 Good pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended again by chapter two of the acts of 2023 this meeting will be conducted by 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 asset mrstema.gov that's mccartys at mrstema.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 Amherst website an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. If that done we'll call the meeting to order at 5 36pm and take a quick roll call Hallie here Doug here and I am here and Dylan and Gaston are absent. So and then public comment is next on the agenda and this is general public comment unrelated to anything on the agenda and if there's anyone here for public comment you can please raise your hand at the raise hand button at the bottom of your screen. I do not think we have anyone making public comment. Okay next up is licenses new common pictures license application CV-139 10-1 Amherst LLC doing business as 10-1 T House 48 North Pleasant Street and Steve you said this is this is not an exactly a new one right. Yes this is one of the owners of Vivi T has which is over by the works there in the fire station is has purchased the business I believe from his partner and is going to be operating there's a name change but I don't think there'll be many significant changes otherwise so a new convict was needed for the new LLC but that is about it. Okay so nothing nothing has changed. No new things or surprises. Any questions. If not is there a motion to approve this license to move. Thank you. Is there a second. Take a vote Hallie. I. Doug. I. And I vote I that is three to zero with two absent that license is approved. And now we have a common pictures license renewal application and this one is for protocol LLC and has anything has changed there correct Steve. No. Yeah, it's just a renewal. Okay. Are there any questions about this renewal. No, is there a motion to approve the renewal. To move. Thanks. Is there a second. Thank you, Hallie. Take a vote Hallie. I. Doug. Hi. And I vote I that is three to zero with two absent and the renewal is approved. Next up is the lunch one lunch cart food truck license renewal application. I'll say it. Is this a standard renewal and not a stock run for him? Yes. Yes. Yep. Great. Any questions about this? Nope. Okay. Is there a motion to approve this renewal. Thank you. Is there a second. Thanks. We'll take a vote. Hallie. Hi. Doug. Doug, and I vote aye. That is three to zero with two absent and that renewal has been approved. Okay. These two are special short term license applications. SST dash 24 dash 15 and dash 15 16. Jen Lynn Fontaine top of the campus incorporated wine and malt. April 6th and April 20th at Garber field at UMass. And this is the lacrosse. Right that we've done in a couple of years past. Yes, let me bring Bill in here. Oh, great. Okay. Hi, Bill. Hi, guys. How are you? Good. How are you? How you doing? I'm doing good. Thanks. Good. So these are the licenses for the short terms for the men's lacrosse games. Yeah, right. There's two of them this year and it's been the same for the past three years. The field itself is fenced in and bartenders checking IDs. There's security at the gates and keeping an eye on things as well as the concession manager who'll be there all day. So, okay, I don't think there's been any, I don't think there's been any issues in the past with anything. So, right, you, you haven't had any incidents as I recall because you reported on them before. Okay. All right. Great. Are there any questions about these two short term applications? No, I think the things I want to know, he told us so. Okay. All right. Is there a motion to approve them? So moved. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. We'll take a vote. Hallie. Hi. Doug. Hi. And I vote aye. That is three to zero with two absent and they are approved. So thank you so much for coming in, Bill. And best of luck. Thank you guys. Take care. You too. Bye. Okay. So onto our discussion topics, a marijuana regulation. Steve, do you have any updates on this? Yes. So I have been speaking with different parties in town, the town manager and the building commissioner and Kiko, the health director about both our licensing moving forward and also about the issue of the unregulated hemp derived cannabis products. And we will hopefully all be meeting next week to kind of compare notes and see, you know, where the town manager thinks this might be best addressed, whether it be the licensed commission or the public health or health, the board of health or, or maybe through the town council and what actions should be taken on the unregulated stuff. So we will be discussing that and also, you know, what the town's path forward is with marijuana regulation in general, because as you may have seen from some of those KP law memoranda, there are a lot of changes in the law that are occurring now and that are being considered. So hopefully we will get some more clarity from that. I mean, it seems like a rough consensus from talking, you know, briefly, we haven't really met formally, but that it may be better for you know, I think to any bylaw that or any regulation I should say that has adopted targeting the unlicensed hemp products would probably not be really quick because you kind of have to make sure you get it right in terms of legalities and authorities and what products are covered and which aren't. So with that ever going into it, it may be better for that effort to be expended by the board of health, which would cover every establishment in town and not not just those licensed by the license commission. So we'll have to review, you know, what those authorities are and where those things can come from. But I hope to have more information for you in our next meeting in two weeks and see that a chart, a path forward is charted, but definitely been bringing attention to this issue and I think it is under consideration. It really is shocking. I had no idea that any of that was going on, but I've seen that there's another global editorial and I'm seeing more news about it. So it seems like it has really blown up as an issue and Gaston also told me he saw that provisions was selling some products like this because they said some of their customers aren't interested in drinking alcohol and they want to have something available for them. So I think it was something that we will see more of. Okay. Well, that's interesting. Any questions about how that, I mean, it'll give us a lot to talk about at the next meeting, for sure. I would just say I'm a little bit more comfortable with the board of health taking it over than us in our capabilities. Yeah, it is an interesting question where, you know, where these authorities can come from in for the license commission or the board of health. I mean, I don't know if, you know, I'm sure there's probably more latitude with the board of health regulations, although I'm not really familiar with exactly what the language is or whatever statute authorizes the board of health to take action. But I was talking to Kiko and it's kind of a thought experiment, you know, the board of health, you know, they have some power ban. I think adulterated food products is something that they have the power to do. And, you know, we've definitely seen things like the Styrofoam ban and things like that. But, you know, could the board of health or the board of license commissioners ban businesses from selling products containing caffeine or, you know, chamomile tea or melatonin, it's interesting to think about. And I'm sure they'll have a lot of consultation with legal counsel as well. But it is an issue that I think is concerning to everybody who hears about it. So I don't think, I don't think that there'll be something left in the back burner. Okay. All right. Great. Well, thank you, Steve. And I don't know if you guys got a chance to take a look at some of those other licensing bylaws and regulations from other towns. Yeah, I've been reading them slowly. They're really, some of them are really interesting. Yeah. So if there's anything that anybody sees that they think would be good for us to add, I think that would be, that would be good. I mean, I think something that we'll be considering on the staff side is, sorry, Mary, I'll just finish my thought, but I think it's something that'll be something to be concerned. The staff side would be what, you know, what, what the interests of the town really are. Sorry, Marion. Oh, no, that's okay. I was just going to ask when the meeting was. Is it next week? Hopefully next week, we still have to set a detailed agenda and schedule it, but we are working on that. Okay. All right. Could you just let me know the date? Sure. Okay. Thank you so much. All right. Any other questions about this? If not, thank you so much, Steve. It's really, really helpful. Yeah. And if anybody else sees, see those types of things being sold anywhere, it'd be interesting to hear about. Yeah. Make a note. Let us know. Definitely. I think it's an issue that, I mean, I can't really think of any other federal law that's had such a gaping loophole ever, really. Yeah. But I think it's something that will need federal action at some point, but especially with the mail order aspect of everything, but or state action at the very least, but it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. It seems like it's kind of reaching a critical mass of awareness. Right. Okay. All right. Any other questions for Steve? If not, thanks again, Steve. And please do let me know when that meeting is. Absolutely. I don't, like I'd love to be there. I don't, it depends on what time it is. If that would be all right, I could just, is that okay? Or is it just a staff meeting? I think the town manager will be, will be calling it. So I will, I will definitely let him know that you're interested. Okay. All right. You know, if not, I understand, but at least to give me a time to send you some input after I read some of those other regulations. Absolutely. I'll definitely, I'll definitely present it to him. I'm not sure exactly what, he has, he has some, some bigger questions to answer about the, the broader scope of the town's regulations, the host community agreements are changing quite a bit. And there's some requirements now, which focus a lot on, on notice and, you know, the kind of things you wouldn't expect being central to equity, I guess, but the whole, whole broad, broad suite of things. So I'm not sure exactly in what order he'll want to tackle things. Oh, okay. All right. All right. Okay. All right. Well, thank you again. And let's talk now about the wage law violations at the two Plymouth establishments. So, and these, we approved these, and you remember, I was trying to look up the exact date when we approved these license transfers, and that was in December, right? Yeah, but it was the last meeting in December. Yeah. The last meeting December. Did anyone have a, they might have, so this was a, like a, everyone read the blog post that Gaston sent around about the two restaurants? I thought the comments, or at least when I read it, there was only one, two comments were a little scathing towards us, kind of asking why I wasn't due diligence done. Also asking why didn't people travel to their other establishments? Well, that's interesting. Perhaps if we had a budget to do that and a driver maybe, but so I talked, I actually talked, I called the Attorney General's office and I talked to the investigator and asked her what was going on. And I also looked up a couple of news articles. So the citation was issued to the Plymouth, the owners of the Plymouth Public House and the Tavern on the Wharf on December 20th. It was not made public until we, everybody heard about it on January, when was that? It was released to the news. They did a press release at the, around January 19th or 20th. So we wouldn't have known. She said, you can, there's a database that you can, you can go to the Attorney General's office and you can look at all of the complaints. They're all on, it looks like a, almost like a spreadsheet, you know, one of those things where you type in your complaint and it lists who's complained against and the kind of violation and you can kind of narrow it down and you can look at all the towns and see who's got a complaint against what. She says it doesn't, you wouldn't know if there's an ongoing case unless you called. So I also asked her specifically about, because half a million dollars is a lot, about what, what the dates that these were kind of the offenses were, the civil offenses were. And she said one of them was from June 2021, January 2021 to June 2022. And the other restaurant was December 21 to July 2022. So you'd have to kind of go back and look through the complaints and then phone the, phone the Attorney General's office and ask them, you can't request a public record really until the case is, I think you can get the, the closed case. So the citation was issued on December 20, 2023. They immediately settled the case and then they did the press release in January. I mean, by I mean they, I mean the, the owners of the, the restaurant is, I think Paul Tupa is his name. So he also had another case against him for the Red Hat Cafe in Boston in 2020. And it's interesting because he took over the building, he got the license transfer for Tavern on the Wharf. Right, we're getting in a Plymouth public house. The Plymouth Select Board unanimously voted in December of 2020 to transfer the license to him. But he actually, the press release for the Red Hat came out in October of 2020. So they knew, they knew that they'd had this case on going against him before they, they transferred the license to him. So I mean, they granted it to him anyway, so because he settled that one also. I don't know where else, is there anything else that you need to, and she did give me some of the, some of the violations. There are about half a dozen or more just wage violations, failure-based service rates, failure to pay minimum wage, permissible work for 14 to 17 year olds, that kind of thing. So I don't know if it's, that's not something we really consider though when we're granting a liquor license, is it? Like it's, I mean, it's bad, not great publicity for them when they're coming into a new town. But I also checked the Plymouth Select Board minutes to see if they renewed their license, and they did renew their license at the end of December at the two Plymouth establishments right around the time that we would have transferred their license, the licenses to them too. So like I don't know what we can do. Does anyone have any ideas beyond checking all of that out ahead of time? Well, I think the, you know, the thing I'll say is this, is that, I mean, I think these are the kinds of things that we can consider and potentially reject a license for. So that's one thing. But I think that the most recent violation, you know, like you said, we wouldn't have known. Right. Again, a wage violation is a very different thing than what we generally are concerned about. We're much more concerned about their service and management of the alcohol. Right. I run an alcohol license. So I think, I mean, I think it's a thing we have to consider is whether that, you know, if they've had an issue with, you know, sort of, you know, wage law and then they've corrected it. I mean, it does start to sound a little systemic because they've had a couple of different places that this happened. So that would be concerning. And at the same time, it kind of falls out of our purview. But at same time, it's like, are they a good business for our, you know, we consider the sort of, I think the term and suitability of them as a vendor kind of thing is a consideration we can make. Right. I mean, I think this is also one, you know, kind of hindsight is 2020, we maybe should make that a part of our regular process is to look and see if there's other kinds of violations. If they hadn't had their one from 2020 that came out like in October, you know, we would, we would not have, October 21 or whatever it was. 2020. Right. Yeah. We wouldn't have known, you know, the current one we have no idea about because it just wouldn't have been available to us at all. So the historical ones, the only one. And then the other thing is like, well, it's four years later or three and a half years later, do we still want to penalize them when they've made amends and that sort of thing? You know, if, you know, it's, at this point, it's much easier to say, oh, that would have been a consideration we might not have considered this as a good fit for us because we have a lot of young people that want to work. Or, you know, and we have, you know, a very concerned community about, you know, proper pay for people around, you know, all that sort of stuff. And so, you know, I don't know, I mean, I think as a body, we got to think about whether we want to add, you know, a quick check through the AG's office and to see if there's other kinds of violations like that as a factor that we want to, I mean, this is a task we burdened Steve with, to be blunt. Right. Because I don't think you can necessarily demand it of them. I mean, there's things on the alcohol application that involve alcohol violations, but not other kinds of things. And, you know, they demonstrate proof that they've paid their taxes and are current on all their taxes. This is like another category, but it's not already, you know, in the mix. I don't know. I'm not opposed. It just depends on how hard it is to search that database because, you know, that's a pretty onerous process to kind of go through to find, you know, people. Yeah, it wasn't too, you have to, you can, there are little boxes you can check so you can narrow it down to restaurants and you can pick the year and you can even pick the kind of violation. Can you select manager or license holder? Like, not that I could see, there are about, you have to go through, I mean, it's like a spreadsheet. So you can go through, and there were about from 2020, 2022, they're roughly about 800 or 900 a year in the state of Massachusetts. So, I mean, there have been some in, you know, Amherst and Hampton that you don't hear about because it's not necessarily an ongoing case. But I mean, it's not difficult. They don't always list the, some of them are listed by LLC and some of them are listed by restaurant name. So unless you, you know, unless you know, but I don't know that, you know, you could just see it. And then I guess you could call up to the Attorney General's office and ask them if that specific complaint is related somehow. But Yeah, if we could do a search by, because, you know, you can form an LLC for every single, you know, business that you own. And so, you know, it's one of the ways in which people sort of shift focus off of a controversial LLC is to form a new one. And I think that's where it gets weak to, you know, it's, we wouldn't have much ability to sort of search things. If we can search by, you know, owner or board members, that kind of thing, like on an alcohol application, you have to list, you know, sort of owner, board membership, etc. etc. You could, you know, if you can search by that, then it would be much more useful tool. I think given that it's much more based on, you know, like the LLC that's that holds a license or whatever, it wouldn't really know. Right. You know, I mean, the only other way we'd know is to ask them is like, what other, you know, business ownership do you have in any other thing, you know, in any other community and in the state of Massachusetts? Does that, does that call on the license, Steve, as a, because they do list some of the his, right? Yeah, they would list previous liquor licenses they've held and what corporation held that. Right. And you can also use the Secretary of State's corporate database to search for people who are officers of a corporation, which wouldn't always capture the ownership, but generally for small businesses, the offers are, is the ownership. So that may be something. Right. I mean, I didn't get into with the inspector exactly how, what happened. I said, it was, it was the bad management or, you know, whatever, but she wasn't just said that they had had these violations. So, and then I thought it's kind of like, like with the ABCC also issues violate has come through and issued violations tickets for selling to underage people. And as far as I know, that's more of a criminal offense. And we still renew, like we still renewed Panda East because they, as far as I know, right. And yeah, I mean, I think I know the, it's all kind of wrapped up in case law, which makes it difficult to find hard and fast rules, but there is a lot of case law around the license renewal and right. And the state generally takes a pretty harsh look at discipline and and non renewal for outside of kind of egregious, egregious things as they're very big on progressive discipline in the case law. Right. And so yeah, I also might bring attention to the town does have a wage and tip, wage and tip theft by law that were part of the general bylaws that was adopted in 2020. And the board of licensed commissioners, along with the town's human rights director, which I believe is now the DEI director may draw up regulations and take complaints. So it may be a good time and it should be noted, as Doug said, that these are separate LLCs. Right. But but it's, it may be a good time to take a look at that and maybe meet with her and see if there are any regulations the board would like to adopt that also does kind of prescribe. If you know if a licensee who has been found in violation of our bylaw or a criminal civil judgment along the lines of this, if it was the same, the same corporation is not in this case, but the light, the board licensed commissioners could require to have them post a wage bond, which would be an amount three times the amount of the judgment to be held for a certain period of time. It also says that a prospective licensee so disclose any criminal or civil judgment or other administrative action regarding these these types of things. So maybe a good time to take a closer look at that bylaw and maybe consider if there are any regulations the board would like to to take. Sure. I think it's a good idea. I was just going to say, I didn't realize it had actually been enacted that long ago. Because I had a conversation with Pat DeAngelis of District 2 about it because she's the one that I believe was one of the primary town counselors have brought forward forward. And I know that I had some conversations with some town staff about it because it can impact the town as well because of some of the components that are potentially in it and I think they worked that out. But yeah, I think it's perhaps worth looking at if and especially if we're named as a body that can do regulation, then it might be something we consider and I think we consider it relative to issuing and renewing a license. I think there's complications with doing much research because it sounds like the search is a little tricky given what is listed on there. And I'm not thinking that it's easy to add more to Steve's plate. But we do want people that are good and fair business owners. We want them to serve alcohol in a responsible way and all the other businesses and whatnot. And we want them to be good to their employees too. Definitely. Yeah. One thing I was actually considering for other reasons, but certainly with this, there's one provision here in this bylaw that says that a prospective licensee shall disclose any judgements or so forth. But I was thinking that it may be a good idea to have a supplemental page on the liquor license applications for our local questions. Both about hours is one thing that baffles me is not in the state application. And we usually just end up taking that testimony but it would be nice to have that written down. But also to cover that, ask them to disclose that there's any previous violations because there isn't any place for them to answer that. So the owners would be on the applicant to know that this provision exists and that they should answer it. And any other things that may that we may have questions about. So I think that would also be useful for our the food alcohol food service regulations to kind of get some more clarity about their plan and have that in the record. So if the board is so inclined, I could try to draw up a draft of that that of the kind of a supplemental questions page that could be concluded in our applications. Oh yeah, sure. That would be great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Anything else on this? Should we do we need to invite them in to talk about it? What do you think? Have they resolved the issue with the state and with the employees? Yeah, they settled it. They settled the whole case. So and then I think it was like I said they issued the citation on December 20th 2023 and then settled shortly thereafter. She didn't say exactly when and then the press release went out on on January of 2024, the 20th 19th, the 20th. Was the press release from the business or from the state? It was from the state. It's from the Attorney General's office. It was like I think it was a they also their 2020 violation. There was another press release from the attorney. Actually, I bookmarked it somewhere. I think yes. I think there was a press release from the AGO but it didn't make the papers in the way that this one did. I think because it was just really large. Right. Yeah. So anyway, so anything else? Put it at it to talk about it for liquor license regulations? Yeah, I can add a bit. I can certainly add a agenda item for next time about that bylaw we have and whether there are any regulations the board would like to adopt. Okay. Great. And so that'll go on upcoming meetings and agendas. So the next one is the 14th of March in person at 5.30. And Steve, you'll have an update on that meeting regarding the marijuana regulation. And then we can talk some more about the wage law violations and alcohol, local alcohol regulation. And is there anything else? What's going on with the rental bridges regulations? I heard it was I think it was a bit delayed with the changeover of the town council. And I think they've been taking a bit of a recess to kind of get themselves situated as a new council. Okay. So I believe it was going to the CRC again this week. I'm not exactly sure how that turned out, but it was a bit on pause for a little bit. Okay. And then the lunch trucks on Prey Street, you've been working on that and that was successful in the fall. When are you thinking that that will start up again in the spring? I'll have to have some conversations with the town manager about whether that's something that could go again through his temporary authority, or whether there'd need to be a town council by law authorizing it. So I do hope to have that conversation with him coming up as well. Okay. And then anything, any big new license applications coming up? Not that I am aware of. Okay. Anything else for the agenda? Yes. Just a follow-up question talking about Prey Street. The building that is getting closer to completion, not one east, plus I think it's 11. Yes. Next door. And I just asked this because of its proximity to Prey Street. Is that coming online soon? Steve, I'm just curious because that might influence our conversation and the manager's thoughts about Prey Street as a food truck location. Yeah. I believe it is quite close and maybe partially occupied. My understanding is that as of a few weeks ago, they had some issues with the energy code. There was a difficulty where too much air was being turned over by the HVAC equipment and they had to figure out what the problem was. So I'm not sure exactly how that turned out, but it was certainly getting very close besides that issue and also possibly partially occupied. Okay. Thank you. Right. Anything else for upcoming meetings and agendas? No. Okay. Topics not reasonably anticipated, four to eight hours prior to the meeting. Any topics? I have none. No. Just one confirmation. So we're meeting the 14th and then we're going to meet the 28th? Um, yes. Okay. I just want to get my schedule so I don't, you know, double book. Oh, yeah. And the 14th would be in person, right? Yes. And then the 28th is online. 30 Zoom. Okay. Great. Well, if there's nothing else, is there anything else? I'll move to adjourn. Excellent. Thank you. Is there a second? Wonderful. We'll take a vote. Hallie? Aye. Doug? Aye. And I vote aye, three to zero with two absent. We're adjourned at 6.09 p.m. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. See you on the 14th. Bye. Thank you, Steve. Thank you all.