 The chair notes the time is six o'clock. I call this meeting of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals to Order. My name is Steve Judge. As chair of the ZBA, I want to welcome everyone to this meeting. We'll begin with a roll call of the ZBA members and paneled for this meeting. Steve Judge is present. Mr. Dillon-Maxfield. Present. Ms. Sarah Marshall. Present. Mr. David Sloveter. You're muted. Present. There you go. And Mr. Vince O'Connor. Present. The quorum is present. Also attending the public hearing tonight is Ms. Christine Breschrup, the planning director and Mr. Rob Wachilla, planner for the town. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, extended by chapter two of the Acts of 2023, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to observe the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but any effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. The Zoning Board of Appeals is a quasi-judicial body that operates under the authority of chapter 40A of the general laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health, safety, convenience, and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. In accordance with the provisions of Massachusetts General Laws chapter 40A, and article 10, special permit granting authority of the Amherst Zoning By-law, this public meeting has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and mailed to parties at interest. All hearings and meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff. They may be viewed via the town of Amherst YouTube webpage and ZBA webpage. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the board during the hearing, after which the board will ask questions for clarification or for additional information. After the board has completed its questions, the board will seek public input. The public speaks with the permission of the chair. If a member of the public wishes to speak, they should so indicate by using the raised hand function on their screen. If on the phone they should ask for assistance from, we'll announce how members of the public wishing to comment by phone can access this meeting. The chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, provide your name and address to the board for the record. All questions and comments must be addressed to the board. The board will normally hold public hearings where information about the project and input from the public is gathered, followed by public meetings for each. The public meeting portion is when the board deliberates and is generally not an opportunity for public comment. If the board feels it has enough information and time, we'll decide upon the applications tonight. Each petition is, each petition heard by the board is distinct and evaluated on its own merits, and the board is not ruled by precedent. Statutorily for special permit, the board has 90 days from the close of the hearing to file a decision. For variance, the board has 100 days from the date of filing to file its decision. No decision is final until the written decision is signed by the sitting board members and is filed in the town clerk's office. Once the decision is filed with the town clerk, there's a 20 day appeal period for a grieved party to contest the decision with the relevant judicial body and superior court. After the appeal period, the permit must be recorded at the registry of deans to take effect. Tonight's agenda, a public hearing on ZBA 2020-14 the spoke LLC, requests for a special permit under section 3.352.2 of the zoning bylaw to change the use of the building located at one to 11 prey street, AKA 15 to 33 prey street, Amherst, Massachusetts, 01002 from a three space commercial building consisting of a bar, general cleaners and a laundromat to a single space commercial building consisting of a nightclub and request for special permit under section 5.042 of the zoning bylaw for live or prerecorded entertainment. Map 11C, parcel 274, business general zoning district. This is continued from April 13th, 2023. There's a following the public hearing. We will move to a public meeting while keeping the public hearing open. There'll be general comment period and other business not anticipated within 48 hours. We are gonna do something that we haven't done previously. We're going to consider the meeting the last week's minutes and adopt those, consider them, amend them or adopt those as is the determination of the board. Rob, thank you very much for doing the meeting minutes. That's a nice change. And I think that that really helps us and help me in terms of trying to make sure that we had everything for tonight's meeting all in line. So I know there was one change that Mr. O'Connor wish to make for the minutes and that was to correct who you're the owner of the property in which you live is Ms. Jones property and not the applicant. Is that correct? That's correct. And the wording of the proposed change in the minutes should be before you in a memo from Chris Prestrup. And I did file a notice with regard to this matter with the town clerk prior to the meeting of April but evidently the wording didn't get to you in time. Okay, got it. So we'll make those two changes those without objection those two changes will be made Ms. Marshall. I don't object to them but I also have some questions or clarifications too. All right. Hold on, let me get to let me get those meetings the minutes in front of me and we can do that. All right, what's the first correction or question you have? Page two on the third bullet does the abiding bank have an agreement to let the spoke live use their parking spots? Mr. O'Rourke stated they do not in that parking is not a concern of theirs. That's just the last phrase sounds dismissive. So we could alter it just to say that they're not required to provide parking or that their customers don't their patrons don't drive they tend not to drive. So I mean, but just to say it's not a concern seem dismissive. I'm sorry. That's okay. I think that's a good change. All right. I guess if anyone objects they should speak up for the next one. Yep. All right, the second set of bullets the first one says most of the intended improvements to the building would be for soundproofing purposes. I'm not sure that's totally accurate. They're putting in a whole slew of bathrooms and making a lot of big improvements. Maybe just add most of the intended improvements to the building envelope would be for soundproofing. Yeah, where's that again? This is the first bullet on the same page but in the second set of bullets. Oh yeah, got it. Yeah, the building or we could just say you know what we could say is improvements to the building include soundproofing. Right. Yeah, we can just, yeah, just something like that. Yeah, we don't have to characterize most or not. We can just say that that's what they intend. So why don't we do that, Ms. Marshall? Just say that improvements to the building include soundproofing. Okay, I assume Rob is writing all this down, so, yeah. All right. Okay, the third page then the one, two, three, four, fifth bullet, just a typo. It said employees will have the appropriate certifications inside the parentheses. I think it should be crowd control, not crowd. Crowd manager is the appropriate. Crowd manager, I believe is the appropriate one. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah, and that same typo is in a couple of places in other places I think in the project application report. So we might see that again, yep. Yeah, towards the bottom of that page, third one from the bottom, at least as it prints out for me, says the applicant discussed the sound mitigation, that one. Yep. It says one half inch tempered glass windows. I believe they're double glazed, right? So I don't know if we need to provide so much detail, but I think they're double glazed with a layer, some polymer between them, something like that. Does anybody have a, I guess I would, normally we wouldn't turn to the applicant at this point, but he's the one that knows the answer to that. So, yeah. Are you talking about the windows? Yeah. Yeah, are they double glazed with the polymer between? Yeah. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, that's all right. Laminated glass. Laminated, but yeah, maybe better. Yeah, it's not a glazing barrier or something. Yeah, that's all, that's all. Yeah, the two panel that creates the sound proofing in between them, is that what you're asking? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Are there any other suggestions for the recommendations, amendments to the minutes? If not, I'd take a motion. I'd look for a motion that we approve the minutes as amended. Do I have a motion? I'll move. Is there a second? Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? If there's no further discussion, the vote occurs on the motion to approve the minutes. The chair votes aye. Mr. Maxfield? Aye. Ms. Marshall? Aye. Ms. Sloveter? Mr. Sloveter? Aye. Sorry about that. Aye. And Mr. O'Connor? Yes. All right. Motion carries. The minutes are approved from our meeting on the 13th. Mr. Chairman? Yep. Yes. I do have one declaration. OK. I was two or three weeks ago, I was at the Kendrick Park across from the spoke. A gentleman who was present on behalf of the applicant at the site visit approached me, says, hello, I did not recognize him. He had to introduce himself. He asked why I was there. And I explained that I was there with a neighbor's family. And he then said, well, you know, he basically said goodbye and walked back across the street. So there was no discussion of the project. And my brief interaction with him will have no impact on my ability to be fair and impartial with regard to the project. Mr. Chair? Yes, Mr. Maxfield. That was not a member of the spoke who had done it. That was me who would cross the street and said hello to Mr. O'Connor. I know me and Mr. O'Connor don't see each other too much in person. So yeah, just for clarification, that was not a representative of the spoke. That was my self saying hello. OK. Well, it was very out of context. And I actually didn't recognize the person and didn't really. No worries. And from both of your representations, you did not discuss or deliberate about the matter. So we have no open meeting violation as far as I'm concerned. So we look to be in good shape. Thank you both for that clarification. And then Mr. Chair, I also have a disclosure as well. Since our last meeting on the Board of Licenses, we recently approved the manager for spoke live and Mr. Colin Hughes, who will be the manager. He was a roommate of mine back in 2017. I know him personally, but we don't have any financial relationship at this point. And again, I do not feel that will impact my ability to remain impartial. Got it. Thank you, Mr. Maxfield. Ms. Brestrup, does Mr. Maxfield have to file something with the town for that? Typically not, I don't think. But clarify it for me. Since he is there's no financial connection, no appearance of a conflict of interest in my opinion. Yep. I wouldn't think so, Leader. OK. All right. That same day we did, at the same time, we rich loopholeed is the new license manager of the existing spoke building. And Colin would be the proposed manager for the liquor license of the new building, is to just add on to that what Dylan was bringing up there for the liquor board, liquor license. All right. Mr. Chair? Yes, Mr. O'Connor. Yeah, and I think that the declaration has already been made that gentlemen is a member of the licensing board. That was done at the previous meetings. So any issue related to that, I think this was resolved at the previous meeting. I do too. Yep. I think that's I think you're right. So I think it's all good. I think we're in good shape here. OK. What I want to do now is to go through submissions. Since they're no more for the disclosures, minutes are approved from last meeting. I would like to go through submissions for this first order of business, the first order of business being, again, VDA 2023-14, the spoke LLC request for a special permit under section 3.352.2 of the zoning bylaw to change the use of the building located at 1 to 11 Prey Street, AKA 15 to 33 Prey Street, Amherst, Massachusetts 01002 from the three space commercial building consisting of a bar general cleaners and laundromat to a single space commercial building consisting of a night club and request for a special permit under section 5.042 of the zoning bylaw for live or prerecorded entertainment. Map 11C, parcel 274, BG, General Business Zoning District. This is continued from April 13, 2023. So we've had our disclosures. Let's go through submissions. We have several submissions since our last meeting. Many of them were per the request that we had from the applicant. I'm going to go through these. And Ms. Brushbrook and Mr. Wachille, if I have missed one, please or anybody, but especially the staff, if I miss one submission, please let me know. We discussed the changes to the meeting minutes, which was submitted. We had requirements needed for 5.11, which was created by the staff and included in that the amended version, which has submissions from the applicants. We have management review plan, which is the amended management plan from the applicant. I want to make sure you still hear me after it dropped out, OK? Which contains changes from which was submitted earlier. We have a ride share pickup, a map that shows where the ride share pickup area would be, submitted from the applicant. We have pursuant to a request from Mr. O'Connor, a log of the Panda East restaurant in 2015, where there were some minors served alcohol and the consideration from the town select board at the time on how to dispose of that allegation in the police report. And we also had some information regarding ventilation systems, which was put together by Rob of the staff, as well as occupancy. We had asked about occupancy at other sites in town. We have an occupancy listing for the Drake, as well as the Commonwealth of the Certificate of Occupancy. And we have live photos of the parking lot across the street from the site at ours when the site might be in use. Those are the submissions that I have. There are also staff submissions, which include, again, the research done for pursuant from the staff researching our questions that the board had for 511. This includes ventilation, sound decibels, police reports, and the PVTA schedule, as well as ride share information for East Pleasant Street. So we have, and the maximum occupancy for Amherst Cinema Bistro 63, a monkey bar, Panda East, Johnny's Tavern of the Spoke, and the maximum occupancy for former businesses, the Old Town Tavern at 97 and Charles at 99. We included the schedules for the buses, public transportation, and also the ride share estimate for a number of rides in 2020, or I guess not an estimate, but the number of rides in 2022 as well as the rides in 2019. Is there anything that I've forgotten? I think that pretty much runs down all the submissions at this time. Oh, we have an amended project application report, most importantly. That's the one thing we have to have notice on. All right. Anything else, either Ms. Brestrup or Mr. Wachala? Yes, Ms. Brestrup. I think there was an email from me to Rob Wachala that I think Rob might have sent out to you that had to do with noise levels. Oh, yes. Yeah, there is. Yeah, there is. And those were questions that were brought to our attention by Mr. O'Connor. Yeah, noise levels. Exactly, thank you for that. All right. I think that does the submissions. So what I think would probably be most helpful for us would be to go through the response from the applicant on questions that we had at our last meeting. And so I know that you responded to many of those and you also have amended your management plan. And I think what would be best is if we could run through those and respond to the questions that the board had in that manner. So please state your name and address for the record. Chad O'Rourke, 6th University Drive in Amherst. The bar address is 35 East Buzzen Street in Amherst, Massachusetts 101-002. And then what else did you need? That's it. That's all we need is your name and address. All right. So I think probably the best way to do this is to go through this document, which is entitled, Requirements Needed for 5-11-2023. Are you have that document in front of you, Mr. O'Rourke? I do. Rob, is that the one that I sent to you and copied and pasted the answer to? Yeah, then yes, I do have that one in front of you, Mr. O'Rourke. Let's just run through that. And so this will be shorter. So if members of the board have a question or a response, we can deal with it right at the time. We don't have to wait until the end and go through them all at once. And I believe we have a question. I believe we have answers to everything. So I don't think there was anything that wasn't responded to. So. OK. All right. Let's go through it. So the first one is how to address the outside meeting queue in regards to what the number of patrons who can congregate in the line before getting kicked out, give a description of where the queuing will occur and how the onsite staff will manage and organize the line and list steps of how the onsite staff will control large gatherings outside the outside of the building. And you address that in your management plan. Is that correct? Yeah, I made some adjustments in the management plan to it. I made sure that when I set the management update and management plan to Rob, that I highlighted them in red, the changes that we made so that it was obvious to where I responded to those particular things. One of the parts of this was, I believe, Mr. Marshall, I think it was your question regarding the queuing on the sidewalk there. And I had reached out to my architect and his design did include the entire sidewalk to come up with that capacity. His response to it was basically that it's a private sidewalk and that anybody that was accessing the street, Pre Street, using the public way should be using the public sidewalk on the other side, which is why he designed it that way. We did limit it to a, I think his, I don't have the exact number in front of me. I believe it was 390. We were limiting it in the management plan to 300, but it's a more controllable number. So we did it that way. There's been times in the past, especially during the COVID days where we were restricted to capacity, distance separation, all those type of things that had come up on our sidewalk. And how we responded to that was simply having staff have to go up to our page and say, sorry, you can't be here. I mean, it is a public way at the end of the day. There's only so much we have. But to be honest, in all the years we've done this, they listen because they have to. So we have an excellent relationship with the police department. If we have the need to enforce anything beyond that, we do, we contact them, we have a direct line to them. So most of the time when we ask somebody, take a walk around the block and come back when the lines are shorter, they essentially do. So I think in this particular situation, that's how we would have to respond to it, but the queuing to answer your question directly, which I think was where this came from was that is how it was designed in his design. Ms. Marshall. I respond, thank you. So a couple of things, you mentioned, you just mentioned, you made two statements that aren't reflected in this red text, but they were exactly what I was wondering, which is if that sidewalk is private or not, if it is private, then I don't know if we have any authority to change the queuing plan. I mean, I just don't know. But your architect seems to think that people only use the sidewalk if they're going back and forth between buildings in that area. And that is not true because there is through traffic up to Triangle Street and down to East Pleasant, through there. What he was saying is the public way is the other side of the street, Prey Street has the public sidewalk on it, and then our sidewalk is private. But I think here's your question, you do have the right. Yeah, all right. You guys are making the rules. So I mean, if you guys have a suggestion to make for us, then obviously we are certainly here for that purpose. So yes, you have every right to suggest the stuff, but it is a private way at that point. Okay, I have noticed, I'm sorry. Yeah, I have noticed that since our last meeting at your current location, you're now putting up portable fences to make sure that half of that public sidewalk is free. And that's much appreciated. Yeah. And we could do that. I think I put a note in here that they've been terribly successful. And so the use of portable line stanchions would certainly an element that we can entertain. The concern I would have, and I think the concern you guys would have is to make sure that those portable stanchions wouldn't be blocking the egress way. And we wouldn't intend to do that. They would be designed to not be in the egress of those doorways. But that's certainly, if it's okay with the zoning board as we move forward with that to use those stanchions, they've worked fantastically. I mean, that's what Uptown Amherst did for many, many years to control the population that was up there. And again, we wouldn't put one and direct resistance to the egress, but we could certainly use them to control crowd management. I think that makes sense, but I would want, and I'm not prepared to approve a plan. And I don't think you're prepared to provide a plan tonight on the stanchions, the portable ones. But I think a condition that makes sense would be to reference that you may want to create a plan with portable stanchions and have that approved by the building commissioner. I don't think we need to come back to the ZBA for that, but to have a submission. We may not need that application as much. It may not, but if you're gonna use them, the concern I have is that they could be misplaced and could block the exits. I agree with that. So if we can have a condition that says if portable stanchions are used, it's a plan that should go to the building commissioner for approval to avoid blocking the exits on the sidewalk. So I'm to that aspect. Yep, okay. That makes sense to me. All right. I think that'll be addressed to would be as we go through this and we touch on the elevated lip there of the curving that's part of the discussion of that too. I'll be there next. The next is on desk. Any other questions on the sidewalk? No, let's go to the decibel levels. So the question was whether, what are gonna be the decibel levels inside the building and whether there be a effect upon workers or patrons? And can you please tell us how you responded to that? Yeah, so in my research, and I think Rob and what Rob had discovered too from what I saw in his response here is there is no regulations laws or standards. This is my response that I'm reading right now to address the risk of the hearing damage from music venues, concerts, nightclubs. There of course are studies. There's many studies pertaining to the noise, newest induced hearing loss based on those. And so 85 decibels is considered the action level for at which point hearing protection is suggested and encouraged. And then 90 decibels to 90 decibels for those that would be exposed more than eight hours and a hundred decibels for those that would be exposed less than eight hours over the longevity. And I just read the thing that Rob, I think it was Rob that had attached it to this. And I think that adds right up to my research as well in being that it's long-term exposure. I don't know if this falls on that classification. Again, there's no requirements to any of that. We certainly are happy to provide hearing protection to staff that would have desire to use it. We have no problem with that. I've never had staff that have wanted to do that. I don't think, rock concerts, I mean, if you've gone to a typical concert concert, like a real true outdoor rock concert, you do see staff members usually have ear protection in their ears, in and around those speakers. That's a different level certainly than what we're talking about here. So, again, I've never personally had any staff member that has indicated a desire to have hearing protection. And then patrons, I don't think are exposed to it long enough for that to be a concern, at a volume that would be a concern at least. So what is your, just second, the Tokana, what do you think your anticipated decibel level will be the high level inside the club? We used a hundred decibels as the threshold for it. That's the standard decibel rating of what you consider a nightclub to be. And then you base the reduction for the outside noise level to be 50 decibels below that. Is that what you're looking at? So a hundred is what you're... We have to obtain 70 at the perimeter. And so we do think we can achieve 50 for the exterior. Obviously that doesn't answer Mr. O'Connor's concern of the interior premises to this point, because at that point we're talking about reduction on the outside of the perimeter of the building. And I think that the concern was more of the interior aspect of things. Is that correct, Mr. O'Connor? Am I answering your question correctly? Yeah, it's the interior. And when it's my turn to speak, I'll explain my concerns. And do you have any measuring device that you keep inside for decibel level measuring? Do you do that? We do not. We don't, we haven't needed to, to be honest with you of that, you know, there hasn't been a concern that we've had to address to do that. So no, we don't. Okay. Mr. O'Connor? Yes, so the reason I raised this issue is because the applicant indicated that the music that would be provided when we talked about the interior layout was that it would be a prerecorded music. It's very hard to control live entertainment. And of course, I don't believe that it would be possible to set a standard for live indoor entertainment. But with regard to any recorded entertainment music that would be provided at the facility, my view is that that can easily be controlled. And that the control should be that the decibel level set for the prerecorded music should be below the level where there could be damage. Now, of course, hearing damage occurs not, you know, even within the working, you know, lifetime of, of somebody who, who may be here for college or whatever, you're not going to notice it. You're going to notice it when people are in their late 30s, early 40s, maybe 50s. So I, my view is that we have an obligation on Article One to protect health safety and welfare of the inhabitants. And that the best way to do that with regard to the interior noise level is to add, we can't control whatever else additive noise happens, but we can ask the applicant and should ask the applicant to set the, for prerecorded music or sound that the decibel level be at 85. That's easily controllable by the applicant. And it would minimize damage, the damage done to not so much of the patrons because as he said, it's correctly said that they're usually not there long enough to experience it. But, and this was the issue for smoking, indoor smoking. It wasn't the indoor smoking regulations were not directed at the patrons. They were directed at the employees. And so somebody who's on site for five hours a day no matter whether they're shifted around during that time or not will be exposed to a level of noise that I think we should be concerned about. And so I think we should ask the applicant and make it a condition of the permit, if granted, that the recorded music that is being provided be set at 85 decibel level. Of course, the level may go up because of other noise that's generated conversation and so forth, but with regard to that which can be controlled by the applicant, I think it is reasonable to ask. And I also think that because so many of the employees functions have to do with the bartenders, the people at the door and so forth. They have to do with interacting with the public and speaking and hearing from the public that and patrons that I think the idea that individuals can use earplugs and so forth those are really for work, for construction sites and auto assembly plants and other places that have severe noise, that's not a practical solution to a situation where you have intense public interaction by the employees. So I think the requirement of 85 decibels for prerecorded music is a reasonable one and the board should adopt that as part of any permit they grant. Ms. Marshall, Mr. O'Rourke, you wanna respond? I would like to respond. I mean, my application is for a nightclub and I don't think 85 decibel rating is reasonable to be approved for a nightclub, which we all know the decibel rating of a nightclub is a hundred. So that threshold might be reasonable. And I guess my question would be, is there a decibel restriction at the Drake, which is a live music venue as well? So if there's not one at the Drake, why are we putting a restriction on the nightclub here to something that doesn't have standards or laws or anything set forth in any other facility anywhere? That would be my question and my response to it, but. Mr. Chairman, I understand I don't know whether the Drake was subject to a special permit, but I think part of our responsibility as the deciders on special permit requests is to enforce the entire bylaw. I don't know. Most of those other permits may have been in fact granted under sections of the bylaw that don't require special permits. But this one is subject to special permit requests and my reading of the bylaw suggests we ought to in fact implement article one of the bylaw when we consider these types of requests. Thank you, Mr. Sloveter. Well, I have a few general comments on this particular point and I am somewhat uniquely aware of sound levels because I'm married to an audiologist. So it's just something that is part of what I'm aware of. I don't think that this entire topic is reasonable to impose on the interior space of a nightclub. I'm only concerned with the sound outside the club and the effect that it has on the general public. I don't believe that there is any power to parallel here to smoking. Secondhand smoke is imposed on people who are in a space for other reasons. Everybody who is in attendance at a club is there voluntarily with full knowledge of the sound levels that they're likely to encounter. The Drake is so loud that my son and I know this is anecdotal evidence only was there for a concert and chose to leave because it was so loud. And I don't think it's fair to impose a specific sound level on one facility and not on others in the town. Personally, I don't care who selectively chooses to injure their hearing by going to a place that's too loud. I'm not indifferent to it, but I don't think it's our business to do this. If there are OSHA standards that somebody on any site, whether it's a construction site or a nightclub are supposed to meet, then let OSHA enforce it, not the planning board of the town. So I'm not in favor of hands off everything by any means, but in this particular case, it's a nightclub with known characteristics. And I don't think that we should be concerned about what goes on inside the club. I'm not talking about criminal activity. I don't think we should be concerned about what goes on inside the club if it has no effect on the general public. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Ms. Marshall. Thank you. I agree with Mr. Sloveter. Also with Mr. O'Rourke's points, it's really quite unfair to impose for one business to be forced to adhere to such a requirement. I also think there's no limit to the number of restrictions that we could put on if we wanted to in the name of health. We could say, well, we don't think you should serve more than two drinks to anybody because alcohol is bad for you. I mean, everyone who's coming in here, I believe is over 21 and their adults and the employees themselves, I believe do have recourse to OSHA. If, you know, I think there's a problem. The general industry standard is 85 decibels averaged over eight hours. So again, this venue is only open for five hours at a time. So it would be scientifically improper in my view to have a ceiling of 85 in any case. But yeah, I disagree with this whole notion. Thank you. So we're getting into a discussion about whether we impose a condition or not. Right now we should be getting answers from examining what the proposal was from the applicant. When we get to the conditions is when we should be discussing amongst ourselves as to whether it's a responsible condition or not. I wanted to let this go on a bit because it's an interesting discussion, but I think we'll be returning to it under the conditions. So unless there's a new point to be made regarding the applicant's response, I'd like to move on to the next portion of the next response from the applicant. Okay. So the next one is regards to the fire department. Can you respond there, Mr. O'Rourke? Yep, I spoke with Jason Skeels from the town and I have spoke with the fire department and it is already in the works that we are going to put a new hydrant in between the suggestion. Again, we're working with Jason Skeels on it so it'll be determined officially, but they've suggested that on Prairie Street in one of the grass islands that are over there sort of in between the two buildings, the existing building and the new building that we would install a fire hydrant there. It is town property. I've already volunteered to happily pay for it because it benefits both my buildings. And so that would solve the problem. I think during Mr. Olson's surveying of the area, it's determined that the current building might be in violation of a hundred feet away as well. And so to solve the problem of both, two birds with one stone as he put it, we just put a new fire hydrant on Prairie Street there and we would be within a hundred feet of both. So that is already in the works. Should obviously, should this get approved and we continue to move forward that it will be a part of it. So that's an easy solution there. So is that going to be part of your management plan or does that need to be part of a design plan that's submitted to the, I think that has to be part of a site plan. I could be wrong. I don't believe so. I think that just goes through Amherst Fire Department. So it doesn't have to be approved by the plan. Mr. Rotchela, can you tell us? No, so in this case, he has to get it permitted with the fire department. So the board doesn't really need to require it in their site plans, but you couldn't make it a condition that he does install the fire hydrant and works at the fire department. Yep, we can do that. All right. Well, the next one deals with the curb situation and the emergency egress. And that was something that both Mr. O'Connor and Mr. and I brought up. Can you respond on, and with the real question was, take a look at it and come back with us on your thoughts about how you can deal with the safety of the people coming out and deal with the emergency situation, the lip that's there. Give us your thoughts on that. Yeah, and this is a topic that I don't honestly know that amongst any of us will have a true solution because I think that all of us see both sides of the fence on this one. And it's tough because you solve one problem, but you create another. And so it's sort of finding that happy medium. I did speak with Wendy Jones who owns the building and she said, whatever we need to do, we have her support. So that's not an issue, the suggestions of maybe making a curb cut right in front of the egress only is there. Certainly the topic of putting a railing up, I think that one was thrown out really quickly because we know that the concern there would be a clustering of patrons being able to come out. And everyone I talked to said, I'd rather see a broken arm than someone in danger. And so the raised curbing was designed, according to Wendy Jones when that building was put in that raised curbing was designed to prohibit the vehicle from being able to leap the curbing into the building and hit a patron, hit the inside of the building, whatever it might be. It actually did happen in the past at one of the areas where the curb cut wasn't there. She had told me that and luckily nobody was hurt at the time. So the design is intentional. And so I don't necessarily have a solution to the problem other than the building owner myself. And I think a lot of people we talked to, the solution was to, that there shouldn't be a change. It was designed for that intention. And so, yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's tough because again, you see, I see both sides of everything and I think everybody does. And if we solve it one way, is it detrimental the other? I don't know. I think that's my impression of your answer is that that you dealt with and examined a pretty conflicted situation. I see both sides. In your management plan, I think you talked about keeping people away from, managing the line outside by reducing the number of people that could be in the line to 300 from 360, 380 or whatever the number was that's conceivable that could be put on that sidewalk to reduce it to 300. And you keep them, if I understand it correctly, you keep them clear of the doorways. You do, yes. And that is done because you have people outside, dormant that would monitor that and in case of an emergency, that doorway would be cleared and you wouldn't have to move people out of the way that it would be cleared up already because it wouldn't be anybody standing in front of the doorway. Is that correct? An even more important, yes, and even more importantly, we have staff members inside at that station. So that is a requirement. We've done that ever since I've taken over the existing spoke. We've always had a doorman. I think we discussed this last time. Every one of those exit egresses has a doorman whose job is to stay there. We provide extra staff members so that those staff members do not have to move around. They do rotate through. And so yeah, that there is someone at those point of exit and egress at all times, in addition to the staff numbers that we have on the outside monitoring the line as well. So, yes. And lastly, the notion of just taking the lip down in front of the egresses. So if you avoided it is a possibility. I think there's only one, if I remember correctly, and I would have to double check on this, the one on the far right of the building, which used to be all town taverns and Charlie's is already open. The one on the far side, which was the laundry mat has a far enough egress away. It's 15 feet at that point from the door. That wouldn't be a concern. I think the one where we're all really mainly would be talking about would be the middle one, which used to be the general thing. That is absolutely as you walk out that door, you walk into a raised curb at that point, if you were to. Okay, so that's a possibility. We may look at that, Mr. O'Connor. Yeah, yeah, I just, I don't think this has to be an all or nothing situation with regard to the protective curbing with regard to cars that were parked alongside the building. My understanding of what I have thought from the beginning was to was at the, in the street opposite the entrance that is the center entrance, not the one on the west side, which the applicant just spoke about or the one where there's a large area to congregate outside and is not likely to be the main exit for a large number of patrons, except those in the bathrooms, that center entrance, I think is a good candidate for the removal of both the parking space and the curb so that people can exit the building safely, not run into an automobile, but have some kind of a crosshatched area that is indicated that it's not to be parked in and that it would be continuously clear for patrons exiting the building. And I think that that's the only concern that I have with regard to that, it's not removing all the raised curbing because I think it's useful for the parking spaces that would remain, but I think that one parking space in front of the exit should be, that should be removed and the curbing should be removed and the access to the street, because the sidewalk is not that wide, should be completely clear. So when you walk out the door or maybe go out the door faster than at a walk, you have a clear space in front of you. And I think that's the safest way to deal with it. The one question I have with regard to this is to the applicant is when those doors are opened, we're both opened in a situation where the patrons are asked to leave the building, is there a way to secure the doors so that they don't pull back into the paper? Is there a way to do that that you've thought through, that used at other buildings or so forth? Yes, I'll respond to all of that. So regarding the removal of the parking spot, I couldn't disagree more and I guarantee the Jones properties will disagree with you completely as well. They are 72 inch egress walkways outside of that doorway. Code requires 60 inches or beyond code. There's no reason whatsoever if we were to cut that curb out that that parking spot should be removed other than the safety of patrons because the curb cut was removed, that would then work against the reason to have the curb cut. To respond for your doors, yes, we already have them in the existing building. Every single one of our doors has flipped down door stoppers. So as you go out the door, they are flipped down and left open. That's at the end of every night as we exit the building, as our patrons exit the building, those doors are held open by a door stopper that keeps them open. And that would be the same thing on those doors to answer your question. So yes. Okay, all right. Ms. Marshall. I wonder if a middle ground is to remove the curb in front of that door but allow for parking during the day. There isn't generally any parking there when the club is open, but you could in any case put some cones in that spot to keep someone from parking there. The only possible downside is that parking during the day could the vehicle jump? Is it with the gap? Anyway, so you see, but wouldn't have to permanently remove the spot perhaps. All right. A good point for discussion when we're talking about conditions. The next one deal, the next issue I think deals with fire department that we've dealt with most of this, but you got to test, you're going to test for radio frequency and you're going to get the fire department's approval, right? Yeah, that's part of the permitting with them anyways. They come in for their final inspection and well, they would do that anyways. Yeah, that's already, should be resolved. And the next is lighting. Can you please discuss how you respond on lighting? Where am I looking at? See the attached pictures. I think where it shows the lighting. Yeah, so I, do you guys have the pictures there of the lighting? I'm sorry if they weren't. It's very well lit. I tried to provide the best pictures I could to show in all different directions of how well lit that area is. Obviously, I think all the businesses at this point, especially because the ones that have to go before the design review board, downward lighting is always a consideration in everything we do. That building has that awning out front with can LED lights that face downwards. It's extremely well lit in the front sidewalk. The entire current Jones properties building is all lit up around it. We have floodlights that face downwards that light up each one of the corners of that building. The only thing, and I think I mentioned it in here somewhere, the current, what will be our entrance point, which is the side of the building that the work is currently being done on. I do have a large LED downward light. It's a post light. It's installed just when it's unwired currently. So when the electrical permit's done and the new wiring for that particular light is reinstalled, that light will illuminate that entire side as well. So I think it was Ms. Marshall that had asked about the side of that building if it was appropriate lighting. And I think those pictures will show you how well lit the banks parking lot is. There is a public, I guess it's private light as well. One of the big tall high pressure sodium lights right there in front of the building, actually at both sides of it as well. And that's on the drawing, that light, the LED light you're talking about is on the plants. Yes. Okay, all right, Ms. Marshall. Yes, so first of all, I was wondering if you know the time of night or evening when these were taken, because we were also wondering if the parking lot was indeed fairly vacant. So do you know what time of day? Friday at nine o'clock, yeah, was the pictures that are provided to you right there. I think there's three of them, is that correct? Yeah. Friday at nine o'clock was the pictures there. One of the things that's currently happening with us that will not happen hopefully very much in the future is we're inundated with construction worker vehicle. And I'm actually in cooperation with Western builders who is overseeing the job behind us to allow them to use our parking lot during the daytime. They're abusing it a little bit, parking in front of the Jones properties building where we're solving that issue. So at the moment there has been much more use during the daytime of our parking lot, which is almost completely vacant during the daytime. And I think that general area of well, the construction's going on, but it's very obvious to what they are, the pickup trucks, their utility body trucks, but they're everywhere in that neighborhood. So we've seen, like I said, we've been inundated with much more traffic than we've had in the past, but this is in general patron traffic that we've been seeing. So, and that right now has been leaving by five or six each night anyways, but- They're not there when you're open. They're not there when you're open. Correct, I just wanted to bring that up because anyone that drives through right now would notice the amount of vehicles that are over there. So, but to go back to the lighting, Ms. Marshall, I think you were the one that addressed that and I just wanted to follow up on that to provide you with that picture. Like I said, the bank, in the bank parking lot, there's a high pressure sodium light, which is one of the ones provided by the utility company. And then in my current building parking lot, not the parking directly out of the back of the building, but the second half of that parking lot between that and the public parking lot, there's another high pressure sodium light right there as well. And that's in addition to all the perimeter lighting that we have around each of the buildings. So it's a very well-lit area. Right, I think my question though was, I asked- Specificance learnings? The site, whether this ambient, this existing lighting was adequate to illuminate your signs because clearly below, it's very, the sidewalks are very well lit. The question is above, yeah. Yeah, and it is, when I discussed with the design review board regarding an illuminated light box there versus the standard sign that we use, I prefer not to use an illuminated light box. To me, it's not, I don't want neon signs in my windows there. I don't, we're something that doesn't need more attention than it needs. And so for me, I have no desire to put an illuminated light box. I have no desire to put signage. I just kind of wanna keep it very, very simple. You guys know with this, you've been in this town long enough, it's not gonna be a secret we're there. We don't have to advertise to anybody. It's a student-based market. It's a student-based business. They know we're there. They will come outside of the perimeters of safety concerns from an advertising perspective of things I don't see the need for that. But it is illuminated enough to know what is there, yes. All right. The next is the ride-share pickup area. That's included with a drop, the site plan, which shows where the cars will, the ride-shares will park. And that's just in front of the parking spots. It's on the public way. We use it currently, it's Pre Street. There's that sort of that nook that's in front of the banks, between us and the bank where the dead area is that is owned by the building behind us, which they're doing nothing with. Right now it's the entrance point for the construction area. We strongly discourage ride-share, Uber, any of those ones from coming on the main street, which would be East Pleasant Street out the front building. And so everybody's always directed down Pre Street. It makes sense because it's such a quiet area for them to go. You can come in from East Pleasant Street, go out onto College Street very simply without getting any jams. And so we've always done that. It's been a habit for us to do it. And that's a great area of off the beaten path area for them to do that. So it hasn't been problematic in the past. We've, like I said, it's kind of tried and true for us. Any questions about the ride-share? Ms. Marshall. Yeah, sorry. Did you say that this hatched area, that belongs to Architalia or whoever it is? No, it's the public way. It is the public way. Pre Street, yeah, it's the public way. It's where the currently the construction vehicles are. But they don't own it. They don't own that. No, that's just the entrance point. It would, you know, if they were to have gates there one day, it might be different because they would have an entrance point to Pre Street. But their site plan that they submitted is fencing in that area and kind of creating a dead area over there for future use. So it's a great little pickup area that we've used already. Thank you. Timestamp photographs of the back lot. I think you've already provided those. Yeah, that was the one where I used both to show the illumination and the kind of how quiet is really back there. Obviously during the daytime, it's a different, it's a very different subject. Jones Properties has many businesses in there. Parking is a commodity during the daytime back there, which is one of the reasons we didn't, I don't think anyone would want to entertain removing any parking as it is. I think the luxury we have of being down this part of town is that we don't have parking requirements but we have parking. That's a unique thing in our downtown district. So we don't want to give up any of that if we get. All right, and then we've gone, I think we've gone through all the submissions that questions that we had in your submissions. The last, the only thing that I would do is if people wanted to run through the management, the amended management plan. I had a couple of questions about that. Just a second, Mr. Connor. I had a couple of questions about your management plan. So the doorman, I just wanted to make sure I understood. You said you have a lead doorman. Inside you have three doorman. You have two at the front door. You have two floaters and one. So you have nine doorman on staff all the way. For the proposed, for the new building, we would have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, correct, yep. And the floaters go around and the three that are assigned to those doors. Correct, so they rotate through, sometimes when we have newer employees that are still learning, we'll put them in, we'll kind of keep them in the easier areas to handle. But yes, throughout the night, our lead door guy is always checking on everybody. We do rotate staff through most every one of our spots so that there's, so people just don't get complacent is what it is. Got it, okay. Mr. O'Connor, you had a question. That's all the questions I had on the management plan. Go ahead, Mr. O'Connor. Yeah, so at the bottom of the sheet that I have, there was a issue of addressing the long hallway to the bathrooms because there's an exit. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And I guess I raised that issue. And my concern is that I don't know if the members of the board can imagine what five feet is or they have a space that is five feet wide that's immediately available to them. But five feet wide is about the width of a bicycle lane plus maybe the curb and the actual line that demarcates the bicycle lane from the motor vehicle lane. And as such, that is in my opinion, not a situation that I would not like to have a situation where an emergency patrons are going to be trying to go down that five foot wide hallway to the exit that is opposite the bathrooms. Partly simply because if in a five foot hall wide hallway, one person stumbles, trips, falls or whatever, it's going to lead to a very bad situation. And I don't know how to resolve that, but one thought I had was that that there'd be a way to close off that hallway in an emergency so that people are directed to the three, the entrance now turned exit and the other two exits that are double by doors, but accessible through a very wide area that the main gathering area. And I think that hallway is a potential problem in an emergency and I would not like to see people trying to travel down that hallway to get to an exit. Obviously it has to be available for people who are in the bathrooms and maybe for some of the staff who could exit out that from me, but I'm not convinced that that hallway is a safe way to exit a, to go to get to the outside for a large number of people in an emergency. And if the applicant has some thoughts about it or the other board members do, but I just think we ought to think about that because it's these kinds of narrow passageways that unfortunately lead to serious injuries. If all you take, all you need is one person to go down and you then have a terrible situation unfold. Am I able to respond? Mr. O'Rourke. Yeah. So the only suggestion I would make to the board is that opinion should not get in the way of code requirements. Code requirements are 44 inches for a commercial corridor. We are 60 inches. So we are greatly beyond the code requirement of a corridor. Obviously Rob Moore can speak on behalf of that and I think it should be the building commissioners job to enforce that, not the board's job to enforce that. I agree with Mr. O'Connor. Obviously we always take safety into consideration. That's the most important thing to us. That would be the one detriment to our business if something should happen along those lines. So certainly we take into consideration but I do not think that there should put requirements in here that are already controlled by a code and we are controlled by a code on that. Well, Mr. Chairman. Briefly, Mr. O'Connor, go ahead. Yeah, if Mr. Moore would be deciding this application if it were simply matter of enforcing the code. Our job is beginning with article one and including section 10.38 is larger than the code. And we have an obligation to the public that might be inside this building in an emergency to use our best judgment as to how things should be said how things should be structured to provide safe exiting from the building in an emergency. And I'm sorry that one of the things that happens after tragedies in establishments like this is discussions about amending the code. And there are many structures that are simply decided by a building commissioner erected as to the code. And then when there is a tragedy then people put the finger at the code and they look at things and so forth. That's not our situation here. This is a special permit. We have an obligation beyond the code to make sure that the exiting procedures from this building and the are safe in an emergency. And I think we should exercise that responsibility. Other comments? Other questions on the management plan? Mr. Wachilla. I caution the board members to be careful when referencing other codes because the building codes gonna govern any sort of dimensional requirements of the building itself, right? The fire code's gonna suggest number of egress they're supposed to have in location of hydrants which are totally acceptable and fine but I feel like if we get into the specifics of each of those codes in this special permit and don't let those codes enforce each of those rules themselves then that can be problematic. And I was having a conversation with Mr. Moore earlier about this and he had mentioned that it's okay to ask these questions about the HVAC system and then the hallway with and whatnot but at the end of the day before they get the building permit that's gonna be addressed later on anyways. But the concern that Mr. O'Connor has about the crowds going towards that exit that's across from the bathroom I could see where he's coming from but you also have to remember there's three other exits that are closer to the main area and more convenient for people to go out anyways. So I don't know if that's something the other board members had in mind as well but that's just kind of a thought that came up while I was listening to this discussion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last thing I'd like to do is we had discussion or questions about the ventilation system. I think you Mr. O'Connor had questions about the ventilation system, is that correct? And if my understanding is that there's a process where they're not gonna get a occupancy certificate until the ventilation system is deemed at the code for the building but you had a question about it and so I think that one of the things we did I'm inclined to leave that to the code and make sure that there's sufficient ventilation there by the code because I can't judge that I'm just not competent to make a judgment on whether the code is right or not but you had some questions about that so I think is this the time to ask those questions of and but if we're gonna put a if you wanna put a condition on after we ask those questions let's have the discussion about whether we do a condition or not later just answers now. Yeah, my main concern with regard to the ventilation is that the code cited was from 2015 which is pre our experience with increased ventilation recommendations and I think that and I suggested that we get comparative data from other places where there are large gatherings to determine where the ventilation the extent of the ventilation that's contemplated for this gathering place where it falls between among other similar spaces in terms of public occupancy. That was my main concern. Is this at the high end or at the low end? Is it in the middle? Do we feel comfortable with a reference to a 2015 code which I think many of us feel have been superseded by events quite larger than the code? I don't have an answer to your question and I don't know, Mr. Wachella, do you have an answer to that? So I did talk to Mr. Moore about this earlier too. He told me that the code for HVAC did not change because of COVID. I believe that was question I was asked by by another board member over email. I think Sarah must have been you who emailed me that question. And I believe the code from 2015 is the one that's still being used by the inspectors and inspectional services. I can verify that and see if there is a later addition that was released. But to my knowledge, I was given that book to look over. I was told that was the most recent code that they're referencing for their inspections of buildings before obviously issuing their COs. But yeah, that's where I pulled the information from. I came to the conclusion after doing my research that it would be best if the applicant works with an HVAC specialist that knows the code and can build it to the standards for that type of use to the Massachusetts building code. So a possible condition could be, must be designed to the standards of the Massachusetts state building code and then just kind of leave it at that. And that was suggested from Mr. Moore himself. That has to be done anyway. I mean, that condition is almost purple. You don't think so. You can't get it to pick it up and see without the building inspector coming and saying it meets the code. But that's a, you know, it could be done. Okay, are there any other questions for the applicant? Mr. O'Connor, another question? Yep. Yes, I actually, it occurred to me after the first hearing that we had not, the establishment is going to serve alcohol, correct? Yes. And there's, and the applicant said there were going to be no places to sit in the, in the main, the place that's occupied by the patrons. And my question is, how, how is it, how are things going to work? One, are people who going to be served alcohol be required to stand at the bar and drink? Or are people going to be circulating with, you know, paper cups, cans of beer, bottles of beer throughout the establishment? I, quite frankly, I'm, I would be much more concerned about people walking around with beer bottles than I would be that somebody would pick up the chair and do something with it. And so I'd like to understand what happens with the process of serving and consuming alcohol in the establishment and, yeah. Do not use glass bottles. We do not use glass glasses. We only use plastic cups. We only use aluminum bottles and it's that easy for the protection of glass. I know you have a concern with that. Again, you know, encouraging the, the board to consider the application I'm putting in for a change abuse of the building. Those questions are sort of directing me in how I should operate my business. And I don't think that's necessarily a fair way to look at it, but to answer your question, to ease your mind on that, we do not serve anything in glass. We don't in the current building. We do not in the, and we will not in this building either. So if it's a concern over glass you have, that should be rectified right there. As far as patrons standing at the bar, they're free to roam wherever they want. Generally a patron will bring their empty back up to the bar when they get a new beverage. There's plenty of places for them, trash cans for them to dispose of their beverages. And in the design of the building, we could build in drink rolls if we had to. Again, that's not a requirement that I think should be made by this board in the design of my building for that. But we could certainly, you know, solve a problem of needing to put a drink down that way. But generally there's trash cans all over the place for them to dispose of their empty beverages. People hold them in their hands, it's a nightclub, it's a dancing nightclub. And so yes, generally people will go up to the bar, get their drink, when they finish their drink, they'll return to the bar for another beverage with their empty beverage, if that answers your question. And Mr. Chairman, I just, I had a question. I understand the applicant's concern about movable or throwable container, chairs, tables, and so forth. I just wonder, I mean, in given the occupancy level that is proposed, had the applicant considered some kind of benches along the wall of the building between the exits for those patrons who may need to sit rather than having to go outside and sit on the curb or something. I haven't, I've been in a number of locations. I haven't heard of a place that had literally no place for anyone to sit other than the 10 stalls in the women's bathroom and the two in the men's. And I just wonder if the applicant has considered that just for somebody who may fall or faint or whatever, is there a place where that person could temporarily be located? So I guess that's a question for your design, do you, what did you, Mr. O'Rourke? I mean, yeah, I've been in many places that didn't have places to sit down at. I was just in some this weekend visiting some friends and we have our staff members that sit at the exit doors do have chairs to sit on. So I suppose if there was an emergency, there would certainly be a place for someone to sit down, should they need to sit down? That's the way this is being designed and this is the way this is being proposed is a nightclub. Again, I want you to keep in mind the proposal of the type of business that we're submitting here and not redesign the business based on opinions of where things the board thinks should go. But I think it's a legitimate question to ask what your business model is. That's what Mr. O'Rourke was doing and that's a legitimate question. Absolutely, I agree. Yeah, it's a different question as to whether there's a condition or something placed on it. But to understand it so you can make an evaluation of the project is a legitimate question, I think. All right, any other questions for the applicant? All right. Then I think the next thing is to open this up for public comment. Rob, do we have people online in the participants who wish to speak? So we have two people. So Pamela Rooney, who I believe is a town councilor just raised their hand doing it too. And before we open it up, I just want to make sure that we would you repeat how a person on the phone who's not on the computer can access, can indicate that they wish to speak. Yes, I believe, sorry, I have to remind myself and see. I think they have to hit nine on their phone. Yes, they have to hit nine on your phone. Hit nine on your cell phone and they'll raise your hand if you're calling into this meeting. Thank you for the reminder. So we do have Pamela Rooney who raised her hand. Do you want me to promote her to Pamela so she can talk? Okay. All right, Ms. Rooney, please give your name, your address and your remarks and keep them for around three minutes. Thank you, Pam Rooney, 42 Cottage Street. Given my close proximity to this site, my question has to do with trash management as part of a management plan. Even the plastic cups are the rule of the day. Do those plastic cups come out with folks at the end of the evening? I'm assuming you keep them all inside. They have to drink their beverage inside, but do you have plans for early morning pickup? Many property management companies hire folks to do cleanup of their rental sites. Typically, the morning after a weekend, will something like that be available and possible here? Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Rooney. Mr. O'Rourke, what we're gonna do is give it the public a chance to ask the questions and we'll come back and you can respond to each one of them. I think this is the only one, but you can respond to each of them seriously. Is there another, anybody else who wish to speak or ask a question? All right, go ahead, Mr. O'Rourke. You can respond to any questions. I appreciate your question. It's a great question. So one of the first duties, I think we addressed this in the last meeting and I'm not sure if Ms. Rooney was there to hear it. So one of the first responsibilities of our doorman after exiting the patrons are to circle the perimeter of the building and Ms. Rooney is welcome to come back on to respond to this. I believe our reputation is that we keep a very clean building. We do not allow, we try our best to allow any trash pickup, any trash buildup at any time. And like I said, at the end of the evening before the doorman go back inside to do any of their interior duties, they often circle the entire perimeter of the building and make sure that there's not cups or stuff that's left out there. Anything that would be out there would have probably been out there from before because we do not let anybody leave the building with any cups. It doesn't matter if it's water, we get the question all the time. People will try to exit the building with a cup in their hand. They'll say, this is water and it doesn't matter because the perception is the perception. It doesn't matter what you walk out with. You're not allowed to leave the premises with an alcohol beverage. Nobody knows if it's alcohol or not. So we do not, we have the policy of not letting anybody leave with anything. And that's always the way we've done it. That's the way we will continue to do it. So that should alleviate the concern of people walking away with, of any trash. But I think we do a pretty good job of keeping the proximity of our building clean. And I think the Jones family would speak on our behalf for that as well, which is one of the reasons they were working with us to go to this point. I thought that was addressed in your management plan. I'm looking at it here and I can't find it. I thought it was as well. I thought there was some, I thought there was a reference to it. Ms. Breschle. I'm on the phone right now with Pam Rooney and she would like to come back into the meeting, but she can't seem to come back. Does anyone have any suggestions? Does she have a meeting link? Do you need to resend it to her? How about if Rob Breschle resends you the meeting link? How about if she tells you her question? Let me try this real quick. She got a message that said, you're removed from the webinar. The host has removed you from the webinar. So. That is my mistake. I was trying to, so I'm sending her another link and see if she could try it again. He's going to send you another link and you can try it again. And if it doesn't work, call me back, okay? Okay. Sure. Okay. Before, while she's getting on, I think I found a reference, which is at the end of outside queuing, manage the outside line, noise, issues, and they are, well, I don't find the cleanup responsibility here, but I know I read it. And so I think if, but I don't remember that you spoke in your management plan to know cups outside the establishment. Yeah. I can put that in there if you want. I think that's, I mean, I would. That should be a great practice on every business. So, but to your point, and I think it's the point you made here. And I think that would make, it's consistent with your representation of your policy. So let's put it in the management plan. Certainly. And also, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to add that after discussing with Rob Mora, a possible condition that we include in that list of conditions in the PAR was to have a, required the applicant to make sure the building is litter free. So from trash that comes from inside the business at the end of every shift. So that'd be the days you're open and shift you have guys go outside, pick up trash or anything like that. And then the board's allowed to instill that as a condition to just want to make everybody aware of that. And I thought that was in the management plan, but we'll look for it and find it. And maybe we'll have to reinforce it a bit, but it's not yet. Ms. Brestner, I saw your hand was up. Did you get a hold of counselor Rooney? Yes. And she was not able to get back in a second time. And she feels that she's just going to have dinner and not. Oh, well, I was there. What I was going to suggest is that we read at 730 where a half halfway through, I would suggest that we take a, it's a good point for a five minute break because we've responded to the, we've had public comment, we've responded to the public comment, we can come back and have any last questions from the board members. And then we can move into the public meeting portion of this whole, our consideration. And so it seems to me it's a good time. And if Ms. Rooney wants to try again, we can let her, we'd certainly let her come in when we get back from a quick five minute break. So unless there's any objection, we'll be back at 735. We'll break for five minutes and resume in five minutes. Thank you. So you need to choose the day. All right, we can restart. Is everybody back? Good. Okay. So we've heard from the public, we've heard the response from the applicant to the public comments. It's a chance for the last comments from board members before we, in the public hearing, before we move to a public meeting where typically public comment will be at a minimum. So this is the last chance for board members to make a comment if they wish it's in the public hearing portion. If not, I will, or last chance for you, Mr. O'Rourke, to say anything before we move to public, to our public meeting, which we typically will not have a lot of public comment at. We may call upon you for clarification, but you're muted. Sorry about that. So yeah, again, if this is my last opportunity, I just want to encourage the board to please consider the fact that there are plenty of people that are going to enforce codes, building inspector, electrical inspector, plumbing inspector, health inspectors, that when considering rules and things that you guys put in place that they are not opinionated subjects that override a code that is in place for things, that's all. Thank you. Any comments from the board members? If not, I'd like to move to, oh, Mr. Connor, you're muted. Do you want to speak? You're muted. Is there somebody there to help you with the? Okay, I think Mr. Wachow may have accidentally muted me. Okay, let's talk about it. Anyway, so with regard to this special permit, I'll just say it's my view that in light of the fact that the applicant said he has a 20-year lease and so forth, that with regard to section 10.384, I believe that the board needs to require the installation of solar panels on all buildings that require a special permit. From this point on, especially not for the town fair that's going to be there for a week, but for a building that's going to be there for 20 years, has a 20-year lease. I'll explain it in the public meeting process, but it's my view that 10.384, they will lead to that conclusion. All right, that's something we can discuss during the public meeting portion and the conditions portions of the public meeting. All right, yep. So unless there's objection, I'm going to move to the public meeting portion. We keep the public hearing portion open. It is not closed in other words that we could, we need to gather more information from the public. We can revert back to that. Or if we don't finish tonight, we can reopen the public hearing, but now we're in the public meeting portion. Where typically that is where the board deliberates amongst themselves, board members amongst themselves. And then- Mr. Chairman, do you need a motion to do that? No, we're just moving over, we don't need a motion. Okay. And if somebody objects, we can vote, but there's no reason to, we don't need a motion. I have no objection. We don't need a motion to that. So this is where we generally, and I like to have a general consensus from get a consensus of where people are feeling about this application, where they'd like to go with it. And then we can go through specific conditions, impose, we can decide on specific conditions. Those I think allow us to make the findings we're required to make. I can't, in many cases, you can't make the findings you're required to make without the conditions that we choose to impose on the application. And then we'll vote on the conditions and then we'll vote on the findings. So this is a place where we get general comments. I'll start out. I'm inclined to approve this. I think it's, that's where the, I think this is entertainment central in Amherst. The existing owner of this property has had a long history of actually doing a pretty good job of running a bar. This is not a quiet business. I walked past that, the spoke several times recently since the last meeting we had. And it's a lot, you've got a lot of people hanging out on the lines out in front and you have a job to try to manage that number of people and you're gonna have a bigger job when you have 500 people in your spoke live. But I'm impressed with the level of policing you have from your staff. And I've not seen them, and I've not seen the patrons spilling out all over downtown. They seem to be pretty well corralled within their space. In addition, I think that there are, I'm inclined not to impose additional, limitations or restrictions beyond what is either the state code or the federal code on a business that I, unless I have some specific knowledge or if they're a very unique case. And I'm not convinced yet that there are some specific conditions here that we need to address outside the existing regulatory framework, either federal, state or local beyond our general purview. Not that we couldn't if we chose to, but that I'm not inclined, I haven't seen that demonstrated yet. Lastly, I think I would, I'm inclined to like the curb cut in the middle exit door just because I think that's the one place where you could get push out to the side, to get that sidewalk seven inches down. I'm not gonna fall on my sword on that. I'll leave it up to other people to the majority of the board obviously to decide on that. But I think that might be a good compromise. It wouldn't impose a huge cost on the owner and it might improve safety in case of God forbid there is an emergency when people are trying to get out in a hurry. So that's my general thinking on this. And I think they've done a pretty good job with responding to the questions we had from our last meeting. So that's my general feeling. I'd be happy to hear from other people as well at this point. Mr. Maxfield. Oh yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I'm actually inclined to really just echo basically everything you'd said there. I where I live in the downtown, I'm sure not quite this point in the evening, but I'm sure later into the evening, I'll be able to hear the noises of the spoke before the night is over. But I think that's really something that comes with living in the downtown. This is, as you said, this is really kind of the place in town where to see it and yeah, I'm inclined to agree. I think Mr. O'Rourke has done a good job in running that business and doing it away to, in a way of maintaining a good relationship with the town and the only condition really at this point that I'm concerned about that I agree with you on there, it's that cut out for that door. I think there's, I'm willing to wager there's gonna be some consensus around that for sure. But that is really at this point, I'm inclined to support this project. Mr. Slobater, do you have a thought? Yes, I think that Mr. O'Rourke's presentation and his history of the operation of spoke has been responsible and he has responded positively to any concerns that we have expressed. I would say it's incredibly unlikely I will ever set foot in either spoke once it's operating, but it's not out of disdain for the operation. It's just that it's not where I choose to go, but I think that he has proven that he is a responsible business owner and I haven't heard anything that would unduly alarm me. I think that what Chair Judge just said is right on target and I'm inclined to support it as well. Mr. O'Connor, I don't want to leave you. You spoke earlier a little bit about some of your concerns. Do you have additional concerns that you want to discuss here and I don't want to discuss? I mean, I would be willing to permit the use in this location with conditions. And in my view, we can discuss it in terms of conditions, but I think a reduced given the nature of the activities inside, I would say reduced capacity, but with reduced capacity in some conditions, I would be willing to permit the use. Thank you. Ms. Marshall, you don't have your hands up, but I think you might have an opinion. Well, yes. I do. Yeah, I'm in favor of this. I'm wary of the impulse to micromanage somebody's business and to get outside of our lane. I think that if the curb in front of that, that middle set of double doors is removed, which seems sensible, we don't have a photograph of it. So I don't know, is that directly in front of a parking space so that we need to maybe make sure that there's a, I forget what you call them, those white concrete blocks at the front of a parking spot, to keep the car, keep vehicles from impinging, jumping the curb because I think still that's probably more likely than panic exit. So if we're removing that curb, we need to do something else to keep it, make sure the parking is safe. I think that's the only additional thing I would suggest. All right. What I'd like to do is go through the conditions that the possible conditions that are included in the draft project application report. And what I like to do with this, I think it makes most sense, we'll go through them. And if anybody objects to any one of these, raise it and we'll vote on it separately. But I'd like to go through and approve unblank in block, excuse me, unblank in block as many as we can. And then we'll go back to the ones that have some controversy separately. So the first condition is the project shall be built and maintained in accordance with the approved plans. This is standard language that we always say you got to do it because what you provide to us has got to be what you built. And I don't think there should be any question about the first one. The second one is we're getting rid of an old special permit and there's a new special permit. So that makes sense as well. The applicant shall put the hours of operation on the entry door. This is recommended from the design review board. And I tend to want to recognize what other boards do in town. They have a reason for that and it's fine with me. The next one is the applicant shall put the sun on the north side of the building showing main entrance this way. Again, a recommendation from the design review board. Design review board also wanted all the arning doors and trim to be white. I have no objection and I don't think the applicant has any objection to it. Live or prerecorded entertainment defined under section 5.042 of the zoning bylaw shall be clearly accessory and incidental to principle use. That means the principle use is a dance hall. This is music is live and a prerecorded music is incidental to that use. It's almost by definition what you're asking for. I think we'll have some discussion about seven. So I'm gonna move on beyond that and not include this in what I think are the ones that will approve in block. Building improvements recommended by the SPL system shall be completed before the certificate of occupancy. That's the soundproofing. And then there shall be a test. The next one is that the test 14 days after opening inspection services will have a letter certifying the sound level of the property line from SPL. The only question I have there is 14 days enough time will you be able to know what you're gonna be running typically running your restaurant or your nightclub at just in two weeks. And I'm wondering if 14 days should be 30 days. So we have some time that you wanna find something to speak by and tune your operation. Yeah, 30 days is reasonable, but I do think 14 days would be sufficient. I mean, that's two full weekends of Thursday, Friday, Saturday, but yeah, 30 days I think would be the most. But it's also for neighbors. For neighbors to get the problems that they can recognize it. Understandable, yeah. Is there objection to anybody move that to 30 days? I mean, get it done in 14, you can still do it, but within 30 days, okay. So we're talking about that as an amendment to that condition. The next one is exterior lighting shall be designed or arranged to be downcast as part of our rules and regs. It shall be extinguished at 2 a.m. if they're not specifically required for safety purposes. Direct spot lighting shall be used to illuminate the post signage rule, signage unless the applicant can light the signage successfully with ambient lighting. So you've demonstrated, I think you can, that you can successfully light the signage with ambient lighting on the side, and you have arc lights or those really large lights in the front, or you have LED lights in the front. Is that correct? Correct, and there's that post light that actually is at the peak of the building that faces downward, that will illuminate that entire area. So it doesn't have direct light on the signage, but it illuminates the side of the building there. Ms. Marshall, you had some questions about the lighting of the signage. Is this acceptable to you, this condition? Well, what happens if it turns out that the signs on the buildings aren't particularly visible? Is there a requirement that? Well, then you have direct spot lighting. So we're gonna keep that. I thought you were proposing to eliminate it. No, no, no, I'm proposing to keep it. Okay, yes, that's fine. It's red because it was added. That's the reason, because it was added since the last meeting. Yeah. Then we installed and maintained around the proposed dumpster area. Regular hours of operations will be Thursday through to Sunday from eight to one. And in your management plan, you have said that you only have Sundays on long weekends, right? Typically, there's a standard. It's about a 90 day a year operation is what it is. Okay, total occupancy for guest shall not exceed 587 occupants. Mr. O'Connor, you wanna move that to smaller numbers? Yeah, can we put that aside so we can approve all the ones we agree to? Yep, that'll be separate. The Appetential Coordinate with the Amherst Fire Police Department to have emergency responder radio coverage, that's in one of the responses that you gave to us. Once new and soundproofing are installed, you're gonna test your radios, they shall be, and then there's a standard, you have to meet MSBC's 96.4.1, that'll be included in the conditions. The employees of the spoke shall be responsible for controlling loud and or obnoxious behavior in and around the building. We talked about no cups outside and litter-free. So I think this is a good place to put the condition here that your employees shall prohibit taking glasses out of the building. Mr. Watt, do we already deal with that? Yeah, so actually in a further condition, it's a discuss about the exterior of the building, but you just mentioned interior of the building, Steve, unless I'm hearing you incorrectly. I'm probably made a mistake. Mr. Chairman, I think it's a reasonable condition that the patron shall not be allowed to exit the building with any containers of liquid. That's really what you're talking about. It's what the applicant said that he does. So let's put it in the condition. Yep. So should we- I don't know if it's a good policy for you guys, for all businesses in the future of this room, that that should be in place. It's under practice for us and for our community, I think that should be- Oh, absolutely. Mr. Watt-Chillow, where is that in our conditions? I don't see it. So we don't have that one in the conditions, but I was gonna ask the board, should we table condition 16 to modify the language to include that? Or what do you wanna do? Because I can just write an hour. Condition 24, the applicant's management personnel shall be responsible for ensuring the exterior of the establishment is free of trash and littered by the close of the business on days, which the establishment is open. So that means you- And then we put it right, put that also as the next sentence, that the management personnel shall prohibit use of taking message or containers outside and to pick up after closing some of that effect. I would suggest beverages rather than containers. Just- Good, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's a good rule anyway for the- All right. So we got, we were talking about 16 louder. We wanna continue with 16. 17s of building permit shall be obtained by the applicant prior to any construction taking place. Of course, construction, interior construction shall be according to the plans. No fewer than four bartenders on each shift, shall be tip certified. So all your bartenders, and there's no less than four on each shift, shall be tip certified. And then all onsite security personnel, no fewer than seven on each shift, shall be crowd control certified. You talked about nine in the management plan. Here we talk about seven. What's the number that we wanna choose, Mr. O'Rourke? I'm fine with nine. We're gonna, but anyways, we have nine, we'll have nine dormants, seven, eight bartenders and two barbacks on every shift. That won't change. All right. We'll put the nine there. That's cause that's what's in the management plan. It works. All right. Again, there's no objection to that change. All right. Minimum staffing levels of state of the management plan shall be kept during normal hours of operation. Staff shall park in the parking lot behind the existing spoke. It's in the management plan. Alcohol shall not be served after one a.m. Management, all right. We talked 24. We talked about beverages not going outside 25. Staff shall be present at the exit doors and close the business and shall assist with the exiting of patrons. All right. 26 double doors facing prayer street shall be kept closed, but not locked during normal hours of operation. The establishment owner shall manage and shall return to the special permit granting at 30, 12 months from the first day of operation to review the management plans, effectiveness and complaint history related to the expanded occupancy and to determine if any adjustments to management plan is necessary. Mr. Chair. Ms. Marshall. I would suggest a window. I mean, just like return 12 to 14 months. Okay. I have no problem. Otherwise it's like to the day of, you know. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Mr. Chairman. Yeah. You know, I'll let it go to the discussion on the conditions. So you have an objection to 27? If you do, it's good to raise it here. Then we won't include it in the in block approval. Okay. So say what 27 is again, because I didn't. Sure. 27 is the establishment owner show or manager shall return to the special permit granting authority. That's okay. No, I don't have a problem with that. No, I don't. Condition permit pertaining to the fire hydrant pending response. Okay. That one is in the has to, let's see condition related to the fire hydrant. How do you want to state that Rob? It just has to be done per the instructions of the fire department placement of the new fire hydrant. Yes. So we could, we could state that the applicant shall work with the town engineer in the fire department to appropriately site and locate the fire hydrant. And the service one to 11 prairie street. And that could be good enough. All right. Mr. Chairman, I actually do have the issue that I had with the doors. Maybe it wasn't clarified when we were discussing with the applicant. The, when the, when the doors are open is there, does the door stop that keeps the doors open in the case of an emergency? Is that doorstop have to be manually operated from the interior side of the door? Or is there a way to automatically, is there some way that that, that door can doorstop can be automatically just set forth so that somebody doesn't have to reach down and grab it manually or try to reach it with their foot when numerous patrons are trying to exit the building. Is it, are we talking about it literally a manual doorstop? Because that's. I think you're seeking clarification on a point. So Mr. O'Rourke, is it a manual doorstop or is it an automatic doorstop? Well, it's a manual doorstop. I don't know how an automatic doorstop would function because that means every time the door would open it would lock in place. That would purpose the. Is there a way that the, that the individual who's stationed at the door could, could operate the door? Is there a door? Yeah, let's look it down. They would open it and flip the, flip the, the manual lock down. That's what they do at the end of every night when they're dispersing the crowds that are inside of it. Yes. Okay. Okay. I'm just concerned that in an emergency that might be a difficult operation to, to execute. But you're, I think to 26 today the door condition at this point. So no, I, I guess the other question I have is they're double doors. Yep. Is there going to be, at the end of the day or do they have one person for each door or, or the doors or is there going to be a management person at each door because they are double doors with no central approach? Okay. With all we're talking, so let's, let's circle 26. We'll come back to it. I just want to go through that so we all, all approve on. We'll come back to 26. Okay. And we'll circle that. We've got 28 fire hydrant language that you were and you've got that for us. The special permit granted to the spokes, pleasant street. The ownership of the business was granted to the special permit to operate the building or to change. And the special permit will expire immediately after such change of ownership. That's, that's a little different than some of the other change of ownership wording. I think it's the same thing, but Ms. go ahead, Ms. Marshall. Well, I'm just curious. This is my inexperience. Is this standard permit? I mean, you can't just sell the business and continue that will continue to operate according to the permit. Well, one of the things that we tend to do when we deal with other, even with some rental housing that the management plan has to be approved. They come back for the housing, they come back with the management or parking plan or some other kinds of things that we then approve. And they, if they don't meet the criteria that we determine, then they don't have a management plan and they can't operate. So that's the hook to make sure that the new owner is going to be consistent with the previous management plan. In this case, we have a business where it may change the business significantly. And I think you need to have the ability, the need to come back to the board with the new owner. We're going to run this thing the same way. Oh, we're going to change it significantly. Whatever the plan for the new owner is. So that's the reason for this. I think that's the reason for this condition. It is. It's not unusual in what we've done in the past. And, you know, one of the sell it with no conditions at all, I'm sure. But... It exists on my current building too. So... Yeah, it's pretty much standard. Especially for licensed businesses, Ms. Marshall, it's something that you do a lot. Okay, thank you. Yep. So there's 29 and there's additional conditions. So those are the ones that I think are without objection. See the ones that should discuss deliveries. All right, those are all potential discussions. So to summarize, conditions for this would be, condition, the one we would not have is seven and because that's the volume indoors, 14 and 26, I think are the, and 14 and 26 are not unanimous. And so we'll deal with those separately. Also 16 though, doesn't something need to, somewhere need to be specified that patrons cannot leave with beverages? We amended 25 to do that. Oh, we did? Oh, okay. Yeah, 25, we put the beverage limitations, no beverages outside on 25. Mr. Chairman, so I have condition nine circles. I think we're unsure about the number of days that was sufficient for, I believe it's for the sound testing. So did the board wanna continue that one in discussion after this vote or what was your thought there? I think people are happy with, I thought people were happy with 30 days. Okay. Yeah. Already. Okay. So I would move, I would accept a motion or entertain a motion that all those conditions that we have discussed except for seven, 14 and 26 be approved. Is there a motion? No, moved. Is there a second? Second. Movin' seconded. Is there further discussion on that motion? Mr. Sloveter. You just, I've just been looking for my papers. Can you tell me, can you clarify what the three points are that you said are not included? I wanna make sure what we're, the three that are not included in what we're about to vote on. Yep. So there's seven, which deals, condition seven, proposed condition seven, which deals with the volume at the boundary of the property, which is driven by the volume of the music inside the property. And Mr. O'Connor wants to move to amend, to limit the volume inside the property. So seven, deals with that. Number 14 is the total occupancy of guests. There was a question about whether reducing that. And number 26 is the double doors. The three double doors on opening up to the sidewalk. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. And then of course, on the next page, we haven't gotten to the other possible conditions. We'll get to those later. So, but the ones that I think we can make the, give the consensus on those, a but for those three, we have a motion before us to approve, a motion in seconded before us to approve those conditions. If there's no further discussion or clarification, we'll take a roll call vote on that. Chair votes aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Sloveter. Aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. And Mr. O'Connor. Aye. The vote is unanimous. The motion passes. Now let's deal with the three, three vote, three motions. I also, so I want to deal with those three motions. I want to deal with the queuing of patrons outside the establishment. And we, I think we've already dealt with that, Rob. I don't think we need to go through that again, because we've got, we've reduced the number from 385 to 300. And we've discussed in the management plan how there are not people sitting in front of those double doors. They're not standing there. So I think we've dealt with, on page 21, condition one, I think has been satisfactorily addressed already in the management plan in other places. So you don't want to make that a condition then, Mr. Chairman? Well, I think we've, we've talked about it and it's in the management plan already. Yep. And you're not going to have, your management plan does not have people in front of those doors. Is that correct, Mr. O'Rourke? That's correct, yes. Okay, so then I think we don't, I think it's a good thing to do, but I don't think we need to do it in the conditions because it's in the management plan. Okay, and the management plan is already addressed in condition one anyway. So, okay. Okay. Condition on deliveries, that's not something we've discussed. The management plan calls for deliveries to be done at this place on Thursdays and Fridays and Thursdays and Fridays or Fridays and Saturdays? Thursdays and Fridays. Thursdays and Fridays during the day when you're not in business. Is there, is there some concern about the delivery time and there's a reason, is there a reason to restrict those deliveries to something other than the Thursdays and Fridays as stated in the management plan? Yeah, I don't know why we need it. Why do we need those conditions? I don't know. Rob, have you given it some thought? Yeah, so the reason why I put in there is because in terms of parking the delivery vehicles. So Rob Moore and I discuss, keep that in their case, board one to entertain the idea of limiting how far back towards the rear of the building that delivery vehicles can go to. I mean, the trash enclosure is at the rear of the sites. Obviously the garage vehicles are gonna have to go back there anyways, but we're talking about the bigger vehicles that might deliver the kegs, the supplies, et cetera. But if the board doesn't really see any need to discuss it, then that's also acceptable. So it was something to give you to think about in case you want to make an informed decision. I kind of think if the deliveries are a problem, the owner or the manager has to figure out how to get his product into his building and he's got to figure out how to negotiate with his suppliers to do that. And I don't need to tell you how to do that unless your answer is to inconvenience your neighbors. And we haven't seen that yet. So if it is, you'll be back in a year and we'll hear about it, okay? Or 12 to 14 months and we'll hear about it, I'm sure. Okay, the last one, so we don't do two. And the last one is raise curb in the sidewalk. So I'd like to entertain that notion as we discuss some conditions. I think if we can personally, I think that the curb cut with bollards or with combs in front of the curb cut so that it's an obvious sign to a car that they can't go any further and they can't run up the sidewalk. And that sidewalk is seven inches, about seven inches above the street level. So there's already, it's 14 or 15, I went on the measurement. It's 14 or 15 inches above the street level, the curb cut, if you take it down seven, it still has a barrier for the car and you have a less steep step for a patron to get out. But you put some bollards or some combs there to indicate that there's a curb cut is there, I think you've solved some of the problems. If I can make a quick comment on that, something to consider is we don't, I don't know if there's a code that enforces this and that can be discussion with Rob, but the curb cut that creates the egress off of that curbing would certainly not have to be wider than a car. So in theory, we could make it an egress with of, and I'm in agreement of cutting this part out. I don't think that's an issue whatsoever. It could certainly be at a dimension that doesn't allow a standard vehicle to be able to go above it anyways. So we can make a 36 inches or whatever, whatever that may be for a code requirement. But of course, at that level, it wouldn't allow a standard vehicle to pass. We sort of solve both problems, I think in that one. And in the effort to get this done and not come back and make the decision tonight on the number of inches, let's say that we amend this condition to say that we remove the curb cut, but not to an extent, not to a degree wider than a car as per the approval of the building commissioner. So something to that effect just said, this is less than the width of an average car as approved by the building commissioner. Theo, does that work for everybody else? Mr. Baxfield. What's the length of that door exit? Because some of my ideas that that cut would be. 72 inches, is it? Clear. If we want to make it to just kind of keep in line with that thing, so we're not coming back to it. Could we make the determination of the building commissioner that if it does exceed the average size of a car that a baller could be put in the middle? If not, we could skip the baller, leave that up to the building commissioner to determine. We could do all those things. I mean, we could do that. I'm thinking that with the discussion that we've had about this, a pretty substantial discussion we've had about this and with Chris and with Rob can talk to the building commissioner, work something through that will provide that a car can't get in there because of the limit and leave it up to him to try to make that, make the final determination. I think the applicant is inclined to agree with us. And so I don't think we're having to impose something, but he wants to work this through. So this might be a time when we can really give it to Mr. Mora to make a decision and save us trying to micromanage this one, I think. So Mr. Chairman, I'll mean to interrupt Ms. Marshall as our hand up, but would you want to write the condition to be reliant on the determination of the building commissioner for an appropriate style or what is the board discussing? What we're discussing is I'll let Ms. Marshall talk and then I can, she has her hand up, I'll let her speak and then I can press. She has an answer. No, no. Well, no, just somebody mentioned, then putting ballards in front. We don't want to take away one obstacle and put in more obstacles. So it's just something, again, could be those white concrete blocks you see them all over the place and at the end at the head of a parking space just to prevent, like chocks for the wheels that they're not going to go any farther. So let's just do this, that we have an opening that is not wider than the average car because that's what our goal is as per the determination by the business building commissioner and just leave it at that. We all know what we're wanting to achieve by this and I think that a couple of people sitting with some pencils can figure it out pretty quickly. And I'm not afraid of giving that to the building commissioner to make that determination. Mr. O'Connor. Yeah, I just, I think that the seven foot rise from the public's way in which the cars are parked is a sufficient barrier to any vehicle entering, jumping the curb. And it's, and I think the real issue is again, restricting the width of the space so that it doesn't constrain people from exiting the building, but also does not encourage the use of that space by vehicles. But usually what happens is that as they do with HP spaces, they simply cross hats to space and then no one parks there. And I think that that's probably the solution, the building commissioner will come up with, but that's the simple straightforward, easily recognizable solution. All right, so I'm sensing a consensus around general direction to the building commissioner and letting him make this. I'm seeing people nod their heads. And so I'm going to assume that that's okay. And then I had a note here that the hearing protection for staff upon request with that's in your management plan. So we do not have to impose that as a condition. All right, so the one that I would add to our end block approved conditions, condition three here on the second page, on the page 21, we'll remember it of course, the condition three, which will be as we've discussed, to give discretion to the building commissioner to approve a plan to have a, I don't know if we're going to be able to do that, but we're going to be able to do that. Approve a plan to have a curb cut, for lack of a better term, up to his satisfaction that it's not wider than the car. All right, so is there any objection to that? Are there any other conditions that people want to propose? Ms. Marshall. I don't want to propose any, well, certainly no new conditions, but I wonder if it's worth including in this new, this number three, the curb cut business, why it is we're doing this, this is to facilitate rapid exit from the building. It can't hurt, it makes sense to do that. I go, why on earth are we going to be part of the curb? So. That makes sense. And it gives direction to the building commissioner. Okay. So unless there is any objection, I would entertain a motion to approve that condition. Do I have a motion to approve that? And is there a second? All right. The second, any discussion? If there's no discussion, the motion is on approving the condition as amended several times to allow the building commissioner to approve occur a cut in that seven inch curb in order to facilitate exit by patrons from the building. No further talk, it's a roll call vote. Chair votes aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Sloveter. Aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. O'Connor. Aye. All right. Motion carries, unanimous. Now we have three conditions that there's some controversy about and I think we should proceed to each one of those. The first deals is the first condition deals with the sound at the boundary of the lot line, but that's going to be conditioned by to some extent by the any limitation on the sound inside the establishment itself. And Mr. O'Connor, you want to limit the sound inside the establishment itself. So that's why number seven, we can't agree upon yet. So Mr. O'Connor, what would you like to propose for limitation on the sound inside the establishments? Inside the establishment for recorded sound only, not for live sound, for recorded sound only. My view is that's something that can be controlled by management that the level at which hearing damage appears to begin is at 85 decibels that of course can't limit all the other sound that could take place in the establishment, but at least for the recorded sound that is in the hands of the management that level be 85 decibels not applied to live music at all. So to restate your condition, it would be a new condition that says recorded music shall be limited to 85 decibels inside the establishment in effect, right? Okay. All right. And we have the proposed condition. Who wants to speak to it? Mr. Sloboter, I saw your hand up. Yes, actually for the very first time, I disagree in a slight way with our chair who said that the sound at the edge of the property is determined by the sound inside. I don't know that that is actually true. It certainly would be affected by the sound inside. However, the sound mitigation steps that Mr. O'Rourke is proposing, the windows, everything to control the sound inside. I think if we set a decibel limit at the curb, for instance, or anywhere outside the building of, I don't remember, I heard 50 decibels, I heard 70 decibels. I don't, it doesn't matter to me. If we set a limit outside the building, I don't care what's going on inside because if the sound outside exceeds the limit that we impose, then the operator of the spoke has to do something to reduce the sound. If that means turning down recorded music or telling the band to lower their amps or whatever, I don't, it will be his responsibility not to violate the limit that we have set outside the club. So I am opposed to any mention of sound inside the club because quite honestly, it feels to me like overstepping our authority and flirting with micromanaging as long as the club does not violate the sound on the sidewalk where it would affect the general public. I don't see any reason to complicate anything by imposing an interior sound limit. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cloveter. Other comments? Mr. Maxiel. Yeah, I also can't say that I would support any restriction of the sound levels inside the building. The one thing though, if as long as we're talking about this condition, I, just for noise on the outside, something, I don't want the applicant to be in violation of this condition in the event of, when there's gonna be a line out the door, I'm sure doors are going to be open and to do all the sound reduction you want when you have an open door, there will be a noise trespass that will likely exceed this event condition. And my concern here is in the event that with this type of condition that we might, we might run into an issue where now the applicant is violating the special permit by keeping the doors open for easy access for patrons. And I don't want that to be something that comes up later where if residents, that becomes an issue, that actually is one of my concerns here because at the end of the day, I think that's gonna happen. And like I said, I think it comes with the territory of living and being in the downtown. And it's not a concern that I have, but my now concern kind of goes the other way. I don't want to see the applicant in violation of this condition for that reason. So I don't know if board members have thoughts about that. Well, I should, I, you know what, Dylan, I hadn't thought about it from that respect. I had thought that limitation, because I think that's almost a reasonableness test is that when the door is open, it's loud and the door is closed. That's when your sound mitigation mechanisms take effect. And they're, when it's open, you have less mitigation because the door is open, but it's not gonna be open all the time. And I would think that the testing, and I don't know this, but I'm thinking the testing is done when the mitigation is in effect and not when the door is opening and closing. I think that's the case, but I don't know that that's the case. But Mr. Wachiller, do you know? I was gonna say, usually they would do it when the mitigation's in place. So the door is temporarily open. And there's also a condition in here where I believe where we specifically state that doors have to be closed at all times anyways, but not locked. So already kind of requires that he keeps the doors closed anyways. And if the person is using a sound test, so say have an inspectional services guys using the sound test from outside, they're gonna wait for the doors to be closed anyways because the problem is the sound traveling with the mitigation in place anyways. And if the doors are open, technically, it may not even be open for that long to begin with. So one would assume that it would be with the doors closed, it would be with the sound protection mitigation factors installed by SPL systems, et cetera. And I do think there's a reasonable expectation on the parts of neighbors that it not be too loud. And the goal from the applicant is to be at 60, but this is 70 here, which gives them a little bit of leeway. So I understand what you're saying, Dylan, is you don't want him to be caught on a technicality five years down the road when somebody is upset. And I get that, I get that concern. But I think that at the same time, you've got people that are gonna test this, pass the test with the, with I think the, and we'll have it back in 30 days, we can ask them if there's a, how they did the testing, within 30 days. We'll know, and if Rob comes back and they do the testing and the business or building services says that it was, it didn't pass because the door was open, we should know about that. So I'm not so concerned about the 70 number, I'm more concerned about limiting the business plan of the applicant within the building itself. Mr. Chair. The closing. Yes, Mr. O'Connor. Yeah, I think this discussion, I think would encourage me to say that the outdoor noise test should be undertaken with the doors closed. I think we ought to make it specific. We shouldn't have to have somebody come back to us and say, well, the door was open or whatever, no. I think that we ought to make it very clear in any exterior noise condition that the test be conducted with the doors closed. And that would, we don't need to have all this back and forth, we ought to just specify what we intend, what we understand should happen and eliminate that area of concern. It's a fine suggestion as far as I'm concerned. Ms. Marshall. Can I, I think Chris had her hand up, I just wanted to, maybe she has some additional information. Ms. Brestrup. Yeah, I just wanted to point out to you that the accessory uses section of the zoning bylaw already limits the amount of noise that can be produced by live or recorded entertainment to 70 decibels at the property line. So that's already in the zoning bylaw. So there's, you know, you could not even have this condition here, but if you want to have it, that's fine. But I think it should match what is in the zoning bylaw rather than deviating from it. Thank you. Thank you. Nice. Ms. Marshall. Yes. I'm not in favor of limiting the sound inside. I agree with Mr. Sloveter. Again, these people are there by choice. I don't go to any concert without, even a restaurant without your plugs with me, because I know things get loud. People can vote with their feet. I think it's patronizing of us to decide on the behalf of other adults, what they can tolerate. Mr. Chairman, I just want to give everybody a chance and we'll get back to you. So we've got Ms. Marshall, we've got Mr. Maxfield, Mr. Sloveter and my feeling as well is that I think that the suggestion of putting in doors open to 70 testing is fine. I'm not in favor of limiting the indoor decibel levels to 85. I think that's, we're totally getting over all. I think that's a, it's a business decision. This is a dance club and that's the, people know that when they go in. That's the noise that they expect to go in and endure as far as I'm concerned, not in joy, but endure. But I'm almost 70, I'm no longer 21. So it's not what, it wouldn't be my choice, but I would let them do it. Mr. O'Connor. Yeah, again, this is not directed at the patrons. Right. This is not, and neither was the indoor smoking prohibition. This is directed at the employees who I think are, this is a workplace safety issue for the employees, has nothing to do with the patrons. And it was not, it was not patronizing to the employees of establishments that were ordered to prohibit smoking. And it is not patronizing to the employees of this establishment to limit noise to a level that will not damage their hearing. And I don't think I can make it clearer than that. Thank you. All right, Mr. Sloveter, then Ms. Marshall, then I think we should move on and I'll make this very quick. It involves an odd confession. I actually have an app on my iPhone that measures decibel levels, which I installed at the Mullen Center at Hockey Games because I couldn't stand how loud it was. And at the Mullen Center, the highest volume that this thing read was 106 decibels, which was mind-numbing and was reached over 100 a lot because the announcer lights the screen. So I have been listening to this with my sound meter on and I'm listening at a volume that is comfortable to sit here and it is generally in the mid to upper 60s. It has exceeded 70, not much, but it's never been down to 50. So 70 is actually a fairly comfortable number and decibels are not progressive, they're geometric. So sort of like earthquake intensity. So I'm listening actually as I'm speaking to you, it's registering 80. So obviously it's louder when I'm talking to the phone. 70 at, if 70 is the town current established limit at the property line, that is not invasive or intrusive to anybody in my opinion. So I'm just giving you actually a number. And if my phone is defective, it's not my fault. So there you are. All right, Ms. Marshall. You should get your money back if it's wrong. Well, then I would say as for the employees, I do believe they are covered by OSHA. And OSHA has a general has a noise standard for general industry. So I don't see why we think we have more information or better expertise than that agency. All right, I think so I think the question before the body is do we want to amend condition seven, which is the condition that talks about 70 decibels at the boundary property with additional restrictions on the amount of the level of sound inside the establishment. So the question is, do you want to amend seven by adding a new restriction, a new condition, a new restriction on condition seven by adding a restriction of 85 decibels in the establishment. For recorded. For recorded music, absolutely. Yes, you're correct. You're absolutely correct for recorded music. That's the motion before the body. I'm assuming that you'll make that amendment, move that amendment. I would make so move. All right. So the question is, do you have a second? And I don't think you do, but maybe somebody wants to give you a vote. But right now I don't think there's a second here for your amendment, Mr. O'Connor. Okay. Okay. Then we have, so that is not moved. So we're back down to number seven. Mr. Chair. Before us, unamended of 70, again, this is one we did not approve and block. So number seven is before us, unamended, except for with doors closed, even though there's a town limit on it already. There's a town bylaw on this. The proposal was to put in here with doors closed. Number one, people still want to have that condition with doors closed, that amendment with doors closed, or do you want to move on and just leave it as it is? Mr. Maxfield, you're the one that brought this up. What's your desire? I'll do the same. I'll make a motion. If people support it, we'll do it. If not, we'll move on. It's all right. I make such a motion. Such a motion to add the words with doors closed after 70 decibels. Is there a second to that? Second. Mr. O'Connor seconds that. The motion is before us. So the motion is to amend number seven by saying sound produced by the proposed live or prerecorded music industry shall not generally exceed 70 decibels with doors closed. And we'll fix that up so it sounds a little bit better English, but with doors closed of the establishment with doors. But as mentioned, any property of the bound, any boundary of the property on which the establishment is located as determined by regulations adopted pursuant to section 5.0422. That's the motion. And it's for an amendment to condition seven. Any discussion on that? If not, we come to a vote. All chair votes aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. O'Connor. Aye. Mr. Slovener. Aye. All right. So now we have seven as amended by that motion before us. Do I have a motion to approve condition seven? So moved. Is there a second? I thought that's what I just did, but sure. No, no, we just, we just voted on, we just voted on the amendment to that one. And now we have to vote on it as amended, right? We voted as amended. All right. All those in favor of condition seven as amended by the doors closed amendment. Say, we'll vote on it. I say aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. O'Connor. Aye. Mr. Slovener. Aye. Condition seven as amended is approved. So now we go to condition 14. The total occupancy of guests and employees combined shall not exceed 587 occupants as specified in plan sheet A-1.1, first floor plan. Mr. O'Connor, you wanted to lower that number to something. Do you have a number to give us? Yeah, and I'll just say what I did is I, when I first thought about this issue and saw the occupancy level and the calculation that was done to determine it, where each person would be, would be occupying five square feet. I cut out a piece of cardboard, two and a half by two feet, which is five square feet. And found that I think it would be very difficult to imagine that many people on that limiting themselves to that small an area. And so I'm of the mind, I have been thinking of a lower number, but my view is that I would feel much more comfortable with the number of 400 rather than the proposed number. I think that there's all sorts of problems that occur when you have 500 and some odd people confined to a space two by two and a half square feet per person. And I think this, there needs to be fewer people, fewer patrons, obviously the applicant has a well thought out plan for how to staff the facility. But I think the proposal for the number of patrons is too large, the space allocated to patrons is too small. Given that people are going to be circulating with drinks in their hand and so forth, I think 400 would be a more reasonable number. Again, if this were not a special permit issue, then we'd go by the, you know, whatever. But this is a special permit issue. My view is that that space that I tried to imagine 500 and some odd patrons in confining themselves to two by two and a half square feet is not, I don't think that's a good situation. And that would be my number. It's considerably up from what I initially thought, but I think it's reasonable to reduce the number of patrons occupying that space. So your motion then to clarify, your motion is to strike out 587 and insert and loo there of 400. Yes. Okay, got it. Is there a second to that motion? There's not a second to that motion. Okay. All right. So we have before us, number 14, is there any further amendments, are there any other amendments to number four, proposed to number 14? If not, we will vote on 14 as unamended. All right. The vote occurs on condition 14. Do I have a motion? I have to have a motion. Do I have a motion? Mr. Maxwell moves. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Slobner, I think you, if you won that one, you could hand it, I got up first. Would you read the motion? I will. Absolutely. So we have a motion and a second to approve the condition. The total occupancy, perends of guests and employees combined and perends shall not exceed 587 occupants, 587 occupants, as specified in plan sheet A-1.1, the first floor plan. That's the existing condition unamended. Any discussion? Mr. O'Connor? Yeah. Another issue about this, I think that that number is uncountable by if the police were to make a determination that they wanted to make sure that the occupancy was what it was supposed to be, counting 500 and so on, it's not reasonable. You'd need the whole police force to do that. 400 is a little more reasonable. It's above what I thought, but... But it's that special, there's an electronic thing that they use so that people are measured when they are counted when they come in and then discounted when they leave. So there is some ability to do that, whether it's 400 or 500. But the question before us, is further discussion on the unamended condition. Not the vote occurs on condition 14, roll call vote. Chair votes aye. Ms. Marshall? Aye. Mr. O'Connor? No. Mr. Maxfield? Aye. Mr. Slavitter? Aye. All right, the motion carries five, I mean, four to one. The next condition is the double doors facing Pray Street shall be kept closed, but not locked during normal hours of operation. This was the one where Mr. O'Connor wanted to discuss whether they're manual or automatic door stops. Yeah, my understanding is, I just wanna be sure that when those doors are open, there's going to be a person for each door because these are double doors. And if you have manual stops, then you're gonna have to have a person for each door. And as long as the applicant can say that that's the case, I'll be happy with it. But in an emergency situation, are there going to be two individuals at each of the exit doors so that each of the doors can be stopped and kept from closing on the patrons who are trying to exit? You know, I guess the question occurs, the question is to Mr. O'Rourke, you have a person at each door, you have three rovers and you have people out and you have one person outside. So you've got three plus three, two rovers plus one person outside and then you have two and then you have a lead manager. So you have sufficient personnel to have two doors, two people at those three doors. We do, and my personal opinion is that it's unreasonable. A person can operate those two doors. We have a staff member at an egress that doesn't constitute two doors, it constitutes one 72-inch double door and they are perfectly sufficient to be able to open those doors and operate that manual door stop on each door to open that in the case of an emergency. I don't see the need for two people per door is basically what Mr. O'Connor is asking for. I think that's unreasonable. But my opinion, I would say no, but that's up to the board. So Mr. Chair, I'm not asking that two people be stationed at each door, I'm just asking that the management plan in terms of an emergency provide for each door to be opened and secured in the open position by an employee. I think that I don't think the applicant misunderstood what I was trying to say. If there are double doors, the doors swing, one swings left, the other swings right, it's gonna be a little difficult in an emergency if people are trying to pour out the door for the operator, for one person to walk, to essentially put in place to make sure the doors don't close, both doors. So as long as the applicant can say that he's, that the other individuals can get there and do that, that's fine with me. All right, so I think we have the management plan is to staff those doors sufficiently. So I'm inclined to vote on this condition as contained in the proposed application report, unamended and leaving it there. So I have a motion to do that, to approve condition 26. I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understood what you just said. So you don't think that- I do have a motion to approve condition 26 without amendment. And not modify the manager. You just, we don't need anything is what you're saying. Management plan, yeah, we don't, the management plan contains this stuff. So condition 26, is there a motion to approve conditions 26? So moved. Is there a second? All right, I have a motion and a second. Is there further discussion? If not, the vote occurs on condition 26. The chair votes aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. O'Connor. I'll stay on this one. Mr. Sloveter. Aye. The vote is four ayes and one abstention. Motion passes. So are there any other conditions that the board would like to consider or propose? I'll make a motion. And if I don't get a second, I'll, we can go on. Can I make them a, I'll make a motion? Place to do it. That there be a requirement that the air handling capacity of the, for the building or the part of the building that houses the patrons be conformed to post COVID improvements in the, in the code. So, all right. We don't have a motion. Does somebody want to second that motion before we discuss it? Or do you want a clarification of his point? It seems to me what you said is you want post COVID requirements in place for the air handling. And I don't know. So that whatever's in place now would be post COVID requirements in place. 2015, 2015 things are not post COVID. So, well, but there's there, but now they're the ones that are in place. And it may be that, but that's what I believe before it opens, there should be post COVID. And I think the inspectors and the code enforcement people in the town are very aware of the discussions that have gone on around us. And they will be, they'll be informed as to, they'll make an informed decision. But I think using the, simply saying, oh, the 2015 code is in place and therefore we should use that, I think is ignoring the immediate three years pass. That's clarification on this point. Is there a second? Mr. O'Connor, I don't think you've got a second. That's okay. That's okay. Yep. Okay. We move on. And I have one final motion. And if I don't get a second, then we, you know, at least it's disposed of. Right. But I believe that in accordance with section 10.384, adequate and appropriate facilities will, would be provided for the proper operation of the proposed use. The applicant has said that he has at least for 20 years. It certainly appears as though the improvements that are being made are long range, long-term improvements, upgrades and so forth. Designs alas, quite frankly, the life of the leaks. And I think it's just impossible to ignore the fact that 20 years from now, all buildings should have, should be providing some measure of electrical augmentation, not just taking in stuff from outside, but generating stuff on site. My personal view is that the proper place for solar panels is on the roofs of buildings, commercial and residential buildings and commercial parking lots. And I don't think it's, in this day and age, I think to approve the building that's going to be in use at this level for 20 years without providing some requirement for the minimal solar installation, I think is an abandonment of our duties. And so I would so move that to be required to submit to the town inspectors a plan to install solar panels on the roof of the building not to meet the requirements of the building, but to generate as much electricity as can be done with the building at present. Is there a second for Mr. O'Connor's motion? I don't see a second for the motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the courtesy of being able to make the motion. Absolutely. No, that's why you're a member, Mr. O'Connor. Yep. Yes, Mr. Rah. I just want to make a quick clarifying point that when we come up with these conditions that we instill in these applications, you have to keep in mind that it has to be for a provable benefit to the public overall resulting from this project. And you have to think if we're instilling a condition, how easily could it get challenged in court? Because the applicant could go to court for a condition that seems unreasonable and if it's something that is unreasonable, it doesn't have any public benefit to it. We could lose. So just keep that in mind for future meetings. Mr. Chair? Yes. Can I just say something about Mr. O'Connor's motion? I applaud the effort to pursue the solar, but this exact issue was come up in my church where we want to, some people want to put solar panels on the roof. It turns out it is not structurally capable of doing that. And the cost of doing it is not small. And since the applicant is not the owner of the building, I'm not sure that we could require the applicant to do this. I'm not sure the landlord would even permit it, no? And again, it might not be structurally possible. So I think it's a great idea. And in separate from the concerns that Mr. Wachiller raised, it's just not necessarily doable without a lot of investigation. But I think all, I can't speak for all of this, but I can speak for myself and I'd like to see more and more of it when it's critical and doable. I agree with Mr. O'Connor. I'm a proponent for solar panels too, but I don't know that it would work in this particular building at the moment. You could do a quick, you could get a couple of good companies right in the neighborhood to give you a feasibility study in pretty quick time. They would, as long as you might give them a little credit, solar panels by XYZ company, they would probably be happy to have a very visible project in downtown Amherst. Be spoke solar, not spoke live, spoke solar. There you go. All right, you might get it cheap. All right, if there are no other conditions, we have to make our findings under several sections of the bylaw. So we're moving on from conditions. I think we've gone through each one. We've approved those conditions, most of them in block and others individually. We don't have to make a finding under article seven for parking because they're located in the parking overlay district and they don't need, there's no parking requirements. For the sign regulations, I don't think we need to make a finding for the sign regulations because it should not exceed 10% of the area. And you clearly, your sign does not exceed 10% of the space. I don't think we have to make any findings under 5.04. Do we, Ms. Brestrup, we don't have to make any findings under section five, do we? I don't think so. Excuse me, I don't believe so, but you also have a condition that reflects condition five or article five. Article five, yeah, yeah, yes, we do, yeah. So then we come to article 10.38, article 10 findings. So I'm gonna run through these and I'd like to use the same procedure. I'm gonna run through each of these, assuming that they're approved, if not raise your objection and we will separate that finding from the rest of them. First, section 10.380 and 10.381, the proposal is suitably located in the neighborhood in which it is proposed and or the total town as deemed appropriate by the special grant, special permit granting authority. The proposal is compatible with existing uses and other uses permitted by right in the same district. There's similar businesses across the street and in this area. So I think that we're clearly confined to 10.380 and 10.381 are met. 10.382, 383, 385 and 387 generally deal with nuisance for the neighborhood and abutting properties. I won't read it all, but the proposal says would not, the proposal would not constitute a nuisance due to air, water, pollution, flood, noise, odor, dust, vibration, lights, or visually offensive structures or site features. The proposal would not be substantial inconvenience or hazard to a butters, vehicles or pedestrians. And it goes on and talks about other visually or other kinds of offensive uses or products coming from the use. I think that it doesn't produce a nuisance. I think that the noise limitations that the applicant has proposed along with the lighting restrictions, the ambient lighting restrictions that he's put in place and I think speak to the way in which he has mitigated the effect on neighboring properties. And so I think 10.382, 383, 385 and 387 can be our met. Ms. Bresla, you've got your hand. Sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't put my hand down from last time. Okay, and I didn't look up, so I didn't see it till now. All right, 10.384, adequate and appropriate facilities would be provided for the proper operation and of the proposed use. So in this case, this oftentimes deals with the ability to get product in and out of commercial presence, commercial properties. The applicant is modifying the interior to include a bar, areas for staff, site management plans. There are also two sheds in the rear, which will provide for additional storage as well as ways for trucks to get in and deliver product to the establishment. So I think 10.384 can be met. I disagree, but. All right, do you want to take that out? Yeah, because I'm... Yeah, all right, 10.384 we'll remove and we'll come back to it. 10.386, the proposal ensures that it is in conformance with the parking and sign regulations. It is, I don't think there's a question about that. 10.387, it was also spoken to in earlier, but this deals with pedestrian movement within that site, relation to adjacent streets, properties of property, the special grant and authority, likely to have an adverse impact. We could order a traffic review, I think, is what this is about. Yeah, impact on traffic patterns. You know, I don't think we need to do that. In order to do, I think we need to have a traffic impact study, we spend a considerable time talking about the impact of this project on the traffic. And we've also looked at all the different ways in which public transit and right on called up traffic, right shares can meet the needs for motor vehicle drivers. Miss Marshall. I'm not sure we've closed the loop on queuing on that sidewalk. Okay. So. So the queuing on that sidewalk. Whether it can take up the whole width of the sidewalk. I know it's not in front of the doors. Okay. We were told it's a private sidewalk, but we could still, you know, and ensure that there's the people can walk by. I'm just saying, I don't think we've resolved it. I don't know. Well, we have, so that's, we have to resolve it if we're going to proceed. So we have to make a decision. So the, is my understanding that the three, they're going to limit it to 300 people in the, standing on the, on the sidewalk waiting to get in. That's only going to, that's, and that does not take up the whole width of the sidewalk. Is that the notion? Mr. O'Rourke, we have, we're going to, I'm seeking clarification on this. So I'm not trying to engage in an argument about it. Yeah. Right now we have 300 people that are going to be on that sidewalk. That sidewalk is how many square feet. And is that, one way to look at that is how many square feet is it and how many people can you put on one half of that sidewalk? Can you fit 300 people there? Or are you going to have people outside that are going to try to keep that sidewalk open? Are you going to have people who are monitoring the outside going to keep that sidewalk open for other people who may, the public who may wish to use it? I guess that's your question. Is it not? The discussion that was had before was that, that's a private sidewalk. The direct other side of the street is a public way. And that the architects who designed it, argument was that it doesn't need to be designed to be cut in half for people to access in both directions that it's not designed that way. And with it being a private way, you know, with the exception of you guys making a ruling on it, doesn't obligate us to have to do that. So I'm going to get to the board of that. I understand your argument. Okay. I didn't before. Marshal, is that consistent? And Mr. McLean, I'll get to you in just a second. Yep. I mean, is it acceptable? I understand. I think if it is the case that the spoke will ensure that the public sidewalk is open to two-way traffic the whole length, then I'm fine with this. Yeah, we wouldn't utilize any of the public way on the other side there, I'm pretty sure. No, but I mean for your other business. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, we operate that way. Currently would continue to do so. We'd be in violation, I think, if we did it. So. Okay. You have parking, you have stanchions up where you have... Fencing. Fencing or whatever they are. Stanchions. The whole thing that you put up to across the street at the existing slope, right? Yes, those are stanchions, correct? Portable stanchions. And they're removed. We do not leave them, you know, in case any other topic that comes up there is not left there. The second we close our premises, they are removed and put behind the building. So we're taking... All right, Mr. O'Connor. Yeah, so I think it would be not a good idea to try to mix the general public with the individuals who are trying to enter the establishment. I really think that the fact that there is a public sidewalk across the street is adequate for this street and I don't think, I don't see an issue here. All right. I'm fine, we can... All right, so we'll keep this in the end block findings. 10.388, the proposal ensures adequate space for off-street loading and unloading of vehicles. Deliveries are done Thursdays and Fridays, not during business times and you've provided for space for doing that. 10.389, adequate methods for disposal or storage of sewage, refuge, recyclables and other waste, resulting in you've got a waste dumpster and a recycling dumpster and you're connected to the Tom Sewer. So you've got sufficient waste and recycling capacity. 10.390, the proposal ensures protection from flood hazards. I don't think that's applicable. 10.391, unique or important, protection unique or important natural historic or scenic features. I don't think that is applicable to this application. The proposal provides adequate landscaping. I mean, you haven't increased the landscaping but you're proposing no additional landscaping but you're not proposing anything less so it doesn't change the existing conditions as much as we may want it to be more beautiful. It's not a change from current situation. So it's not a detriment to the neighborhood. 10.393, the proposal provides protection for adjacent properties by minimizing the intrusion of lighting. You aren't adding additional broadcast lights. You have the existing lights, you have some lights that are broadcast lights that are there now but you're not adding additional and you are having some ambient lighting and some downcast lighting on the sidewalk. Yep, and we always take into consideration downward lighting. Been in this town for 22 years. I understand that. The proposal of voice that sent feasible maximum impact on slopes, flood plains not applicable, 10.395 does not create this harmony with respect to the terrain and to the use scale and architecture. Generally, you're within the, you look like the other kinds of buildings in the area. You're not changing anything. So it's not an app, it's not an app. You're not, this really isn't applicable all that and you're dealing with and you're complying with the design review board recommendations. 10.396, proposal provides screening for storage areas. You put a four foot fence around the rear area of the dumpsters. So you screen the dumpsters in the back. 10.397, recreational facilities is not applicable. 10.398, proposal is harmony with the general purpose and intent of the bylaw and the goals of the master plan. Proposal abides by the standards that force the zoning bylaws of the master plan to bring in general with the goal is to bring more business and not state business in the downtown area. And that just does that. So with the, Mr. O'Connor. Yeah, just the final 10.398 is the section under which I would vote not to approve given the noise, interior noise levels and so forth. But, and so I think that I have a couple of sections that I don't, we've already resolved if there's no interest in my concerns in that area. So I think that you should simply take a vote on the conditions that you've articulated. In all likelihood, I will vote no. I haven't heard anyone who is, who anybody else is going to vote no, but I've made my position clear and I think we, you can proceed to a final vote. Thank you, Mr. O'Connor. That'll save us all some time. I appreciate that. So the motion before us then is to improve, make the findings, including the findings of 10.398 and the earlier findings 10.384 that we set aside for separate votes, including them in all the conditions, all the findings from 10.38. Do I have a motion to make the findings that we can make findings required under 10.38 and 389? So, Mr. Maxfield, first hand up, do I have a second? Second. Ms. Marshall, second hand up, I've got a second. Is there any discussion? Mr. O'Connor has expressed his position. I'm gonna vote for the motion. Is there any other discussion? If not, the vote occurs on the findings in 10.38. It's a roll call vote, the chair votes aye. Mr. O'Connor. Aye, no. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Slobiter. Oh, Mr. Slobiter, there you go. Yeah, here I am. I vote aye. The vote is four ayes and one may. The motion carries. Now we have a, the last vote is on the application, granting special application with conditions, which is before us. So we've approved the conditions, we've made our findings, then the final action would be to approve the special permit. The special permit, let me get this right. Where is it? Three face, ZBA what? ZBA 2023-14 to be approved with conditions. Do I have a motion? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All right, we've got a move and a second. Is there any discussion? This requires four votes. The motion before the body is to approve the application with conditions. The chair votes aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Slobiter. Aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. O'Connor. No. The vote is four to one, four votes required to pass this and approve it. The motion passes. Mr. O'Rourke, congratulations. You've got your spoke live. I also wanna thank all the members of the zoning of the ZBA for their work on this project. I think we've covered a lot of ground over the last two meetings. And I appreciate all of your hard work. And Mr. Chairman. Yes. I'll submit a statement as to the reasons I voted no. I'll submit it to the staff so it can be included in the report of the zoning board. That's fine, Mr. O'Connor. That's good. All right. Next order. Thank you. Good luck. Thank you guys. Thank you for all six hours that we spent on this for everybody. Thank you very much for your help. Mr. Judge, do you wanna take a vote on closing the public hearing? Oh, I guess we, yes. Yes, I didn't make the full motion. So the motion, I should also have moved to close the public hearing on this application. Do I have a motion to do that? Close the public hearing. Mr. Slobiter. Moves, is there a second? Second. Mr. Maxfield seconds. Any discussion? If not, the motion occurs to close the public hearing on ZVA FY2023-14. Chair votes aye. Mr. O'Connor. Aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. Slobiter. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Motion carries five to nothing. The hearing on this application is closed. Thank you, Ms. Brespa, if I fail to include that in my closing moment. Next order of business is public comments on anything not before the board tonight. So if anybody has, any member of the public wishes to make a comment, they can do so by raising the hand or by pushing nine on their phone. And I see no raised hands or no phones. So there's no public comment. The other order of business is any business not anticipated within 48 hours. And this is normally where we talk a little bit about the schedule for the upcoming couple of meetings. And so we have a meeting coming up on the, what's the date? It's on the 25th we have our next meeting. That's correct, that's right. What do we have, Rob or Chris, what do we have coming up on the 25th? So on the 25th, we have 515 Thunderland Road, which is a battery and storage system proposed. It's going to be a total capacity, I believe around nine megawatts. It's going to be, this is actually a continued hearing for a previous meeting, which I believe was April 27th. So basically the board has already done two site visits for this permit. And that's the only thing we have for the 25th. Then we also have two potential applications for June 8th. And then anything after that, I have not had any updates recently. Okay, and are those individual residences or are they some of the, these aren't the 40Bs, are they, for June 8th? Nope, so the June 8th's ones for a continuation of a special permit from two years ago for a flag lot. And the other one is for 485 Pine Street, which proposed, Chris, is it a duplex they're trying to put in there? Or is it a converted dwelling? Try to remember what it was. Anyway, we have, we have permits coming, let's just say that. All right, so we've got the 25th or 515. All right, good enough. Any questions from members of the board? Mr. Maxfield. What street is that flag lot on? Is it the one I'm thinking it is? Southeast Street. Got it, okay. Yep. It's gonna be a quick one, let's just say that. Yeah. All right. Well, if there's no other business, there's no other questions. I wanna thank the staff again for the hard work. I wanna thank all you guys, all the members of the ZVA for their hard work on this project. Mr. Maxfield, how many more of these are you gonna be with us? For how many more will you be with us? I've got three left so long as none of the three are gonna be something that looks like it's going to continue beyond June. So if 40B comes on our, what would be our third meeting then I would be stepping out for it. But yeah, it looks like the next three are what I've put in for to not be working. All right. I appreciate that. Thank you. Before that, I just wanna say for this meeting, Mr. Chair, thank you so much for that. I think you did a great job, Sharon, and I did this whole application. So thank you. You handle it well and I'm always impressed. You can only do it with good board members and make it easy. All right, man. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. And Dylan will be looking forward to the last three working with you. Thanks very much. Looking forward to it. All right. Thanks, everybody. Bye. Goodnight. Goodnight.