FM #1268 - Town Council Mtg - 06/26/24 - Extract

This session shares the Franklin (MA) Town Council Meeting of Wednesday, June 26, 2024.  All 9 members were present in Council Chambers. We took an extract of the full meeting, separating the all alcohol license transfer between Pour Richard’s and BJs for this segment of audio.

The transaction in June was twofold; Pour Richard’s ownership is changing, they are transferring their all alcohol license to BJs. In return, BJs will transfer the beer & wine license they have to the new owners of Pour Richard’s.

Should have been a straightforward move, both parties had done the prior paperwork, both parties were in good standing, the Town departments and ABCC had given prior approval, the formality of the transfer needed to be completed. 

As one BJs lawyers stated:

“I'll be as brief as I can. There are two main premises to licensing in Mass and the first is to serve the public need. That's basically the overall picture of location, and number of licenses, and in this case, this swap will definitely serve the public need because it's really not changing what's going on now other than moving the all alcohol portion slightly down the road to a different operator.

Now the second basic premise is for licensing to promote the common good and although I I find those confusing, I used to always think well what's the difference? Well the common good really focuses not on the town, and not on the town's landscape, but on the operator, and the specific location, and the specific way that the package store will operate. “

Later in the hearing, Town Administrator Jamie Hellen answered a question on a possible policy around not providing all alcohol to big box stores.

“Basically there's just nothing in town policy or code that I'm aware of, and I just conferred with the town attorney that could speak to that too, that does not,  I want to be respectful of Councilor Frongillo’s position if that's his priority as a voting member of the council that's a different matter, and it could be other members of the council as well or other members of the public but we have no policy on the books that prohibits that.

Actually I believe that's actually a policy that might even be challengeable legally because now you're making a judgment on a license on determinations that are not grounds for denial of a license, and would be an automatic approval on an appeal.  So I just want to make sure the Public's clear about that there's a difference between an opinion, and what we have in terms of a bylaw, we do not have a bylaw, we do not have a policy that's official about this“

 The public hearing closed, and both steps of the transfer were denied by 6-3 votes via roll call (Mercer, Jones, Hamblen for; Cormier-Leger, Chandler, Pellegri, Dellorco, Frongillo & Sheridan against)

Both BJs and Pour Richards have appealed to the ABCC. The Town when it filed the paper noting the denial apparently did not fill out the reason for denial (likely because they did not challenge on either of the 2 legitimate grounds for denial). 

In advance of the ABCC decision likely favoring both BJs and Pour Richard’s, the measure is back before the Council. Pour Richard’s had made a public appeal directly to the Council to reconsider righting the incorrect vote they had cast.

We’ll see what happens Wednesday night. 

Let’s listen to the replay of the June 26 segment which runs for about an hour and 6 minutes. 

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The Franklin TV video of the June 26 session (5 hour 50 minutes) can be found ->  

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkF-BLT5Vns  Skip forward to about 1:05, just after the recognition of Comptroller Chris Sandini’s recognition, is when the Bjs-Pour Richard’s segment starts. It runs to about 2:08.

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The music for the intro and exit was provided by Michael Clark and the group "East of Shirley". The piece is titled "Ernesto, manana"  c. Michael Clark & Tintype Tunes, 2008 and used with their permission.

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