 Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Act of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so in the following manner by emailing Steve McCarthy at McCarthyS at AmherstMA.gov. That's M-C-C-A-R-T-H-Y-S at AmherstMA.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. In the event that we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship and despite best efforts, we will post on the town website an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of the proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. And so we'll call the meeting to order at 501 p.m. Thursday, October 6th, do a roll call of attendance, Gaston. Here. Dylan. Here. Hallie. Here. And I am here and Doug is not. So we are four here with one absent. And next up is public comment. General public comment not related to anything on the agenda. Is there anyone here? If so, raise your hand by pressing the hand button. And I don't see anyone doing that. So we will move on to our license hearings. Special short-term alcohol serving license application, SST dash 22 dash 70 to Peng Yu Chin, Wynan Malt, Eric Carl Museum, October 8th from six to 11. And is someone here to introduce that? Yes, we have Peng Yu Chin, the applicant. Oh, great. Hello, Mr. Hi. Hi, how are you? Hi. Hi, great. Welcome. Thank you. Would you like to describe your event? It's a wedding reception held at the Eric Carl Museum for 90 adults this Saturday, the 8th of October. And we will start serving food and drinks from six to 10.30. Okay, wonderful. And was there a map included with a license? It did. Yeah. I did include a map, yeah. Yeah, okay. Ended up. They held indoors. Indoors, okay. All right, did everyone get a chance to look over the application? Are there any questions? Yes, Gaston. Are there any, are all the guests above 21, do you know? That I don't know, but my bartenders are tip certified. Okay. And of course they will ask for IDs if they look awfully young. All right. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you very much. If there are no other questions or comments. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Yes, I think you, the application said that you're not with the college, right? No, I'm not. So who do you work for? I work for myself. I run a catering business called PENU Catering LLC in Ames in the round for a little while. Okay, okay. So you're the, you're the caterer in charge of the wedding. Yes. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Are there any other questions or comments regarding this application? If not, is there a motion to approve? I moved. Thank you, Dylan. Is there a second? A second. Thank you, Hallie. Any further discussion? If not, we'll take a vote. Gaston. Aye. Hallie. Dylan. Aye. And I vote aye. That is four to zero with one absent. The application is approved. Thank you so much for coming in and best of luck with your event. Thank you. I need it. Thanks. Bye-bye. Okay. The next one is the common victor's license application for the black sheep. And is this, Steve, is there someone here from the black sheep or is this just a renewal? No, there is not. This is just a very late renewal. Okay. Any discussion about this or should we just, is there a motion to approve? Thank you, Dylan. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Hallie. Is there any discussion? No. All right. Let's take a vote. Hallie. Yes. Aye. Dylan. Aye. Gaston. Aye. And I vote aye. That is four to zero with one absent. The black sheep common victor's license is approved. So great. And on to zooming along onto our public hearings. First one is adoption of regulations for the operations of lunch cards and food trucks in the public way. So I need to open this hearing. Is that right, Steve? Yes. All right. Is there a motion to open the hearing? So moved. Thank you, Dylan. Is there a second? Second. All right. And I vote, I guess, Hallie. Aye. Dylan. Aye. Gaston. Aye. And I vote aye. That is four to zero with one absent. The hearing on the adoption of the lunch cards and food truck regulations is now open. Okay. So Steve, you made a couple of changes. You said you talked to Brian Riley in the past week. Yes. Is that right? So I will, let me share the screen here. Okay. Nothing major. We don't have anyone who's here for the hearing, do we? It doesn't look like it. Okay. So I did just change some wording around some different things on the lunch cards and food trucks to make sure that was all consistent. I did change the wording of mobile food establishment to reflect where that comes from in the health regulations. I don't think we'll cover any watercraft, but we will leave that in there. This was all pretty much the same. I did make a change, a couple of minor changes here that the tow vehicles could be for any lunch cart, not just on sidewalk and that those have to pay the, pay the space to, if they're more than one space. I did add this, these penalties for non-compliance. So I took this off of another one of our regulations. Brian Riley did say that we would be authorized to do so under the statute without any special act by the town council. So I could stick that in there. So hopefully we won't have to revisit these for a while. And I did add a severability section as well. Okay. And the non-compliance was the thing that, yeah, right. Okay. All right, good. Wonderful. And then, yeah, Dylan. Well, I'm sorry. I just, the parking fees part the, it's saying the 10 foot separation that's in both directions. So it would have to take up three spots for a food truck. That's what we talked about and I just forgot about it. I think originally one idea was to have just a, that all food trucks must need three spaces, but they, we also had that it needed 10 feet, I think. And I think we thought that the 10 feet itself would probably make sense because you could have a really big one where 10 feet or three spaces wouldn't be enough or maybe you'd have a really small one or probably would be in three spaces anyway, but I figured that would kind of cover anything, everything anyway. Well, I mean, yeah, I definitely had more time to, to read this and was necessary on this. So I'm not, I'm not about to start nitpicking this at the last minute here. So I love it. You know what? That's my, that's my position on it. It looks great. Let's look for the type of. I'm sure there's a couple in there. All right. Does anyone else have any questions or anything to correct on this? Can we just kind of see how the, that section that talked about the administrative approvals ended up? Oh yeah. Right. Good point. There it was. Okay. Okay. I mean. There we'll fix our typo. You know, let's have, let's have the food trucks. All right, let's do it. So, and then Steve, you said we wanted to put a six month delay effectiveness on the tip certification. Oh no, wait, that's the license regulations. I think they'll get the other one. Yeah. That's the other one. Nevermind, I'm jumping ahead and I'm going to turn myself. Okay. Great. So if there's anyone have any questions about this or comments, if not, should we close the hearing and take a vote? You ready? All right. Is there a motion to close the hearing? All right. Thank you. Dylan is there a second? Second. Thank you, Hallie. We'll take a vote. Gaston. Hi. Dylan. Hi. Hallie. Hi. And I vote aye. Four to zero with one absent. The hearing is now closed. Is there anyone? Do we have any other discussion at all? If not, then is there a motion to approve the, Steve, can you give me the title again? That is the. What is it? Regulations of the operations of lunch carts and food trucks in the public way. Is there a motion to approve regulations for the operations of lunch carts and food trucks in the public way as we have here today? So moved. Thank you, Dylan. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Hallie. Any further discussion? No. All right. Hi. Gaston. Hi. Dylan. Hi. And I vote aye. Because it is four to zero with one absent. The regulations are approved. Yay. Yay. Thank you for. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Mary, for seeing it through. Oh, sure. Thanks, Steve, also for your immense help and glad we got that one done. So on to the next thing. We're going to open up the hearing for. Let liquor license regulations and decisions. Is there a motion to open that hearing? So moved. Thank you, Dylan. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Hallie. We'll take a vote. Gaston. Hi. Hallie. Hi. Dylan. Hi. And I vote aye. That is four to zero with one absent. The hearing is now open. Okay. And so this is the one, Steve, where we wanted the. Yeah, I might suggest to stay a minor modification to the implementation. Okay. So I guess I'll go through any changes. I did make this as set in the border license commissioners fee chart. It might be good to put the fees themselves in here at some point, but I think hopefully we will be taking a quick look at fees before the end of the month. So depending on whether we're able to get some good feedback from the finance department. So I think we'll leave it as that. And if we do make changes, we can maybe merge those two documents. The fee chart might end up being the same. But I guess we'll think about that. I think this suffices for now because we have voted and officially adopted that. In terms of changes, there wasn't really much we hadn't talked about last time and gone over. My one suggestion was that we may want to for the validity section, they take effect upon their approval. I might suggest that we exempt section 5.02, which contains the tips requirements part to maybe extend that becomes effective in six months to give restaurants who may not have anybody who is tip certified time to finance that and have their employees go through those classes and so on and so forth. OK, how does that sound to everybody? I think that sounds fair. Yeah. And OK, I guess we can do that. Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking that if not, I mean, then any restaurant that didn't already have that would be immediately in violation after these are adopted. OK. Any concerns about that, Dylan? He's my only concern is what's our mechanism at all for enforcement of that? What are you going to be doing about that, Steve? Are we giving you a badge and gun? Well, unfortunately, no, the town has not provided that. It would look nice on my bedside table, but I mean, we can we could put a request out to to all the licensees on me. Maybe maybe we'd say April 1st is the day those become that section becomes effective and we would ask for a tip certificate from all the managers of record. And then in terms of operationally, the manager on duty, the police department is the enforcement agency. So they would be able to sample or audit that at any time they go there. OK. Are we are we going to make any sort of request to do it? I mean, I just I like these. I like that we're doing it. I think we put a lot of time into kind of coming to this consensus. It just feels like that's for nothing if we're not going to enforce it and we're not going to enforce it. Then we shouldn't adopt it. It's just kind of my general feeling that being said, I think we should adopt it and shouldn't force it. I just don't know how we actually plan on going about enforcement. That's that's why I asked if it just seems like your your wheelhouse. Are we going to are we going to make a request to the police department to check on that? I think that's up to you to check on the tips status. I mean, you know, one one way of thinking about I mean, I hear your point, we don't want to like create a nullity, right? However, if the norm is in here and any of these places has any other issue and then we ask for the records and they can't produce it, then it's kind of an aggravation. That's one way in which it's not a total nullity. I think another thing that we could consider doing is having like a check the box on renewals. So that the when they're renewing licenses, they're in a position to, you know, sign their name to complying with that requirement. And we could remind them about this and any other things that we think need to be highlighted. Steve, what what do you think about this kind of brainstorming here? No, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I think it's also important to parse out that we're kind of having two different discussions here. I mean, I was only proposing that this section we give them in six months is just something I pulled out of the hat, but we do give them some time to to come into compliance with this because there was no such requirement before. So many managers record might not have tips. And if there wasn't some implementation period, I mean, unless they were attentively following our agendas, they wouldn't even know this was this was coming. So and I think that some kind of implementation period would be fair so they can come into compliance. And in terms of enforcement, which I think is a different issue, regardless of how long of an implementation period there was for this section, I think we it does say that when an application is submitted, the manager of record needs to submit a tip certification. And if they don't have one, they can petition the board to supply it at a later date. But the assumption is that they would have to have it at the at at the time that the application is heard. And then on renewals, we could request an active tip certification for any manager of records for this implementation period whenever it expires. We could, you know, say April 1st, April 1st, we need to have a tip set tips certifications from every manager of record and all the licensees. And then in the in the 2023 end of year renewal period, it can be just kind of a check part of the part of the renewal process. Exactly. Yeah, that sounds fine to me. I think it sounds great. Yeah, it sounds fine to me, too. Yeah, Dylan. No, I'm saying I like that. I do. OK. OK. And I don't love the idea of, you know, sending the cops and be like, hey, show us a certification to have confused managers say my what. So yeah. Yeah, I think for the manager of record, it's a lot easier to do it administratively because that's a person who's who's named but I'm for the manager on duty. I mean, who would really know unless he went there. Yeah, that looked good to everybody. Mm hmm. That looks great. All right. All right. Was there anything else? Or they look good. Any other questions? No. OK. Is there a motion to close the hearing? Don't move. Thank you, Dylan. Is there a second? Second. Thanks, Hallie. For the second, I'll take a vote. Hallie. Hi. Dylan. Hi. Gaston. Hi. And I vote aye. Four to zero with one absent. The hearing is closed. Is there any further discussion? No. OK. Is there a motion to approve these regulations? Don't move. Thank you, Dylan. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Hallie. Is there any further discussion? Last chance. No. OK. Let's take a vote. Gaston. Hi. Dylan. Hi. Hallie. Hi. And I vote aye. Four to zero with one absent. The liquor license decisions slash regulations are approved. Thank you very much. Thank you, Hallie, for all the work on this. Thank you all. And everyone. Yeah. Awesome. We need to now have these kind of as our little Bible during our hearings. Yes, I know. Get a little mini copy that we keep with us at all times. If you would like me to print and mail one to you, I'd be happy to do so. Already any of the regulations, really. Yeah. We've kind of become so used to digital and COVID, but. Right. I can update my binder. Maybe like the landscape two pages on a page, both sides folded kind of thing. Less paper. Yeah. Like a booklet. Yeah. I could probably make that work. That would be great. I have to figure out why the print keeps telling us to replace the stapler cartridge. But besides that, I can send those along. It will be nice and bound. Kind of fun. Cool. All right. Maybe we should have to stop by Town Hall to just like make us move. I'll go pick mine up. Yeah, I'll pick mine up. If you just let us know when they're ready. Yeah. All right. I am writing that down and I will try to get those ready for you. All right. Super. Thank you so much. All right. So topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours prior to the meeting. Are there any topics apart from what we're going to put on the agenda next time? I would say there was a really interesting globe article. I forgot to forward it about the ballot initiative. I don't know if you guys have followed this ballot initiative. I'm not going to do justice to it. So I'm going to send around the article, but it's basically raising the possibility of single businesses owning more licenses. And it has an interesting political history because the original company that was pushing it is no longer pushing it. And it also has statistics about how many requests at the town level for extra licenses were made to the legislature. So I'll forward that to Steve to get around to us. Oh, that would be great. Thanks. Yeah, that would be interesting to read. Yeah, it will be. I did hear that Charlie Baker said he will veto any happy hour legislation that comes before him. Oh, really? Yeah. Yes, yeah. Healy 2022, 2024, whenever she's running, let's go. Do you guys see Biden pardoned all marijuana possession, federal offense? Yeah, that was good. I just didn't hear that. I got to think about that earlier. All right, so next topics. So no other topics anticipated? I do have one actually. So just an update on our licenses and pocket licenses. So I am aware of two pocket licenses at this time, both in the off-premises alcohol category, which is our highest demand probably, at least compared to the quota. We are at quota for that. And that is cousins and university liquors next to the hangar. And cousins, I did speak with. I spoke with Brian Riley earlier this week to try to just get a sense of what to do because there is that provision that they can't really renew if they are not open for business. And I guess it is slightly more complicated than that, but that is pretty much the case. And so they will basically need to either be open in full form as approved and in accordance to their special permits by November 30 and get me to paperwork by November 30th or have a full transfer application submitted by then to be able to renew. And in either case, I think I'm going to send that official letter to them, giving them six months to make up their mind before we can actually take action on it being a pocket license. It has been quite a while for cousins. And they did have an application in this summer, but nothing else has been forthcoming yet despite promises to the contrary. And University Lickers, I have not been able to make contact with that owner. I don't exactly know what's going on there, but it doesn't appear to be occupying the space anymore. So that would be a question of whether the board immediately takes action or to revoke because you need to have control of the space or whether the board would refuse to renew and suggest a transfer or what kind of action would need to be taken. OK. Yes, Gaston. Well, can we basically wait until they apply and when they apply, call them in to talk? Yeah, that could certainly happen as well. I mean, if you reached out to them, I don't know what else we could do, but when they do renew, we can call them in to the next meeting. Yeah, and that would certainly not be eligible for renewal without control of the space. Do you know who their landlord is? It's whoever owns that building. I can try to look it up in the GIS really quickly. I mean, it might just be worth a call or email to the landlord just to ask if he or she knows what's going on. Yeah, I did have a realtor calling me, so it was hearsay, but that he is definitely no longer occupying the space. So it probably would be worth a call to the landlord, though, to get a little bit more information. That is Gleason John Real Rentals, LLC, is the company that owns the property. So what is the process? Because usually we come across transfers or sales of a license like that. What happens if we revoke a license? Well, that is a good question, kind of skipping the rest of the process and going right to the point where the board comes into possession of an in-demand license. I guess there are different ways to do it. I read an article a few couple of years ago in the Gazette. I think E. Tampton had a license that they came back into possession of a, I think it was on-premises, but it was a license type there very much at quota four. And I think they actually had like a courthouse steps auction and auctioned it off. It could also do a lottery, I believe. I think there are a few different schemes you can use. I have had a lot of interest, a lot of people calling about these licenses. And some of them are suggesting just first come, first serve, but I think that would be a little bit ridiculous. I mean, there would be people camping outside of town hall two in the morning on January 1st, like it's a Harry Potter opening or something. And I don't think that's really fair. So probably something like that. It's just curious, thank you. So can everyone hear me? Yeah. Am I coming through? Yeah, my internet is kind of wonky today. You're screaming a bit dark for a minute, but we can hear you now and see you now. Okay, okay, great. So you're gonna try to get in touch with the landlord and then we'll just wait, okay. I'll keep trying to get in touch with the university liquor zone. I mean, I did leave him one voicemail, so I haven't exactly been battering down the hatches, but all right, and then you're gonna try to send a letter to cousins. To both of them, I think I just wanna make sure that we're very clear on expectations of what needs to happen. Okay, so we don't have to do anything until we get an update from that, right? Unless the board wants to immediately schedule a hearing about not occupying the space in terms of university liquors, then no. Okay, do we wanna do that? I think we just wanna wait for the results of the letter, if there are any. That's fine. I'm comfortable with Steve sending letters and then if they show up and apply for renewal, we can talk to them then. Okay, does that sound all right, Steve? Yeah, that sounds fine. Okay, all right, oh, is everyone else okay with that? Dylan and Allie, okay, great. Thank you, Steve. So any other topics not reasonably anticipated? If not, oh, did you have anything else, Steve? Nope, I said not for me. Okay, super. So for our next meeting, which would be on October 20th, which is the third, right, third Thursday, yes. We wanna do just sticking to our schedule of focusing on our topic. Is that when we're gonna do a license fee comparison chart? Is that what we're gonna do? Hopefully, yes, yeah, hopefully. I do want to, yeah, I do wanna get back and touch with the finance director. Okay. And just see if he has any thoughts and hopefully if there's any solid recommendations, we could change that then before anything else goes out. Okay. And if not, then we probably will miss the, miss the boat for this time, but... Okay. Yeah, I do need to get back. Let me know if there's something I can try to help with on that. Thank you, Gaston. Yeah, okay. So is that the only topic? I know we were gonna hold off on adult use. Doug isn't here. And if that's turning into a more complicated thing, is that correct? Yeah, I mean, I think there was an email that circulated within the town management, some of the town staff of their day about looking into marijuana licensing and replacing the host community agreement, which was getting some serious consideration. So I'm still waiting to hear back what the town manager's decision on whether he'd like to take that path is or not. But I think next week, next meeting, we will probably be hopefully doing license fee, any changes that might be made. And then after that will be in the heart of renewal. Okay. So maybe we can, we might be able to touch on it a little bit in early November before it really heats up, but December will definitely probably be, I mean, everybody will be busy with the holidays and everything and the agendas will be, at least I'll be extremely busy with renewal. So I guess you can kind of bulk approve the most of them, but. Okay, all right, that would be great. So the only discussion topic we have for next week is the license fee comparison chart. And we'll have a couple of short terms for sure. And some short terms. Okay, just one last thing. Steve, have you heard anything from Hazel's Blue Lagoon? He did bring in his printed license and sitting on my desk. So they are serving the suspension. Okay. And they will get it back. Is it next or the Saturday, I guess, or Sunday? All right. This weekend? I believe it expired the eighth. I'll have to check. Okay. Check exactly what the, that's a good. So that means they're legit or not on Saturday? If I think the suspension was to be served through Saturday, so Sunday they would be. Okay. But that is a good thing to check before the weekend. Okay, yeah. Bring the business after that. I'll probably give it to the police department to give it back to him for his novella weekend. Okay. All right, great. Well, so if there's nothing else and we have our date for the meeting next and our agenda topics, is there a motion to adjourn? I move. Thank you, Dylan. Is there a second? I can. Thanks, Hallie. Do a roll call out of here. Hallie. Hi. Dylan. Hi. And I vote aye. That is four to zero. One absent were adjourned at 532 p.m. Thanks everybody. Dylan, I've enjoyed watching your guitar collection. Bro. Bro. I've had them all for a long time. It's just I've now finally got stands to put them up. So. Okay. Good, good, good. All right. Have a good week you guys. You too. Bye. I work on these and I'll talk to you in a couple of weeks. All right. Thanks, Steve. Bye.