Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverage Licensing Blog

The Brockton Enterprise reports that City Councilor Tom Monahan wants to explore ways to better promote downtown businesses after the License Commission Wednesday night rolled back the closing time of Joe Angelo's Cafe & Deli.

During the three-hour hearing, commission members voted to reduce the weekend hours of Joe Angelo's from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
The action came in response to a series of fights in the parking lot behind the downtown bar, including a May 12 brawl in which two people were stabbed.

Monahan said bar owner Joe Angelo wants to have talks with other councilors, police and fire chiefs and the owners of other downtown bars about what can be done to help downtown businesses thrive. Monahan wants to talk about what the city can do to better promote downtown business.
"We can all sit together and see what we can come up with to bring business to these establishments," he said.
License Commission members voted to roll back the bar hours after hearing testimony from a half dozen police officers and public input from three city councilors, including Monahan, Paul Studenski and Jass Stewart.

The 1 a.m. closing is a permanent roll-back, but Angelo will be able to reapply in six months to have the 2 a.m. closing reinstated.

Commission member Scott McDuffy told the newspaper that the commission would keep an open mind moving forward. "We'll look at it and see how that (rollback) affects things and changes it, hopefully for the best," he said.
In addition to closing an hour earlier, the commission is also requiring all entertainment to stop at 12:30 a.m. and no admittance to be allowed after midnight.

The commission also passed new rules for all bars and restaurants with a 2 a.m. license, requiring them to not allow anyone into the establishment after 1 a.m., to stop all entertainment at 1:30, and to stop serving alcohol no later than 1:45.

The Fall River Herald News reports that after obtaining a $5 million loan from BankFive, three city businessmen and partners are preparing to construct first-floor restaurants at the former Quaker Fabric headquarters and are seeking two available liquor licenses, Anthony Cordeiro said.

"All of this becomes a modern look to a 140-year-old building tied into the waterfront," Cordeiro said. He described to the newspaper how progress on restaurants with outdoor courtyards facing the Taunton River will soon kick into high gear during the next three months.

The aim is to have one restaurant operational this summer, said Cordeiro, a city developer and insurance company owner. Commonwealth Landing Development LLC, has applied to the Licensing Board for liquor licenses. The other two partners are Alan Macomber, owner of Corky & Co. and clerk of the Fall River Office of Economic Development; and Larry Couto of LC Mechanical, also a FROED member. Cordeiro is a member of the city's Redevelopment Authority.

The partners bought the five-story Davol Street landmark adjacent to Bicentennial Park at a June auction for $1.5 million, less than half the $4.2 million selling price.

According to their Licensing Board application, the partners want to turn the 6,700 square-foot, single-story building that extends from the main building toward the park for the larger restaurant. It would be connected to a 1,500-square-foot open patio.

The North Adams Board of Licensing has approved a restaurant license for the North Adams Country Club and golf course on the condition that no more than 35 percent of its total gross come from alcohol sales. The board referred to the past problems with the former Mountainview Restaurant, which had opened as a dining establishment but had morphed into a nightclub. Jim Basiliere, representing the new ownership group, agreed, saying the club would be used as a banquet hall but there was no intention of turning it into a bar.

Waxy O'Connor's has a new public hearing date of May 17 at 7:05 p.m to address more alleged liquor license and overcrowding violations brought against them.

Patch.com reports that Foxborough Board of Selectmen were taken aback last week when Waxy O'Connor's failed to show up for their scheduled liquor violations hearing.

Foxborough Town Manager, Kevin Paicos, presented selectmen with a notice received April 11, from Waxy O'Connor's attorney requesting a continuation of the public hearing due to a scheduling conflict.

Pacios, however, advised the board to continue the hearing at a later date for the reason being that if they had the hearing absent the accused party and their counsel then the opposed sanctions on Waxy's by the board may not be ruled a "flawless" decision by the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (ABCC).

"The board has the right to continue with the hearing without the presence of Waxy's management and legal counsel, however if Waxy's chooses to appeal any opposed sanctions by the board to the ABCC, then the board's record could be considered flawed," said Paicos.

Paicos went onto say that "the ABCC could rule on the basis that the defendants (Waxy's) were not present at the time the decisions were made while taking into account that this is Waxy's first request for a continuance of a hearing."

Continue reading "Foxborough Eatery Gets Continuance on Liquor Violations Hearing " »

Mass. Lawyers Weekly reports that a Boston nightclub could not be indemnified for a patron's injuries because it failed to present evidence that the man showed visible signs of intoxication earlier in the evening at a Chinese restaurant, a Superior Court judge has ruled.

The plaintiff nightclub, Felt Enterprises, argued that because defendant Chau Chow II did not monitor how much alcohol it served the patron, the Chinatown restaurant was liable under the "mode of operations" test announced by the Supreme Judicial Court in its landmark 2007 Sheehan v. Roche Bros. decision.

Even though the plaintiff in Sheehan could not establish how long a piece of food had been on the floor before it caused a slip and fall, SJC Chief Justice Roderick L. Ireland held, in an issue of first impression, that the store owner who created the foreseeably dangerous condition could still be held responsible.

But Judge Bonnie H. MacLeod-Mancuso refused to apply the SJC's test to the nightclub's case, granting summary judgment in favor of the Asian eatery.

"The Plaintiff has not presented any authority extending the 'mode of operations' doctrine from the self-service premises liability context to the dram shop liability context," she wrote. "Considering the weight of authority against the Plaintiff's position, the 'mode of operations' approach does not apply to this case, and the Plaintiff cannot show that the Defendant had notice [the patron] was intoxicated while it was serving him alcoholic beverages."

The Boston Red Sox have reached an agreement with Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Boston police, and several community groups to begin selling mixed alcoholic beverages to fans with seats throughout Fenway Park.

During a hearing before the Boston Licensing Board, Red Sox officials said they sealed the agreement during a recent meeting with Boston police and other city officials. The Red Sox agreed to limit the sale of the mixed drinks to five refreshment stands and to move one of those stands farther away from the bleacher section.

Even after obtaining City permission, the Red Sox would still need the approval of the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission, a process that could take another few weeks.

Team officials have said that there would be no sales of straight hard liquor to fans in general seating areas, and that the alcohol content of the mixed drinks would be no greater than the alcohol content of a cup of beer.

To appease the concerns of police and Mayor Menino, the Red Sox also agreed to halt the sale of mixed drinks two hours after the games begin. Beer sales are allowed until the end of the seventh inning or 2 ½ hours after the game starts.

The concerns that were previously voiced by Menino and police stemmed from a variety of incidents during the mid-2000s, when beer sales at Fenway soared and complaints about inebriated fans and rowdy behavior rose significantly, according to the Boston Globe.

Team officials and Boston licensing board members now agree that the number of complaints about drunkenness at Fenway has dropped and that fan behavior in the bleachers has improved markedly.