be struck between things and so this has really been super helpful and, and I'll go back with Steve will go through these. Again, and see if we can kind of nuance it a bit and, and, and like I say, you know, like on that duty to file I mean I'll look at what's in our post-community agreements now, see what we've already sort of framed as a requirement of people and, and see if that may give us a little guidance about that and, and then I think also thinking of that in context of our liquor licensees as well. Because we don't want to be burning one versus the other unnecessarily I think that's unfair and, and, and really unnecessary because I think, you know, it doesn't serve serve us well in the long run. Thanks. Gaston. And I just want to go. Steve made a comment about like trying to anticipate the social use and I guess I, I'd like to suggest that we not try to get ahead of things too much I think that the kind of structure that Doug has drafted here will make it easy to adapt to to social use but I think it's very hard to kind of guess at how the laws are going to come down and, and where we need to worry about so I, I would suggest we try to make this exactly right for retail. And then we've got a starting point to make adaptations for for social use when it comes our way. I think that's a very good point. Yeah, who knows. Yeah, I do too. Thanks. If I may just add a little to that I'm, I was hopeful that it would be at least a starting place and that that way if it gets enacted in sort of, you know, as was the case with with the don't use it kind of rolled out before everybody was really really ready so there's a frame and some framework from which to operate there's obviously some, some particulars that will need to be thought through and that'll depend on to guess the point Gaston's point, you know, sort of what and how the legislature and accent what they, you know, require don't or that sort of thing but I think this hopefully will give us, you know, a frame that's still functional for us at the start. Okay, so what is next on the agenda. We have rental registration. Oh, are we doing this one today doesn't have anything on this are we. No, yeah. Okay. All right, so forget about that lunch cart regulations were is still the draft is still in process. Yeah, so I met with the finance director and the collector today actually about the parking issue at three o'clock. And they were pretty open to a number of different approaches. They said that in other cases there are like the funeral home and the church I believe has they pay some fee and they actually get the bags you can put over the meters to to reserve them. And that would be an option if people were looking to reserve spaces. But I think that comes back to the entire question of do we allow for spaces to be reserved which I lean pretty strongly towards no but I'm definitely open to counter arguments on that. And they also said that you know probably the easiest thing would be that they just have to feed the meter and parking enforceables have to keep up with them on that. And they could also potentially I brought up the idea of, we get these town employees, certain town employees get these kind of laminated placards that you put in your dashboard that you know inspectors use them if they're on a job site or something and they have to park in a space and, you know, it's, you know, you don't have to pay for it because you're in the line of duty so to speak. And something like that you know maybe they pay. Oh, I guess one. And yeah, maybe you pay, you know, 250 300 bucks. I don't know the number would be but some some fee a year. And then you have that. I guess you have to make sure they're not just using it to go to the bars of the weekends or something but. But that could be an option to and prepaying you know a month in advance would be would be an option but I think that would probably be be challenging with the kind of more flexible approach we're taking. Yes, that's the, the feedback I got so I will, yeah try to collate that and get our comments and have a nice complete draft for us next time. All right, super. Great, thank you. So, lots to look forward to. Okay, license fee comparison guest on here. Yes okay so so I put in some hours and did some analysis I guess I think you can put up the document that has the title of analysis. I would suggest if you all can also maybe open the spreadsheet on your computers. What I did was try to actually put the same the corresponding fee for different towns on the same line of the spreadsheet so we could see the differences. And what that demonstrates is that we are indeed, you know very much more expensive than our neighboring communities, in some cases by a lot. So, you know that raises a general question about, do we want to lower fees, and if so, what's the principle, I want to kind of pause that we can come back to it. What I'd like to actually spend a few minutes talking about is what other towns are doing that we don't do it all and some distinctions that they draw, which we might consider relevant and useful in calibrating our fee structure. So, in terms of other licenses. And I definitely appreciate any feedback from you from, I think, maybe Steven Doug or the ones who may have some other knowledge here than, than what I could gather just from reading the fee schedules, but a number of towns have seasonal all alcohol licenses and we, we seem to only have seasonal wine and malt. So, you know just raises a question, who would be the potential applicant. I don't know I assume that is there an unlimited quota for seasonal all alcohol licenses. Does anyone have any knowledge about that category. I can say about seasonal I don't really know anything about the distinction between all alcohol and wine and malt off the top of my head but I didn't think it was restricted to wine and malt I guess that's not really something I had considered. But I do know seasonal licenses are generally intended for, you know, we kind of have an inverse busy and, and, and slow season and all the vacation towns in the Cape and everything and I think that's what seasonals really made for us. You know, Falmouth or Chatham or things like that where, you know, it just people don't don't run all the restaurants during the winter. And they are that without a quota there is no quota for seasonal. I could be wrong with this but I do remember talking to somebody in Northampton and they have a couple off quota licenses which we'll get to but I believe one of the ways to get to there is to have a seasonal license for one year and then you can convert it into an off quota license. And if whatever conditions are are in place are set, which I'm not entirely certain of but the only seasonal license we have is the town's own Cherry Hill. It doesn't really fit Amherst very well, but, but it is it is a pretty pretty long period of I think in April to the end of November. If I may just talk about seasonal license I think that's you know like you say at the Cape where it's vacation driven sort of economy in that area I think also, I think there's a lot of golf courses around that that are like our golf course that have a seasonal license. We actually Amherst golf club at the Amherst college is also seasonal license or has been they may have may have converted to full license. And just back to your thing about sort of having a seasonal license then converting to a to a sort of non quota or above quota license I think anytime you go above quota you need an actual legislature but I think by being a seasonal operator you demonstrate that you're, you know, a good citizen of your town and that poor gives the legislature a little more comfort and allowing an extra license in the community. That's what I would suggest there I think it still requires, you know, formally to if you have a, if, if, if the town needs to go above their quota they actually have to get an act the legislature to get that that extra license and so I think that, you know, those seasonal licenses that can convert it are probably, you know, you've demonstrated that you're a good, you know, that it's not a burden on the town it's a necessary, you know, what's the term that they use a sort of a need is being met kind of circumstance so So I guess one question would be if we had a seasonal alcohol would cherry hill be inclined to go that way I mean I'm totally ignorant about it. I can't speak for them I'm not a golfer doubt it but okay. I was just going to ask you know the thing is is that you know, on short term licenses, you have to be a nonprofit to have an all alcohol license, which I've always thought is a little of a curious sort of thing that if you're for profit. You can't serve all alcohol but if you're nonprofit. You know have at it. And a short term license that that may also apply with seasonal is that that, because that's it I think if I'm correct, you know, and Steve you can correct me if I'm wrong but I think that that limitation on on short term licenses being all alcohol only allowed for nonprofits is in state law correct. Yes, yeah. But it may also may also apply to the, I would think it might apply to the, to the seasonal one so it would have to be a non, they'd have to be declared themselves a nonprofit to do that. I'll look I'll look into that. What many towns had is like a farm slash winery pouring license and I think what's relevant is that it's seemed to be significantly less expensive than our hundred dollar licenses. And so I guess I'd be inclined to to charge these winery farms less than the hundred bucks to do an event. So, if I can interject their guests don't I actually had to do a deep dive on this for for somebody maybe month ago. So, there's that that's a special category you know Massachusetts has the three tiered system of liquor liquor regulation where there's the manufacturer the distributor and the and the the retailer, and I think in 2014 there was a law that there were a farmer breweries and farmer wineries to be created which are kind of why they said this explosion of the small scale. You know the watch you sit type. What's the one in a four hill those types of things city, and the farmer winery or farmer brewery pouring permits allows them to. They get they get licensed through the state and the and the ATF to do the brewing activity and the local town doesn't have anything beyond zoning but then they can get a pouring permit which allows them to actually serve on on their site and that's what that is so that's an addition to all their it's restricted just to that class of state licensed farmer breweries or farmer wineries. Well, but I'll just point out that I check which town it is, but that has like for the this category $50 per event. That's very strange. Yeah, yeah. So, I guess we can try to make sense of it and see if that's something that's available to us. Let me see which, if I can point out one that had that. I do actually I'm very curious to see which one has that as you're looking we do actually have a the Amherst farm winery actually holds that license and it's never been on our yeah, our feature for some reason but green fields. So if you, you know, I'll go but this would be in the license fee compare comparison word document I'm going to go to Greenfield and if what they have is in off off premise actually. So, the green bonus license farmer winery at agricultural event $50. That could be that could be akin to our. The, the farmers market once we do. Okay. Not even sure if we charge for those. Okay. Well, so let me go into some of the distinctions that are out there because again if as we're thinking of changing fees, we might want to take advantage of some of these distinctions Cambridge City of Cambridge. distinctions. Cambridge City of Cambridge charges a lot more for a new licensee than for a renewal like way more like you know 7,000 versus 4,000 some that kind of difference. North Hampton if you're a you know package store they charge significant you know noticeably more if it's over 5,000 square feet so by size. Hadley at this one I really like actually Hadley charges for profit businesses that want a short term license much more than nonprofits. I'd be inclined to kind of go along with something like that if you're doing a short term license and you're in it for the money we should get more of it than if you're a non-profit just trying to have an event. Salem has some licensees that are 6 day versus 7 day I guess they still have like an old blue law no Sunday sales they charge you know noticeably less. Several towns charge different amounts for wine and malts restaurant versus what do I meant right there I meant to I think I meant to have common wait what was I club sorry versus club club we have we have the same fee for clubs and restaurants for wine and malts a number of towns charge more to restaurants and clubs which makes sense to me as well. Okay we talked about the seasonal already another way of I guess segmenting the market for the short term license Cambridge charges more for a short term license event that has more than 100 people. Okay I don't know what Northampton's wine and malt special licenses I guess that's just a question they also have pouring permits I don't know exactly what that refers to it's a different price than everything else. Cambridge happens to have a malt only so they've got malt and wine and also malt only which costs less than the wine and malt. A puzzle that I called Steve about and and we didn't really figure out is why Holyoke has different price points for common victuollars and restaurants. What that distinction is we weren't really sure about Doug I don't know if you can make sense of that one. Maybe that's you know the the the difference between you know the hot dogs at at Cumberland farm and the beer that they might sell versus you know versus an actual sit-down restaurant kind of place. Okay I'm guessing. Yep okay interesting. I don't think this is maybe relevant in Amherst but Cambridge charges more for a hotel license depending on the number of rooms so more than a hundred rooms and it's considerably more expensive. Cambridge also has a separate category of educational licenses. When you look at it closely you see the only differences that they don't try to gouge you the first year on the educational license but the renewals are the same amounts as other licensees. So I don't know based on these various distinctions and the fact that we are generally more expensive I wonder if you got any ideas or you have any questions to think about it. I mean I guess my purpose today was just to try to lay out some of the facts and different approaches that are out there so that we can rethink ours and not be limited by what we currently have in place. So a couple of things first I'll ask a quick question on the educational license for Cambridge does that mean like on on campus those licenses on. I think yeah I think it's for university. They're thinking about them as less in it for the profit than say just a bar down the street. I mean the only difference is just that first year actually. Yeah if I had to hazard a guess I remember when we were first and I think in our first year here when we were looking at the short term licenses we were kind of looking at a way to get you massive like the section 14 which is the short term section has the provision for kind of a long term short term kind of a standing short term license for educational institutions and we didn't end up pursuing it but I wonder if that's where that is. I mean if there was any town or city in Commonwealth that did it probably Cambridge. Yeah I think that that's right that that rings a bell in my head to see. The other thing I think and I just want to pose this as you know I've been thinking about this a little bit just in general around fees and so I think we want to think about it and I think the rationale is different for different kinds of licenses we're talking most about alcohol ones here it's like you know what is our intention behind this this license fee in other words are we you know are we I mean a piece of it is we're trying to generate a little revenue for the town to cover you know staff time and are we thinking oh in in certain circumstances you know the likelihood of of something more expensive like you know police activity etc happens and so we're going to charge more for those those licenses and I think you know the I think perhaps the other rationale certainly around liquor licenses in Amherst is because of the large student population and you know and the sort of perceived a real risk you know with younger consumers of alcohol and underage drinking that that we sort of you know ask people to commit on a on a serious level because we have more overall you know things we have to deal with as a community because of that so we have you know more police activity not just you know not just specifically at you know sort of the bars and that sort of thing but in and around you know the community related to alcohol and so we're trying to kind of make ourselves whole but also you know ask of those people that you know they we're going to ask you for a lot of money because we want you to you're you're likely to do well financially here and also you know we want you to be a serious partner with us and in our community so I think those are all factors but I think you know what's our intention with these fees is one of the questions we need to kind of pose ourselves as we think about how to set them and and how we compare to other communities that that makes sense to me that in some ways it's kind of like an infrastructure fee for what the town needs you know just like they need to do more inspections of these apartments for students in a way the kind of the the restaurants with liquor licenses are helping pay for that in a sense the other side of it I mean I like with the for-profit businesses doing the short-term license I I see that as kind of profit sharing being part of the the rationale I mean maybe that you know whether that's a legitimate rationale I we can discuss but I I don't have a problem with it myself yeah I think that's a very good idea for a for-profit business to have a higher fee does anybody did you go into any sorry because I I do see the rationale behind charging a higher fee for a liquor license in Amherst just because of everything that is involved and we do want some kind of commitment from them they're going to take it seriously because of all the other issues involved and did you do any historical work or check to see when the that fee has been most recently said or updated I'm to be honest I I'm not I don't even know how to how to do does the town even you know I haven't I love archives but I haven't gotten into the right the town offices archives to try to see that kind of stuff I'm just wondering how recently it was you know it was changed I mean Doug you may remember you remember Doug was you don't recall you know I don't recall it's like we're taking that up for you know certainly not while I was on it so that I mean you know you're considered we've been there with a new form of government for for three years plus you know you kind of go back so it's it's been a long while since we've changed our rates okay around alcohol licenses so we set them pretty high whenever we last set them which might have been you know 2014-2015 okay but you know whether that's formally recorded anywhere so we can actually kind of figure that out I don't even know right I was just curious I was um so we might want to so you're thinking guest on that we for the short term alcohol to split that off at some point and I mean you know yeah you know there's a trade-off between complication and whatever other principle we have but personally I would be um I mean in a sense it's also like in encouraging for-profit businesses to make some money with short-term licenses is part of the spirit of charging more and is that we were happy to take the time on those because we're kind of promoting that sort of activity and and the town is getting paid for it in a certain sense I mean I just I guess the thing to notice uh if you go to the spreadsheet is that every other town is way less except for I'm just looking now at all alcohol restaurant to use that as a kind of a benchmark Hadley's the same every other town is way less except for Cambridge which is a 500 bucks more so um I mean I again I think that um that that the explanation that Doug gave for that kind of difference is makes sense and I think it's justifiable but I guess the question is where do we want to try to be more encouraging to the businesses by tinkering with the fees is there a place where right particularly painful that we can um that we don't need to you know we can make it less painful um and it's hard for me to know that without talking to to businesses right Steve have you heard any like in dealing with the business owners any complaints or um I mean I would say universal grumbling for everybody in the uh premises restaurant category um I mean I think they just kind of accept it as a a fact of life but um that certainly doesn't mean it can be adjusted I mean one thing that's always really stood out to me is the massive delta between the all alcohol and the wine and malt categories um because you can cause a lot of trouble on just wine and malt that is true yeah Doug I just say we just need to raise that wine and malt a lot higher right I know actually you know to be a little more serious you know I think an interesting data point that that I think about in talking about this is that you know it would be it would be interesting to know whether the sort of volume of sales in uh in Amherst in and around alcohol you know how they compare and I don't know if there's any way to get this data because the thing is this if we have uh you know a higher volume of alcohol sold because of college age you know or whatever you know events at the university uh you know you think about it you know the athletics you know facilities and that sort of thing you know if we're if we're a community where it generates a lot more revenue for those businesses then then it makes sense to charge more for those licenses in some ways because they're going to make it back pretty easily and pretty quickly and we know we have associated uh things that we have to do around uh enforcement and and uh you know and and uh issues of of you know parties that get out of hand and that kind of thing um but if it's not if if it's not such that the sales are you know noticeably different than you know Northampton sales and in their locations or or other communities around us on a sort of per capita basis uh then then I think it it it sort of makes a little bit of questions like are we placing an undue burden but I don't know if we can get any of that kind of data and I don't know if our if our you know it could be a thing we could you kind of pose that question to our to our licensees and sort of see what that volume is and I'm I'm sure there's some probably you know you know statewide or regional or national you know sort of uh metrics on that kind of sales per you know square foot per capita or something that we compare to because I think if if if we are a lot higher then I think you know there's a there's another defensive rationale for having a higher fee for those for those licenses um if we're if we're not if we're not really selling more alcohol than anybody else you know then I think it's harder to make that that case right I wish it also factor in and I know we talked about this before the cost of only public services um attached to any mischief that comes out of such things yeah I'm sorry Dylan I was just gonna say I I uh I think maybe for a non-profit I could see splitting it off but I won't be swayed to to lower any fees on any of the for-profit bars I know uh I'm not gonna name any names of businesses but I know a lot of them are owned by multiple owners and I've I've seen the pictures of the homes of some of the owners who don't have another enterprise and they've never set foot in the building but they own it and it's like damn apparently owning a bar that you never work at or go to is uh it's the way to go I think they I think that one of the multiple people who are are in this I think they can afford the $3,500 like I think at the end of the day maybe maybe the rest of the towns they're all just suckers for not charging more right maybe we should go up that could be true yeah I mean I'd be curious about we could maybe raise the wine and malt and reduce the all alcohol kind of proportionally and see how that does because I think you know whoever mentioned that you can get I think Dylan they can get into a lot of trouble or see with wine and malt too I mean I think that that is very true I guess I kind of following on Dylan's comment I um I'd be inclined to consider differentiating restaurants from bars so that the like an all alcohol what do we call it general on premises is higher than an all alcohol restaurant I don't know if if that makes any sense to anyone else oh yeah no that would that's that's a good idea no was there did you have one in here where they a town does that I can't remember I was looking for it oh um let me see that they charge less for a restaurant that has a bar in it and just oh you know what I I don't I don't think I saw in fact I think a lot of times don't even differentiate on the fee schedule between the bars and restaurants okay I was thinking the same thing Gaston that kind of almost brings us right full circle to our old situation before we got rid of the the food requirement where people would be making these fake tiny kitchens to to qualify as a restaurant um I guess at a certain level of investment in certain level of kitchen quality we demand um it wouldn't be worth it for them not to just pay the the difference but um I think nothing is new in the world yeah it doesn't repeat but it rhymes well um so obviously I didn't even touch anything besides alcohol because there's enough to to chew on here um what do um I mean I'm happy to kind of think through and maybe put like characterize a few different ways that we could go and and and kind of put that before us and and talk about it further what what do you all see as the next steps here I'd love to run this by the finance director Gaston I think he'd um he'd have some good thoughts and um you know probably probably a good person to talk to before any any radical changes but um I think he'd be uh he'd be very happy to see this so I'll send that along to him for sure Dylan you had oh yeah Dylan I was gonna say I could I could definitely get on board um not not splitting bars from restaurants but splitting profit enterprises from non-profit oh definitely yeah charging a lower fee there um I I could also uh get on board with with raising um wine and malt uh up a little bit but bring the prices down anywhere for for for profit enterprises not saying we have to raise them anywhere but bring them down anywhere I I can't get on board with that these are are very profitable businesses in a town that is very profitable for it you know you don't have to drive you have to drive if you want to grab the drink and Hadley students can all walk to the places up here in town um and even in another section of town so many students live in those areas that it's all walking distance to a large drinking population of folks so I uh I I could say stay the same go up um but yeah the only the only area I'm on board with lowering would be four non-profits or yeah charity organizations things like that okay so um maybe maybe the next um uh step would be to actually get the feedback from the finance director and that can kind of inform that that side of the equation kind of principles relating to town finances and then we can kind of connect it to our our other ideas of relevant principles okay sounds good all right thank you Gaston um any other questions fantastic thank you yeah it's really good okay on to guidelines regulations for liquor licenses and everybody who's a draft most current draft of that one uh steve emailed it yes right before the meeting I'm pulling that up here so we don't need to dig it out um oh great okay yeah so I had a conversation with howie today too and really just a couple tweaks um just um just kind of changed this to to fit with our other definitions formatting um and I also as we as I was going through this I um I just kind of flagged some things that um that are in here there would be a change from our current practices um just because I think um as a whole these guidelines are are really great and really strong but I wanted to make sure we we kind of recognized um everything that was that would be changing as opposed to just what's kind of formal formalizing and um and laying out what we already do um so maybe I'll just run through it real quickly and then we'll kind of go back through any of the the controversial things to discuss um so one thing I pointed out was that um requiring tip certification for manager and serving staff would be a change we do require tip certification for short-term licenses and people who serve at short-term license licensing events but we do not require them um at all for for on-premises um or um or off-premises and actually thinking about this I wonder we should think about if that would that would apply to off-premises um and um this this we uh we discussed we just kind of I think if we if we put any or all in there instead of just all I think that reflects our current practice we're in certain situations we do ask for it um this was just some some housekeeping there um a full-time manager I think um that's kind of what I guess the ABCC says in a way but I think it is an interesting thing to think about how much do we expect from the managers because I think there are some of them who are you know actually you know quasi sole proprietors and they're every single day seven days a week and I assume that who I don't know if they ever actually go there and it's pretty much just on paper so it's interesting to think about if there's some kind of requirement we would put on um how I've suggested uh deleting that because it's already in in the um ABCC regulations um server training requirement the tips that type of thing that again would be a change another thing I pointed out that if the board did want to require that then it would also probably be pretty difficult for um most applicants to to provide anything from they probably wouldn't have servers hired up at the time they're um they're applying for liquor license um you know for example protocol and the oyster bar theirs just actually came back from the ABCC and they still have a couple months of construction ready to go um there was some change with this about um this was just kind of different I know I think last year the year before we changed the language in our um on the license itself to reflect um this kind of timetable as opposed to this one at Halley said it would be fine just to swap that in um unless people want to feel like we should bring that topic up um this we were just kind of considering you know what would what would prompt that what would um you know the posting of detailed officers what would prompt that what would um what we know what point would that be done that'd be done in response to discipline or would that be done proactively for some kind of event um that type of thing um and then for this only offenses occurred within three years preceding the date of violation shall be used in calculating the number of offenses for the purses of disciplinary guidelines I think that's a good thing to think about is does that mean um each is each charge a previous offense or is each incident leading to charges a previous event because for example with hazels I think they had six um three or six counts of serving a minor and that mean they automatically go to three offenses or would that be um three incidents leading to an offense so that should be easy to clear up but that's something to think about and then this would be that um if there's a license suspension restaurants or other businesses that sell food can't continue to serve even food without alcohol without the approval of the board which um that would be a new condition and we suspended Porta's license um we didn't um we they they continue to serve food and um I know in the abcc suspends a license there's nothing about food there too I don't know if we need to suspend the common vic in that point uh kp a lot at the point of anything about it but um that's what came to mind with me anyway so um I guess we can now that we've gone over I guess we can just kind of jump through those issues I think this um this is a really tremendous draft how I put together it's pretty much ready to be adopted with a couple um formatting tweaks and kind of think about these issues so I guess the first one the big one is um requiring tip certification for manager and all servers that would be definitely a change we require for managers right I mean or or or equivalent yes was that yes it's not required I don't believe so I could be wrong but I don't I don't believe so I think it's just required for the man manager on the alcohol license right now okay for a short term yeah for short term licenses it's definitely required right but for it's not for an establishment why is that really we had it as a we've requested it though right yeah we yeah maybe we just start with the manager having to have it but I mean I've been tip certified to do a fundraiser for the jones library I mean it's not that hard to do yeah was it useful no sorry was it useful I mean it was common sense kind of I mean it took about two hours I did it online at my own pace I mean I think if it's something we want to require I would partner with Gabrielle and see if you know we could just do some classes for free for employees in town I don't know what I would suggest I I don't I kind of like the idea of having everybody's tip certified I think you know or and you know obviously if you know tips changes its name or thing changes we'll have to modify but I don't think it's a bad thing I think the thing would if we want to put that in and I would say I'm okay with that I think the thing we would want to do is because at this point it's like they wouldn't necessarily have all their staff in place is is set a time frame in which they need to have all staff tip certified and then of course you know on renewal we need them to sort of produce evidence that everybody's tip certified so I think it becomes this sort of other piece of reporting you know because otherwise you know you can say oh everybody needs to be tip certified but if you don't ever check then they're never going to necessarily do it I mean they just won't be diligent about it so I think if we put that in then I think we need to think about well what are those sort of mechanics of checking on this at least somewhat periodically to to see if they're being compliant with that and you know if we feel it's it's worthwhile for people to do and and it adds value and you know makes for better you know service and and and you know safer alcohol service then you know I think we just have to put those other pieces in in place as as part of parcel out and again try not to be too onerous within a reasonable time frames for people to to become compliant or at least you know share their information with us and you know that would be the suggestions I'd make relative to that um guest on I mean it's it's a bit expensive right it's like a hundred bucks is that right uh when I did I think it was like 75 but that's why I mean it would be a happy to sponsor it I mean I I think I like the idea personally of one person who's at all times be tip certified I think that that gives some level of accountability the manager right yeah the manager is not always there so maybe we change the term to an on-premises manager or on-site manager yeah I think I didn't realize it was that expensive to do the class because that is that's a bit more of a burden you know um on on folks and or a business to take on so that's yeah that's true I think so and especially because sometimes staff tend to come and go yeah Ellen you're you've been doing bartending what's your take on this yeah I mean it's it's definitely going to be a cost that gets pushed onto the employees when I had to do mine you know I had to pay for it I wasn't reimbursed for it oh wow so yeah it's one of those things do I am I really going to fight about you know what ended up being a less than a hundred dollars that kind of thing so if we do that it's essentially just going to be I think a tax on employees I like the idea of it I think it was it wasn't a total waste of time I think maybe 15 minutes out of it was helpful as opposed to you know maybe the two hours um but I think it's good to have somebody at least one person on there because as long as one person's done it you know they can be uh you know Johnny trivia with the uh with the information they can throw out there like well actually you know this yeah rule on it so so is the tips oh sorry go ahead no no no I mean I was just gonna say one person at all time is Dylan or just or the manager who's the official manager it could be uh whatever whoever's acting as the manager I think anyone who wants to be you know a supervisor a requirement of that would be you know do do the tip certification class um and then I think you're gonna get if they're gonna make someone a manager then that the business will much more likely take on the cost of that because they know there this is somebody who's not gonna leave them in two months rather than the business being like all right tip certification oh and you're gone because you know the restaurant industry right um and I and I know a lot of restaurants even though they're not required to they'll they will make their staff do that because it's yeah just uh I think it's a liability issue the the more steps you've taken to as a precaution to the violations if you get in trouble you go well hey we did mandate all of our staff do this and then we ended up with someone who's a bad apple I don't know um but I don't I don't think it's necessary to make all serving staff do it uh at least on our end okay so let's take that out I'm happy to okay the whole thing I would say um to the manager or anyone acting as manager how we want to word that right somebody on staff should be tips or about at any time I think would be a good kind of medium sort of middle ground for that I agree and how does that work Dylan I've never worked in that industry but if you know a lot of places you know maybe not the stackers McMurphy's type but you know it's the quiet place late at night you know right before clothes restaurants especially would there always be like a manager on duty or would it be kind of like just a senior you know there's uh I've never worked in a restaurant where you don't have a manager on duty um even even if there was no liability issue no restaurant whatever uh let it be run by by just the staff there's so many so many things that need to be done that require a manager approval um that you you can't even operate the all the computer systems for certain tasks without a manager present yeah okay um I wonder maybe exempting the um private clubs and veterans clubs in this too I like I like the idea of just a manager but um I know at least the VFW I used to go there to pretty much just have one person I mean I'm not I'm not necessarily uncomfortable with the idea of if if it really is like an establishment like that that's it is just one bartender and that's basically they run the show we wanted to mandate that we could but again I don't feel that it's so um necessary uh I think I think we'd be better off serving being served by uh mandating ID scanners than we would be by by tip certification if we really wanted to we're really trying to address a problem here um which I think one of the things I don't even know if it's really offered anywhere I know when I had worked in a as a bouncer uh years ago at Sackers and McMurphy's we had the ID scanner but you know no one's particularly trained on how to use it so sometimes you scan an ID and it will come back with certain failings but you scan it again and it will come back just fine um and yeah some of the IDs I had uh borrowed a fake one from somebody who I work with at uh the restaurant and I tried it on a scanner to see what would happen I taken it to the McMurphy's one and it fails the way that it should um but sometimes real IDs would fail in that way as well at least in my experience when I had used to do it um so I think an area there if we're really looking to to improve something maybe we should try to figure something out like that is there anything useful out there is there's something affordable for restaurants to to sign up for I'm not sure but even something like that I think would serve us better than than mandating tip certification for uh for uh anyone really so we just are we living it in there just as the for the manager or what did you know I prefer that I think it's it's worthwhile to have that that I think just one perfect I do I do respect that the point Dylan's making I think there are some higher leverage things we might consider like scanners you know that may be a consideration but again you know that the scanners is a it's a tricky one because I think you know when uh I think it was um when uh the spoke came you know they were expanding their space and they were talking about it and and you know he spoke to what that expense was and that you really have to be diligent about keeping the software up to date so that it continues to to get the latest uh you know uh updates on what what kind of things are being used and to to sort of pick up the machine so you know that's a that's an interesting burden to place on the business you know maybe a thing my suggestion maybe it's is around electronic scanners is maybe in places where uh you know they're they're general alcohol or general you know uh and not as much a restaurant because I think the likelihood of the restaurant uh is less I mean although we have had trouble in restaurants too so I mean it's well that's why we reserve the right yeah like if that's a consistent problem it's there so if we go to a restaurant say no you you know you've come before us you need a scanner it's it's there so they should anticipate that it could you know problem and we can write enough concerns or eyes the board but I think I don't I don't see us mandating it for restaurants anytime soon right I would agree would we want to make the tip certification something we would mandate if there's like a violation I think I was just thinking about that I was also thinking about that relative scanners too is that that could be you know something that's a consideration uh you know maybe in lieu of suspending a license we have to get a scanner or you know something like that or or you know it I think that's an interesting idea of of whether that could be part of the you know sort of discipline as it were you know in those circumstances I don't know if that becomes an addendum to their license that has that requirement you know I don't know I think it is something we could order in a in a violation notice yeah I think about sort of is it persistent and required for subsequent renewal for just that one license older you know that kind of thing I think about um just a pragmatic sort of you know renewal and that sort of thing you know um and that's not to say we shouldn't do it I'm just saying we just want to be clear so that the businesses have a clear understanding of their expectations if that were to happen to them so I guess I just want to be clear because we had some some different different opinions so we had um Doug is in favor of um tips from manager Dillon was in favor of not really not not requiring tips for anybody um how we seem in favor of tips from manager Gaston and Marion how do you well I mean I will say that this whole sentence is prem is prefaced with ordinarily the following will be the criteria so this is not a you know terribly binding sentence so I think the idea of ordinarily we're looking for tip certification for the manager I'm fine with that I think this would be more on point there's a couple places where it was okay I don't have any opposition to managers having tips or occasion that we mandate that I have no opposition to that at all it's just something that if it were just up to me I really can go either way on it all right well seems like there's a consensus for manager yeah but when we see manager it's like the official manager as opposed to some idea that there has to be someone the acting manager right yeah I just say the acting manager I like that oh okay so that's that's a stronger requirement than just the manager which is like one person who who knows how many hours they're there I mean if we're gonna do it at all I might as well like to do it the right way and have it be the acting manager I would agree with that okay and you know if we look at the cost of what people are spending on their liquor license $75 tip certification is not you know it's not nothing but it's right and so just to get back to Gaston's point about the beginning of the sentence should we take out ordinarily since we are I mean we want this it's not like usually we know about this but on Thursday some Thursdays we we don't you know yeah ordinarily the following criteria and request so the following criteria and prerequisites for evaluating only licenses are tip certification for the acting manager physical space is that do we take that oh yeah I mean even if we say it's the criteria we we're it's not binding us so I'm fine that deleting ordinarily and okay I also don't know like would we would we ever use these for for license violations I mean we wouldn't necessarily I mean I feel like that's kind of I wouldn't look if they're like site plan for a license violation unless we just kind of get orientation I mean and modifications I mean it could just be a a change of manager or something we wouldn't necessarily look at the site plan or the public need or anything we just want to make this evaluating all all new licenses we could say and if applicable and if relevant I like that just to follow up while you're typing that in state the the idea of you know the idea of acting manager I think we define that in our definitions you know as you know sort of person on premises during I mean you don't have to do it right now but I think we can add an acting manager definition just because I think that is distinct from manager that's required by you know ABCC I think that and I'm trying to recall whether or not we've had this conversation before speaking of the sort of manager record you know this came up a little bit with with I forget who it was now they had the same person serving in the roller coaster bar and protocol yeah that's kind of why I brought it up too well I think that person really is there yeah I think that we want to we want to have we may want to set some sort of parameter about what that expectation is around that person in that management role and I'm not saying it's 40 hours a week I think that's not fair to be honest but I do think that there is some level of of on-site um active management that they they need to be participating in I would suggest I'm not I'm open to opinion on this because I'm sort of brainstorming it here a little bit but I do think we want to define that a little bit and I'm trying to recall if we if the ABCC has anything around that do they frame that I think they do they say something like oh you know uh you know they do define the manager in a way if I remember from reading it a while ago you know they don't specify like number of hours but they sort of imply that somebody that regularly is in the business you know and for a you know significant amount of time like pretty much you know all year long kind of thing so they they are and again I'm going from memory here so I may be misremembering but I think they kind of the ABCC I think in some of its documentation is kind of framed that a little bit for us um so I think we might want to look at that and and put that in part of the definition of manager and then the word full-time doesn't have to be here it can just say you know manager record or whatever we want to call that term as opposed to an acting manager who's like actively running the crew that evening you know it's not necessarily named on the license but that's some just just some suggestions around that piece that we were talking about yeah that's I think that's definitely something I think the ABCC asks how many hours they will be there but I don't know what they would cut it off at if somebody put in you know three or something one thing before we get off the topic of the tip certification we're all talking about on-premises right not off-premises right yes okay so I'll just make a note here I know we're getting kind of late here we have a couple of things to finish so um we don't I won't necessarily type everything out if I can so we agree we'll change that to reflect what's in the um the uh the uh license text itself um I think this is an interesting one and Hallie if uh if I understood if I remember correctly you were saying that that would be something um that would be done maybe preemptively if there was like a Blarney blowout or a St. Patrick's Day coming or something exactly but I'm totally fine with taking that out to people don't feel comfortable about that because that's probably something more we would do for a short-term liquor license yeah that's an interesting it's an interesting section because in just to tie back to our earlier conversation about um you know host community agreements have some of that language as well about securing premises and that sort of stuff I don't think it's come to be a problem for anybody I think you know there are there are some things where if the and this happened at Northampton actually had to enforce theirs I think a little bit when when it was so busy when when that first opened there over by the bowling alley because the crowds and and the you know they've got the roundabout right there but they required the business to pay for detail officers to manage traffic and that sort of thing um which is a little different circumstance than what we're talking about here but I think it it it does make the question if we want to put something like this in here relative to this you know maybe a consideration you know for the for the the marijuana retail as a just as a you know again it sort of begs that question it's like should it be here should not you know do we undermine our authority to sort of exert that requirement um or is it something it's kind of covered by other people's rights in responsibility so does the town manager have a you know or the police chief have the authority to say you know this circumstance requires us to be on on on site and we're going to you know charge you for it that kind of thing I don't know you know whether the manager you know the town manager or the police chief have authority to to sort of on their own take care of what's in that section kind of pose the question you Steve well they they can certainly post a police officer I don't know if they can make the licensee pay for it I mean I would not have thought it was in our authority to make to make them pay for something like that anyway outside of a disciplinary violation but Tpila reviewed it they didn't say anything so yeah I think you know sometimes you know you can you can charge people for noose like if you do a false alarm you can be charged you know a nuisance fee basically um you know you could kind of fall under that category of kind of a nuisance charge or a I don't really mean nuisance because obviously we're thinking about public safety and so we're trying to have them there for for you know and about keeping things safe and and under control so anyway that's your right answer afraid I'm going to need to step away shortly I have another meeting at seven and I need to eat something yeah we are running pretty late here maybe we'll um we'll leave this here to continue yeah why don't we continue our discussion until next time thanks so much Hallie and um um what else did we have yet jeez it's almost seven okay um we have the letter to licensees okay did we have minutes today did anyone have a are you going now Gaston no I just want I have one comment to the letter which kind of came up and that is that it seems like the important thing is not not just the scanner but having this a service um that that's the magic happens with your subscription it's really like you know software as a service is what's doing the work are you mean updating this the software um yeah um so make sure your software is updated use the most current use um I mean I don't know what if there's one most current but and subscribe to um a service that is updating I don't know what the the best way to explain it but yeah um what's important is that they're they're updating the software to catch the latest uh you know advances in Chinese fake ID technology okay all right that's that was my only comment the comment okay that can be changed yeah um yeah that's a good yeah go ahead Steve I'm gonna be out tomorrow but I can give you a call on Tuesday and we can kind of just um okay this up and send it out that day that sounds great okay and it was just a very rough draft so um but if everyone's okay with it then I can just talk to Steve and we'll get it out um great any topics not anticipated 48 hours prior to the meeting no okay and there are no me no minutes and our next meeting is on on sorry just lost my calendar the 15th I think the 15 it's on the 15th at five on the Thursday okay oh my gosh everything is on that's the block party too I think oh that that's fine okay person at the block party right yeah we can hold office hours okay and we have no minutes today no no all right is there a motion to adjourn removed thank you Doug as their second Dylan no discussion let's take a vote um Dylan hi Kelly hi Doug hi Gaston hi and I vote aye uh five to zero we are adjourned at 6 47 p.m. all right thanks everybody great meeting bye see you next time bye bye