In the reshaping of local restaurant and bar licensing, the later last calls that revelers enjoyed during the World Cup appear to have been taken off the menu. The opportunity for cities and towns to create “conviviality districts” with to-go cups of adult beverages could still happen.
A Cambridge City Council order June 22 looked for ways to make later closing hours and more outdoor drinking permanent after a good experience with the June 11-July 19 soccer tournament watch parties. Somerville is exploring some rule changes too.
While Somerville didn’t have to-go adult drinks during the World Cup, like Cambridge it took advantage of temporary state laws that were signed by the governor June 8 and let licensees pour an extra hour, until 3 a.m., if they applied. Neither city felt they had to revoke the extra hours for bad behavior.
Somerville “will look at all the options that are allowed by state law,” said Licensing Commission chair Joe Lynch on Thursday, referring to commission discussions with the mayor and the city’s head of Strategic Planning and Community Development, Tom Galligani. “It is something that his crew are looking at in terms of weighing public safety, public health, traffic concerns, all the rest of it. Do we have a plan at this point? No. Are we investigating it for when the state allows us to do that thing on a permanent basis? Yes.”
The state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission is waiting too – to see what happens in the Legislature. Amendments for later last calls and to-go cups in conviviality districts have been proposed as part of an economic development omnibus bill, but staff said Thursday that it has seen no updates since July 31.
A conference committee has been working since that time to reconcile differences between House and Senate versions of the bill on the way to a final vote, said Meg Ribera, chief of staff and general counsel for state senator Julian Cyr, whom ABCC staff identified as a leader in the work toward less restrictive drinking laws.
State senator Robyn Kennedy of Worcester filed an amendment to allow later last calls, but the amendment was not adopted, Ribera said.
The bill still includes permanent authorization for designated outdoor drinking districts, which was also proposed by Kennedy, and provisions that could repeal Massachusetts’ prohibition on happy hours city by city, Ribera said. (A grab bag of other items is included: a directive to develop a plan for Massachusetts to host its own series of international soccer matches, expanded support for agritourism, a microgrant program for performers and artists and a cap on the resale price of concert tickets.) A provision for to-go sales exists in current law, Ribera noted.
Carole Meehan Oyama, chief of staff for Kennedy, confirmed Thursday that the conviviality district amendment with to-go cups was adopted on the Senate floor during debate in July and is in the final Senate version of the bill. “A final version has not yet been adopted, and we do not yet know if this language will be included,” Oyama warned.
“Resounding success”
Cambridge, where the License Commission’s plans for the World Cup included fretting over soccer hooliganism, had perhaps the ultimate test of the rules June 26. That’s when its open-air Annual Cambridge Dance Party in front of City Hall met a Norway vs. France soccer game watch party. City Hall is in Central Square, one of Cambridge’s to-go drink districts.
The party typically gathers at 5 p.m., with music and dancing starting an hour later and going to 11 p.m. This year it began two hours earlier with the watch party. The combined events drew as many as 50,000 people, according to staff estimates.
“The day was a resounding success,” said Jeremy Warnick, a city spokesperson. “There were no arrests or disruptions of note. While it may have been the largest turnout for the Dance Party, there was [even] strong discipline in throwing away to-go cups and overall waste maintenance.”
There were no notable issues during any World Cup watch parties either, said sergeant Bob Reardon, the spokesperson for Cambridge police at the time. Though all events have been very well attended, “the crowds have all been orderly and respectful.”
Cambridge is updating regs
Despite all the good behavior, the License Commission is updating its rules and regulations for the first time in a decade, and a version released in the spring addressed concerns about overconsumption with some ideas that were shocking to business owners, their customers and city officials. The commission retreated from some universally disliked ideas on limiting how much patrons can drink, including an idea to allow only one drink every half-hour.
At a commission meeting Thursday, the draft regulations process was nearly a footnote.
An updated draft was circulated to licensees Tuesday, with their resulting emailed feedback to be taken up Sept. 2, board chair Nicole Murati Ferrer said.
Date rape test strips in doubt
The sole public comment Thursday was from Joe McGuirk, a former City Council candidate with long experience in the restaurant and bar industry. He questioned the requirement for bars to provide test strips that would identify if a drink has been spiked with a substance such as rohypnol, known as a date rape drug: Each strip costs between $1 and $3, he said, which could hurt a business left to pay for them on their own and provide them for free.
“It doesn’t seem that much, except that the restaurant industry is dying by a death of a thousand cuts,” McGuirk said. He also wondered at the tests’ reliability, and a bar’s liability if a test fails.
Who bears the cost of supplying the test strips has been raised statewide, including talk of grants funding or customer sales, Ferrer said. It may not matter this year. “It’s an evolving discussion at the State House,” she said. “I think there is going to be a recommendation to table that.”
Somerville licensers haven’t been dealing with these issues, because that city’s regulations were revamped completely in 2021-2022, Lynch said.
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