 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 stevemccarthys.gov. That's M-C-C-A-R-T-H-Y-S at mrstma.gov. No in-person attendance of members of the public be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time by a 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 proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. And with that done, we'll call the meeting to order at 5.04 p.m. and take a roll call of attendance. Hallie. Here. Gaston. Here. I am here and we have two people absent. Dylan might be in a little bit later, briefly. He's got another meeting at six. So let's get started on the renewals. We have, what are we, oh my goodness. Okay, so we start with- I do believe we have Brian for a limited amount of time today. So if the board was so inclined, we could skip to that discussion and take up renewals after that. Okay, that sounds good to me. First of all, just to make sure, is anyone here for public comment, comment unrelated to anything else on the agenda? I don't see anyone at all. So we'll just go right to Brian Riley and the license that is going to be available as of January 1st. Okay. So I've had some back and forth over the last few months with Steve about this place. And it sounds like they did not apply to renew and there's no transfer pending. So these are annual licenses that expire on December 31st. So it seems like that's going to happen. And this is an off-premises license, right Steve? All alcohol? Yes, it is. And then just to clarify, we may want to follow up about this another time, but they did submit an incomplete application for renewal and verbally stated they would not be renewing. But I think as you've mentioned before, the board may want to take that application and just deny it in that case, but... Well, yeah, we can talk about that a bit. I mean, if it's not complete, it's not complete. You have to get a complete application in by November 30 in order to kind of qualify for automatic renewal. Okay, well, we can talk about that Steve if we need to. Yes, the crux of the issue is, yeah, this license become available. There's a lot of interest in it. And I think this is a new situation for the board. And I think the board is looking forward to some guidance on what factors they can consider as they take the applications, what form these applications can take, what form selection can take in questions like that. And we did get your excellent brief there. Okay, well, yeah, if you've seen that, that was kind of everything I could think of on the subject. And just briefly, I know there was some questions raised, well, is there a way to sort of auction this off and find out who really wants this? It would be nice if we could, but the town simply can't, that you can only charge a fee relative to this license that's tied at least to a reasonable basis on the expenses the town has in dealing with these licenses. Typically alcohol license fees are higher than other things like non-invictual or any number of other ones because there is a lot more involved and there's inspections there in the air and whatnot. But the amount of money that a town can get out of this licensing process is kind of tied to, well, how much did it cost you to deal with it? And this Emerson College test, which is 35 years old at this point, I think, says, you know, a reasonable fee is fine. If it's too high and you're really just raising revenue, then that's an illegal tax because you're not allowed to raise revenue unless you have statutory authorization to do it. I've heard from many licensing boards over the years that they're frustrated because they know word on the street, word on the street that this person who's coming in for a transfer paying the current license holder $100,000 for it. But the ABCC has told me that's outside chapter 138. It's not our business. And it's not your business. So, you know, in terms of how to make it available, you know, as I said a couple of times in my memo, you know, you could just sort of take the first application for this since you receive hold the hearing on it and approve or deny it. And I'll get the factories you can look at in a bit. I guess the, you know, especially if it's something you expect to have a lot of interest, you know, maybe you'll get a number of other applications. Kind of the downside to that is let's say you get the first application, you hold the hearing and that does not get approved for any number of reasons. You know, the intersections on a dangerous corner or, you know, there's two off-premises licenses that's half a mile down the road and we'd like to see it go somewhere else, whatever that might be, those are all legitimate reasons but the person who was denied does have the ability to appeal to the ABCC. And, you know, maybe a hearing gets scheduled three months down the road and maybe you get a decision from the ABCC within the next six or eight months that you're never quite sure. So, you know, that would tie the thing up. The other way, which I've seen some towns do and it seems to have worked, you know, worked well is that the commission could say, you know, we're going to have this license available, it's not available yet. We're going to kind of set a period where anyone who's interested can file an application. So let's just say, hypothetically, you have five, you know, between January 1st and January 10th or whatever. And so then when that's done and you see and you've got applications and they've all filed everything they're supposed to, you then you can kind of do it, whether it's on one night or over a couple of nights you kind of give them all a hearing, hear their pitch, hear why they think their business plan and their location and their manager, you know, we have a manager who's been doing this for 20 years, you know, get all their pros and cons that you might see with them. And then you, you know, close those hearings and then the commission can, you know, debate and then you can kind of say, well, I moved to give it to, you know, applicant X and if you take a vote and they get a majority, then you're done. If they don't get a majority, then I guess you can move on to the next one. Anytime you do deny somebody, you need to state the reasons to whether it's, you know, bad location, you know, they're, well, I'm not coming up with anything else to stop my head, but, you know, whatever the reasons were that some majority of the people voted against it because that's what they have an appeal on. But then if you, when you do approve it to somebody, let's say you approve it to applicant X and, you know, pending the ABCC approval that license has been awarded. And with the other four people, you can simply vote to deny because we now no longer have a license available for you. And I guess theoretically somebody could appeal on that but I don't understand why they would, you know, that's not the kind of thing that the ABCC is going to be interested in. They just want to know if the board made a reasonable decision when they voted no, and can't get much more reasonable than we don't have a license to give you. So those are my, oh, sorry. Just to clarify, so we only have to give reasons if someone's made a motion and we've denied it. If we just grant to the first one, I just want to clarify, then we don't have to give a reason for anybody else. You don't have to specify the reasons for approval. Just, you know, I move we approve this license for applicant X and it passes five to zero or four to one. You know, that's approved. You don't need to explain why. But if you deny somebody, you do need to give a reason, either reason or reasons why. That's good feedback before we make a motion when we do that. Yeah, yeah. Let's see. So that's, you know, I've been at this quite a while and I know the ABCC is fine with doing that either of these ways, you know, first in the door, give them a hearing, make a decision. But I know they're also fine with this sort of, let's have all the hearings at once and then, you know, pick one. Yes, Tom. Thank you so much, Brian. So the, I have questions about like timing of things, but we can save those for later. Right now on the idea of hearing a bunch at once, my question is, how could we hear a bunch at once and then, you know, in some way deliberate about which motion to approve we make, that would, you know, any other application at that point is impossible, but I'm just, you know, it seems like we can't come up with reasons to choose one without implicitly giving reasons why we're denying others. And so I wonder if that approach does get used when you have multiple applications heard at once, how do the boards manage the process of selecting which one to approve before denying any? Yeah, I mean, I do hear what you're saying because if, even if one of them, you know, one of the five, let's say there's a motion to approve it and you do approve it, you know, you would have had discussion before that on, you know, why they're better. For example, well, the, you know, four of these are all on the west side of town and the east side of town is kind of underserved and here's this one from the east side. So I think that's a big factor. I mean, that's true. But so I think you, you know, I think you do have to, there are those things are gonna come out in the discussion. Okay. But I do think, you know, at the end of it, if then you go to a motion and maybe it sort of becomes, you know, apparent to the commissioners that, well, seems like we're kind of leaning towards this one. So I'm gonna make a motion, we approve that one. I still think it's legitimate to deny the other four based on no available license. Okay. All right. Very, very, very good. And so I mean, as a matter of being, being skillful in our deliberation, one approach could be to hear one at a time and basically just identify what we liked about each one after. Yeah. And then at the end of the process, it's kind of obvious based on what we said we liked about them, but we don't say anything negative. We just say what we liked about each one. And then at the end, we kind of look at each other and get an inspiration. Yeah. Make a motion. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, you're gonna do a hearing on each one. Let them tell you anything they wanna tell you. You ask questions, they get answers. I mean, you get answers. And then when you've done that, you close the hearing. You don't make a decision yet, but you close the hearing and you go on to the next hearing. Okay. Yeah. Since it sounds like we're gonna go we're leaning towards at this point option number two that you have presented us. And we recently adopted our alcohol regulations and we kind of had a criteria for issuing licenses. Would that be a good way to start with criteria for one of these licenses? And if so, would you recommend that we publish those ahead of time so that applicants know that what we are looking for or is that opening ourselves up to questions or is it better to present them at the hearing? Are those regulations on the town website or not? I think, are they on there, Steve? Don't think they are yet, but I can pull them up here. Okay. Um, I mean, I don't, I mean, you've adopted them. So, you know, you're going obviously going to be looking to them. I don't see it. I don't, I don't think I see a downside to, you know, notifying if anyone's going to apply for this license, you know, we're going to, you know, the commission has following set of regulations. Here's how you get to read them. I don't think it's, I don't think there's a downside to having that out there early. Okay. So they've seen them before. Gaston? I have a couple of questions about timing. The first one is where the license becomes available due to non-renewal. When does it formally become available? Is that, you know, as a function of, of, of, of, of law or does someone have to decide something for it to be formally available? Well, he's, I mean, this doesn't happen that much, to be honest, but, you know, but by, by the terms in chapter 138, the license is only good through December 31st. So I don't, you know, it gets complicated when a license gets, you know, revoked. For example, because somebody owes a bunch of state taxes and so that, you know, the state is not going to, the state kind of has its clogged into it for a while. There's a variety of things which can come up. This one I think is just going to expire. So I think, you know, I don't think we have to get it. We don't have to get approval from the ABCC to reissue it. Okay. And so then my follow-up question is that seems to suggest if we're going to use the window period to collect applications, we should announce that window before January 1st. Yeah, I know that means, you know, having another meeting before the end of the year, but we planned on it. Oh, okay. I think that would be good. Otherwise, you know, let's say, you know, let's say you haven't announced that kind of thing. Yeah. You know, 9 a.m., January 2nd, somebody gets in and says, ah-ha, you have to consider me first. It gets a little messy. So I think it wouldn't make sense. And I can work with Steve to sort of help, you know, put a press release or whatever you want to call it out there. Okay, that would be great. Thank you. And so then the related question for us is what feels like a good collection period and then I guess I imagine we're not going to find very explicit guidance, but how slow can we be? You know, from the time, let's say we say a two week or four week collection window or whatever we decide. But then, you know, how long before we need to start having hearings and so on. Yeah, I believe, I'm remembering it right. And I think I am that strictly speaking, the section, I think it's 138.15 a. It says that when you get an application, you should hold, you need to hold the hearing within 45 days. It might say something like unless the parties agree after. I've, it actually goes on somewhere to say that if, you know, somebody files an application, 45 days go by, the board hasn't scheduled the hearing, they haven't done anything. The person can actually go petition the ABCC, but all the ABCC can do is hold the hearing and say, hey, licensing board, you got to hold the hearing. And I've never even seen that happen. Okay, okay. So it's not like anything horrible happens if day 46 arrives and you haven't held the hearing, but that's, it's out there, you know, a month and a half. You know, it's a long time. Yeah, that's a long time. That's not a, that's gives us space. And what have you seen as the range of these application periods? I don't think it's been terribly long. You know, the people who want one tend to kind of have an ear on the ground. Okay. You know, maybe, maybe 10 days or something. Okay, so a board, what I'm hearing is that at our next meeting, we should, if we should confirm with our, you know, fellow board members that everyone feels good about this approach. I mean, it seems the other approach is really untenable. It's just gonna be, it's a mess to do it the other way. And then we can create that open period, I don't know, like January 5th until the, maybe the day or two before our mid-January meeting and go from there. Is there any other guidance between, besides the submission window that we need to tell the public? So that, Brian, did you have anything? So once, can I just add, so this is going to be available January 1st and then how much time, so guess on your suggesting, maybe January 5th through the, say 15th is the application hearing. And then once that closes, we have 45 days to start to hold the hearings, correct? So is that enough time for people to get their applications together or are we bound in some way to have that start applications immediately on January 1st? I guess it doesn't hurt. It seems to me that that's enough time. Enough time. I mean, people wouldn't necessarily have to have all their loans seem together or whatever else they might need. Right. Of course you might be hearing from, I don't know, Trader Joe's or something which already has a store going. They just don't have a liquor license. That's just an example. But I don't think of, and if somebody says, I would have needed a couple of months to get my ducks in a row before I could really file an application. Well, you guys are supposed to have these licenses out in the public getting exercise, serving the public. So I don't think there's anything unreasonable about having kind of time. Okay. So it seems like we've got some reasonable leeway and that if Brian, if indeed you can work with Steve, then all that we need to decide at our next meeting is when we wanna open it and when we wanna close the window. Right. Yeah. And so if we feel good about those mechanics, then now I wanna make my more stretch argument here based on the criteria two of the Emerson College Factors, oh, sorry, not two, the three, that it's collected to compensate for the services. Brian, I don't know if you saw that there was an article in the Globe earlier this week about the huge cost of alcohol. Alcohol abuse cost Massachusetts more than five billion yearly new analysis fines. And among other things, we have like the most licenses per capita, way more than New Jersey. It was interesting that the effects, the deaths, the other kinds of impacts are very significant. And so I, there's no doubt that the town of Amherst's expenses are impacted by these kinds of repercussions of alcohol. And so the criteria three, if it's reasonable to interpret it that way, it could really be extremely large figure. And I guess I'm wondering what reactions you have to that kind of approach. I think that's the valid point. I don't think where the law is right now would affirm that. And I guess what it triggered in my head as you were talking was, you know, you might be aware of all the billion dollar opioid lawsuits out there. And, you know, many towns are signed on to them because you have a variety of costs associated with the drug abuse, that same sort of idea. So that's all being done through litigation. But I think that now if the Commonwealth came up with some sort of scheme through the general court or something to address those expenses via the licensing process, I mean, I guess there'd be some way to make that work. But I think if the town of Amherst, you know, tripled its license fee and said, well, we're doing that because, you know, we can point to, you know, whatever it's police response or AMC or whatever, whatever, that kind of thing. You know, we think those are costs. I don't think it would be upheld if somebody challenged it in court the way that it is right now. Okay, okay, okay, all right. So that's the, but, you know, if it isn't an enterprising license commission here or there, the law's never gonna get, you know, catch up. Somebody's gotta be the path breaker. I guess so. Yeah, it's not a silly position. I'll tell you that. Everybody knows that, you know, alcohol abuse causes all sorts of problems and costs. That's very true. I just don't think at the moment, I don't think it would justify to the courts, you know, kind of having a big increase on the license fee. They're still gonna say, well, this is a fee. You know, it's not, you know, it's not supposed to be making money on that. But who has standing to challenge that? Because the licensee is happy. I mean, I guess someone who chose not to apply because it was too expensive, would they have standing to challenge? I mean, or would it be the state itself? I mean, how would that come up? Yeah, the cases that are out there on this issue, like Emerson College had to do with some, the city of Boston was decided to impose some huge fire, it was to support the fire department because they were gonna have a hard time accessing property, something like that. It says, well, well, then we're just gonna charge you a whole bunch of, you know, annual inspection fees. Yeah. To cover that. And it ended up not flying in the court. And there's been one over kind of like sewer connection fees. That's number two, that seems like criteria two, that the fees paid by choice, that the party paying the fee as the option of not utilizing, it seems like that's the problem in the example you just gave. Yeah, that's true. And they do say that, you know, you don't have to, you don't necessarily have to meet all three phases in order for it to be a valid fee. But I mean, that's, I think somebody, somebody who, you know, who wanted to apply, but didn't want to pay, you know, all of a sudden this license fee went to $10,000 or something, you know, I mean, they could certainly try it. And I just, I mean, off the cuff tonight. Yeah, yeah. I'm just thinking it'd be a tough argument to tie it to societal costs, you know, within the town. No, no, I hear you. I just wonder if that argument could even be made by anyone. And so it might be a kind of an unreviewable excess. Yeah, or, you know, I certainly, I guess, would say, let's say somebody doesn't like, you know, some applicant doesn't like the idea that all of a sudden the license fee got tripled. Yeah. But they decide, well, I really want to open the business and so I'll get it. Okay, okay. And so then they would certainly have standing to challenge it then. Okay, okay, fair enough. So I guess that's another way to look at it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and risk the ire of the, of the license commission. Yeah. All right. I'm finished. I think I feel, I don't have any other questions. All right. Thank you. Helle, do you have any other questions? No. So our next meeting is scheduled for Steve. Can you remind me? This is the 29th of December. Yes. But do we want to release the sub side of announcement about the. The application period before then. Or is that. Well, I suppose the application period would probably have to be determined by the board, right? Right. Oh, right. So we'll just do that on the 29th and then figure out what the application period is going to be. And then you will work with Brian to. Get some, put some language together about that. Okay. And then we can go from there. I feel like we could probably do the application period tonight with the caveat. Applications to be reviewed within 45 days. And then schedule a meeting with Doug. And everybody, when everybody's back, if people are trying to get this out before January 1st. Yeah, my, my, my practical concern about timing and also the, the period length is just that anybody who isn't an established business or doesn't, you know, currently have control of an empty. Unit might find it difficult to secure a lease. Okay. Within. That period. And I will have some interesting questions for you, Brian, about, you know, complete versus incomplete applications and what qualifies, but I don't think we need to get into that right now. But. Okay. So we can. Okay. So our next meeting on the 29, we can just set the application period then that's better. Right. I suggest that. I wonder if now we can just. Even put on our page, you know, stay tuned for the, for information about. Okay. I mean, do, do, is there any need to do that already? Well, there was an article in the Gazette stating that. There is a, there will be an available liquor license. So there is some, some notice. Why don't we, why don't we maybe, um, if, if. I guess a question, what's the best, what's the most effective way to do that? But I think maybe we, we should try to do that and beat the, the beats, uh, beat Scott. Yeah. I thought, um, be, uh, you know, get that out before the article. Yeah. I think a press release would be wise. Um, and, um, well, yeah, I suppose it is kind of, uh, I'm impossible to get around the issue too much Brian, but, um, if we know, depending on what the application period is, I mean, if somebody just, just submits the, the first page of the, um, of the application or an extremist, you know, if somebody submitted a, you know, on written on cardboard, paper and crayon, you know, liquor license application, does that qualify as, as something that's submitted and then they have some time to, to follow up with additional documents or as an application considered submitted only when it's complete. Yeah, I'd say the latter. I would, you know, the ABCC has a, you know, they kind of have a, uh, a memo on everything that's required for various kinds of applications, including a brand new one, which this would be. So, um, yeah, I think you, if, let's say you pick a 10 day period and you've got one or two that are in that shape, Steve, you know, they filed the bare bones, but really haven't filed everything they're supposed to. Uh, you know, I think you tell them, look, you know, we've, we've got four applications that were complete. We're going to hold hearings on those and make a decision. And, you know, so you, if you want to file something, when you get it all together, go ahead, but we might not have one. Yeah, okay. And on the other side of that, it's kind of black and white. I mean, it's not until midnight and a second on, uh, on the first when, you know, anything that any application submitted before then is. We, it's, uh, there's no, there's no license. Um, so it doesn't. Right. Doesn't grip until after midnight. But if we've put out the statement before, before that time, then, then we're okay. Yeah, I think the statement is a good. A good idea for that reason. Yeah, but I, you know, I know I've seen decisions from the ABCC where the licensing board did this, you know, kind of advertised it, held all the hearings and made a choice. And they haven't had a problem with it. So, uh, you know, I think it's, I think that's perfectly good way to go. Okay. Now, Gaston, was there any reason you suggested January 5th as, um, to start date instead of. Oh, no. I mean, I, I. I was thinking it shouldn't, you know, there should be a period of time. Um, So that. We don't want, um, We don't want to. Make people crazy, um, trying to get something and be at the beginning of the window. I mean, I'm, I'm open to making it a, you know, waiting much longer for it to open. I mean, to, to address your concern, Steve, that, um, if we want to have strong applications from, uh, any, any businesses that. Don't completely have the space or something like that, that the give them a chance to try to put something together. I, I think that's what we'd want to discuss with. Um, Doug and Dylan and, and decide what our. View is about how much time before the window starts. Yeah. And, um, and Brian, can we, can the board set any conditions on how, um, applications are received, you know, only by paper, I would presume it's kind of the default, but is there a, you know, times that can be submitted by appointment with as long as the, you know, appointments given in reasonable time. Um, I don't see any reason why you couldn't do that. Uh, there's, you know, you know, it's not addressed in the statute, whether it has to be in person or by email or whatever. Um, so yeah, it seems to me you could have conditions like that. Okay. I only bring that up just to make sure that I'm, that people just, you know, I get a chance to review it and it's not just missed in the shuffle or something, you know. Yeah. When you want to use your, the, you know, the new inspection site or whatever. Uh, that's not really, um, well suited to, uh, To liquor licensing because there's so many specific, um, forms that are submitted and, um, Okay. And, you know, sometimes large scale plans. So I generally like to, uh, to take those on paper. Okay. Which I guess you could do to upload it, but that also leads can lead to a, you know, a, you know, a, you know, I just would want to make sure, you know, somebody doesn't throw it in the drop box at the night before, you know, the last night it's due with and say, oh, I actually submitted it and. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sounds good. Um, all right. Any other questions for Brian? Uh, otherwise we'll just, uh, talk to Doug. Okay. I guess you could do to upload it, but that also leads can lead to a technical barrier and, um, uh, otherwise we'll just, uh, talk to Doug and Dylan on the 29th and get it all set up. Yep. And I'll work with Steve in the meantime to kind of figure out how to put this out there. Fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you, Brian. Well, uh, probably cookies. Fuck you again. All right. All right. Good night. Good night. Okay. Um, wonderful. Well, that was helpful. So now we go back to liquor license. Renewal applications. And Steve, should we just. How do we do this last time? Should we just say. I think we did it by type. I type. I don't need to read them all out. Do I. No, um, you could just, you know, say all under this, this heading. Um, my only suggestion would be just for the motion to be, um, you know, renewed subject to, uh, you know, Satisfying, you know, all, all, all requirements of, um, Of any town departments. To, um, Maybe you can think of a better way to word that, but just making sure. Um, you know, there's a few people who still have outstanding work. I think I didn't include more. I think most of them here are good to go, but, um, there's a few that have, you know, outstanding workers comp obligations or taxes. They have to straighten out with a collector and things like that. So as long as the motion collects that. Um, We're looking for a license renewal applications and we're looking for a motion to approve the renewal pending, um, all approval, approval by all of the town departments. Maybe I'll just say, yeah, conditional on satisfying all requirements and, um, and, you know, any obligations to. Yeah. No necessary for licensing to town. Okay. Conditional unsatisfying all town requirements and what was that? And the other. Yeah. Yeah. Conditional unsatisfying any, uh, any all requirements and any outstanding obligations to the town that, that are required for licensing. And other outstanding obligations to the town required for licensing. Is there a motion. I'll move. Do I move that? Oh, thank you. Yes. Don. Is there a second? Well, second. Thank you. Um, any further discussion. Hearing none. We'll take a vote. Halley. Hi. Gaston. Okay. And I vote I, and that is three to zero with two absent. Those licenses are renewed. Uh, next one is. Common pictures license renewal applications. And. Is there a motion. To approve the renewal with all. Obligations, et cetera. So. Okay. Thank you. Is there a second? Any further discussion? If not, we'll take a vote. Halley. Hi. Gaston. Hi. And I vote I that is three to zero with two absent. Uh, next up. Our second hand sales. License renewal application. That's good. Well. Um, is there a motion to renew that one with. The language used previously. So moved. Thank you, Halley. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Gaston. Take a vote. Halley. Hi. Gaston. Hi. And I vote I that is three to zero with two absent. Uh, next up. Live entertainment license renewal applications. Um, is there a motion. So moved. Thank you. Um, is there a second? Second. Thank you. Gaston. Um, take a vote. Halley. Hi. Gaston. Hi. And I vote I that is three to zero with two absent. So that's done. Uh, there are some more coming up. Steve, you said just a few others. Yep. So this is the, uh, I think the next question is, is there a motion to renew that one? So moved. Thank you, Halley. Thank you. Gaston. I will take a vote. Halley. Hi Gaston. Hi. And I vote I that is three to zero with two absent. So that's done. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So this is the, uh, certainly the bulk of them. There's a few other ones with, um, uh, I don't think that anything really have big problems, but you know, problems I just wanted to resolve before I put it up and just a few, they're running a little late. So, um, this is pretty much everything. Okay. Great. Thank you. But we will have a few for the next one, but we'll certainly be meeting anyway. So. Right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. It's good. So, um, Halley and I met and we identified a number of issues to think about. We could do that, but I wonder if. I guess I'm torn because it would be nice to go through this with a Doug and Dylan as well. Um, On the other hand, I don't want to inflate our end of December meeting, but I'm, uh, I mean, I'm fine. Plus money. This will only take kind of 10 minutes to go over the points and we can have a conversation about it. So, um, if unless anyone thinks we should go into it. I know I'm fine waiting till December 29th. Is that all right with you? Just so that Doug and Dylan can be here. Would that be okay. I think that would probably be better. Okay. Does that sound all right, Steve? Sounds good to me. Okay. Great. So we will put that off until December 29th. Um, all right. Annual report. Steve sent a copy around. We managed to get it in. The format was based on last year's and thank you again, Steve. For. Taking what I gave you and wrestling it into good condition. I don't know if you have any questions about it. It's pretty basic. Pretty short. Um, and the town. Yeah. The town council meeting is next. Is it, it's Monday, right, Steve? Yes. She did invite the boards. Let me make sure I get that information. Right. Um, It's the 19. Um, yes. The state of the town presentation is on Monday, December 19th at five 30 PM. Um, the report will be in the packet. And if you'd like to watch the state of the town. They'll be live in the town room on zoom and on Amherst media. Okay. Great. Sounds good. Thank you. Um, all right. So liquor license renewals. Was there more on this topic? Or was this. Um, I don't believe there is anything really no, um, moving along. Okay. Um, and then the last is the agenda. So it sounds like we have. Upcutting meeting agenda. We're going to have this new license, the schedule for the new. Uh, license applications in January and rental registration. And those will probably take out most of the time. Is there anything else we should need to put on there? You think. And any other renewals that we have. Yeah, well, we'll certainly have some renewals, but, um, okay. I don't think. Uh, Is the. Can let me, let me just remember the day of the week and things because. Uh, Oh no, what is it? It's the 29th we're talking about, right? Yes, the 29th. Let me ask you all, I guess it's too bad that, um, Dylan and Doug aren't here, but I wanted to ask if that morning could possibly work. The 29th. Yes. The morning of the 29th instead of the 5pm time. Is that, is that available at this late. Stage Steve. Um, in terms of my schedule. And we just have to give the right. I mean, anyway, in terms of your schedule and process, we would just have to put that in the next, um, In the next agenda, right? Yeah, I mean, the, um, the times are not set in stone. So, uh, You know, I give the board. What would work best for the two of you? Well, my surgery has been postponed till January. So I will be free. So anytime for me. Okay. I'm asking because we, I didn't have it on my calendar by accident. And we're, we're spending, we're going to Boston to spend the night. And so it's actually. I mean, I guess the, the schedule is very convenient for me. Um, Given that I made this plan and so morning would be. Would work just fine. So what time in the morning. I mean, anything that, anything that works for all of you. Um, I guess the Dylan doesn't always know his schedule in advance, but he might buy tomorrow. Um, Um, I was like, I don't know what time it would be and I just, I can't believe that. I can't believe that. I can't believe that I'd be able to email. Duncan's and see what their schedules are. And I'll, I'll email to them. Yeah. Anything, any time in the morning would be maybe for me. Could we do a quick survey, like nine to 11, 10, 10, you know, see. Yeah. Yeah. I don't really know how, I don't know how long we expect the meeting to go. Um, I guess 50 to 70. Yeah, so I'll try to budget. Yeah, I mean, if all three of you have totally free mornings, I can just call around to Doug and Dylan and just find a time that, you know, we could get an hour and 15 minutes in. Something later in the morning would work better for me. But yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah, 1030 on would work better. Yeah, that would be okay for me. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Anything else? Any, no, any topics not anticipated 48 hours prior to the meeting? I don't have any. No. Okay. I mean that, you know, that, that I think. That article from the globe is really worth kind of taking in a little bit. Because we, we haven't. We're not really bringing all of that into our consideration, all of the ripple effects of alcohol. I mean, if there's a lot there. I, and I wonder if there's somebody that we could invite to help us be a little more informed and maybe imaginative about how. It might. Might influence what we do. And what are you envisioning exactly guest on on the local level? I don't, I don't know. I mean, I'm, I'm, you know, We've taken, we've done some very minor things that I think are meaningful, like making sure there's food at all times, but are there any other things on the edges at the margins that that might be, that might be helpful to do, or even just ways of bringing more awareness. In the town and, and kind of connecting the dots. I mean, I think. For us to financially levy, like a, not a tax, but you know, like a surcharge. To liquor licenses. I think we would need to find a way to demonstrate the impact. To the town cost wise. What be it. Police staffing on DUIs or emergency services called. So that might be a step to just reach out to the police and the fire department. And to see if they keep any sort of documentation about alcohol related incidents and calls. As a starting point. So that's a great idea. Halley also Steve, do you remember there were those meetings that were held at UMass a couple of years ago. I went to a few of them. I remember the meeting. I'm not sure if you remember the. Presentatives from. I think it was the police and the fire department and the campus. All about alcohol awareness. I can't remember the name of it, no, no. And I don't remember. A lot of them. I think they do for students. It was like the. College. Go home. Campus and community something. Yeah. Yeah. It was like CCC. I believe. Yeah. That's body is still going. That would be one place to one group of people we could talk to about that. Yeah, definitely. We can maybe put that on agenda for January and dive into that a bit more. Yes. Things, ideas. Good idea. Let's do that for one of the meetings in January. I guess another thing that would be to just email this article to our health, public health, what's her name? Jen Brown is a public health director. Yeah, Brown, and see if she has, if it makes her want to give us any feedback. Yeah, I can definitely do so. Okay, that would be awesome. All right, thank you Steve. All right, anything else? If not, is there a motion to adjourn? Hold on, hold on. Sorry, is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Thank you, Hallie. Second. If you guessed on, take a roll call. Hallie. Aye. Guest on. Aye. And I vote aye. Three to zero with two absent. The, we are adjourned at 5.52 p.m. Okay, thanks everybody. Thank you for all of your work on renewals and the license. I know that's awesome. So thank you. Thank you, Hallie. I appreciate that. Yeah. It's always a busy time of year and how time to start Christmas shopping. Thank you. Appreciate it. Have a good night, everyone. Thanks.