After citywide criticism of its plan to tighten up alcohol service, the Cambridge Board of License Commissioners is walking back two of its least popular proposals.
On Tuesday, the board voted to remove a 30-minute wait limit between drink orders and its changes to last call, which would have denied customers alcohol an hour before closing time.
Two months ago, the board emailed its current rules, with edits marked in red, to business owners who hold a license to sell and serve alcohol. While some edits were made to streamline language and improve readability, other edits were geared toward preventing the overservice of alcohol. Two new rules imposing a 30-minute wait limit between drinks, and moving last calls for drinks earlier, were among the least popular. They attracted criticism from bar owners like Lauren Friel of Dear Annie, who took to Instagram to call the rules “kinda wild and pretty confusing.”
“We need you to care,” she told supporters. “If you…would like to make comments, please do. It does matter, it does help.”
The proposals, and the way they were communicated, were lambasted not just by business owners and customers but by Cambridge City Council, who discussed two policy orders last week denouncing the proposals.
These rules were “completely impractical,” said Councillor Patty Nolan, who was the lead sponsor on one of these orders. In an interview about alcohol service in the city, she said, “[The city of Cambridge is] making it harder and more onerous. I don’t see why we wouldn’t be lightening up.”
Rules before feedback “didn’t work”
In Tuesday’s meeting of the board, commission chair Nicole Murati Ferrer said that the last time the board updated its rules in 2016, the board first solicited advice from license holders before making changes.
“This time around we did the process in the reverse order,” said Ferrer, who says the board was asked to publish a draft first before licensees gave input.
It’s not clear who requested a draft first, but Ferrer says that tactic “didn’t work.”
She explained that the board didn’t receive “a lot of input” after the draft was sent in May. And because the board knew it wasn’t going to discuss the rules until late summer or early fall, she said listening sessions were hosted in June to gather input.
“Unfortunately, these listening sessions resulted in confusion,” she said. Many license holders feared that the changes were imminent. But Ferrer says that the feedback process was “still in the very initial stages.”
In Tuesday’s meeting, she described the 30-minute wait limit and earlier last calls as “too restrictive and not in line with the manner of how this board operates.”
“Not only will this negatively affect the business but also the public need,” she said.
The board approved an updated draft of rule changes, which now includes questions from license holders and cites state laws the board says they are responding to.
Other changes to the draft include specifying which employees should be trained to sell alcohol and lessening the amount of time businesses need to save surveillance footage.
Listening sessions coming soon
The board will convene three listening sessions with license holders on July 13, July 22, and July 28. On request of the city council, there will also be a meeting with the city’s Economic Opportunity and Development Division, business associations, and the Office of Tourism to receive perspectives beyond business owners.
The board will discuss the feedback from the listening sessions on August 13 and will review the rules “line-by-line” on September 2.
The plan, Ferrer said, is to update the board rules by the end of the year.
“It’s great that they listened to the community and licensees,” said Patty Nolan, a Cambridge city councillor. “Hopefully the council helped too.”
Two weeks ago, the council discussed the makeup of the commission and whether or not seats could be added. The number of seats is determined by the state, but Nolan said that licensees should still be a built-in part of their feedback process.
“We used to have a group that met monthly with the license commission, comprised of licensees, bar owners, small business associations. You could have a formal group to vet proposals exactly like this one. They would have avoided this embarrassing situation if they had done that.”
Licensees were grateful to hear the news.
“It’s promising that the license commission is listening to the public,” said Evan Harrison, co-owner of State Park in Kendall Square. “I’m excited to see how they further refine these rules.”
On Instagram, where the discourse about these changes first kicked off, Dear Annie’s Friel was cheekily bewildered.
“I guess screaming on the internet works sometimes?” she posted over a screenshot of the board’s email to license holders.
This story has been updated to include comments from Councillor Patty Nolan.
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