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Board of Aldermen 5-21-2020 Page 8

Alderwoman Kelly

So for example if | am at San Francisco Kitchen and there’s no space, | happened to be there recently,
there’s no space between me and the street because there’s a flower box. | don’t get to expand my patio
or | can expand it out onto the street.

Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development

You’d be able to expand it out into the street under this proposed Ordinance.

Alderwoman Kelly

Ok, ok.

Attorney Bolton

This is Steve Bolton; | think | can help out with this.
President Wilshire

Ok.

Attorney Bolton

The five-foot requirement has been in affect since we have had dining on the sidewalks. So | think what
you can expect on the sidewalks is what you’ve seen for many years. Out in the street, you will see more
tables. But the tables, may be fewer of them, may be spaced further apart and be in the same places on
the sidewalk that they have been before. The pedestrian pathway will be in the same place that you’ve
been seeing it for years.

Alderwoman Kelly

That was my question, thank you Steve.
President Wilshire

Thank you, anyone else, discussion.
Alderman Lopez

| have a question.

President Wilshire

Alderman Lopez.

Alderman Lopez

| just have a question for Director Cummings. Given that the footprint for all of these restaurants isn’t
identical, some places may not have the same access to the sidewalks and that type of thing. Are we also
working on potentially letting restaurants like SFK that don’t have front accessibility figure out some
opportunity if they have back property access?

Board of Aldermen 5-21-2020 Page 9

President Wilshire

Director Cummings?

Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development

Yes.

Alderman Caron

Hello?

President Wilshire

June, we can hear you.

Alderman Caron

OK now they can hear me, thank you. Bye. I’m sorry.

Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development

If | may Madam President, as an answer to Alderman Lopez’s question, very simply is yes.
Alderman Lopez

Yes, | figured it was in the works but you didn’t have a chance to reboot the entire Downton.
President Wilshire

Ok the Motion before us is for Final Passage of Ordinance 20-015. Further discussion?

Alderman Jette

Yes, Alderman Jette here.

President Wilshire

Alderman Jette?

Alderman Jette

So | know that a lot of us have participated in presentations that Director Cummings has made explaining in
great detail what this Ordinance proposes to do. But | hope | am not out of line in asking if Director
Cummings, you know, for the people who are watching and who have not been able to attend those
discussions, could | impose upon him to do a brief overview of what this plan is and what this Ordinance
will do?

President Wilshire

l’ll have to ask him, Director Cummings.

Board of Aldermen 5-21-2020 Page 10

Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development

Yes, thank you Madam President, if it's the pleasure of the body | have the map up and could share my
screen and very quickly go through it if that is wnat you wish?

President Wilshire
That would be great. Thank you, Tim.

Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development

OK so bear with me while | begin to pull up my screen and hopefully you can all see my screen on your
computers and | believe this would actually be televised to the general viewing public. So | am just going to
refresh to make sure | have the latest update. And | will slowly make my way up from Library Hill. So what
you see here at Library Hill is the start of Main Street and the theory behind narrowing Main Street will
happen right after Canal and | believe this is Franklin. The reason why we are not doing anything with this
intersection is because this is a temporary proposal. To change this intersection, there would be significant
expense and this is a very heavily used volume intersection as well. When we have the length of — for lack
of a better way of describing it — runway here to narrow as this orange line indicates, we can safely
transition the vehicular traffic into one lane.

With that being said, throughout this entire map, you will see purple and green and red. What this is
indicating is if it is in red it is a handicap spot; it will be shifted; it will not be lost. If it is green it will transition
to curbside, 15-minute parking; and that parking in a companion piece to this piece of Legislation is being
asked to be for free. After that 15-minute curbside parking, you know, enforcement would be in effect. I’m
sorry. | am seeing comments up on my screen here. Should | continue?

President Wilshire

Yes, please.

Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development

So right here you have Peddler’s Daughter, Peddler’s Daughter is showing outdoor seating right here. If
you are seeing yellow throughout this entire plan that is indicating a concrete barrier that will safely keep
vehicular traffic from the outdoor dining patron. This would be the sidewalk as noted earlier. You can’t
block a public way, the 5 VA ADA access. So you know there really isn’t an opportunity at Peddler’s
Daughter for any type of table seating on the sidewalk here due to the current state of the road condition.
You could, and there is on occasion, outdoor seating along here, which would still continue to be the case if
that’s the business operation’s desire. What we would be affording them is the ability to temporarily use
this space right here for outdoor dining.

Continuing along, there’s different traffic calming measures being implemented to narrow the street which is
what my mouse is traversing right now to just outline how the roadway will be narrowed. Getting to this
intersection here, this is the intersection of Water, it has been raised the question of, “Well can we have a
right turn lane through here”. The answer to that is, we will study it and if need be adjustments will be
made. We will evaluate that as necessary. You can still make right-hand turns that is not going to be re-
routed, you'll have through traffic. Then if you note, you'll have an ability to make a left here as well. So
there is ample capacity throughout this whole entire proposal to accommodate vehicular traffic. What you
are seeing from time to time, one-way completely through both north and south with the additional capacity
for turning lanes where it can be provided.

Continuing along, you will see again the purple representing where outdoor dining would take place and in
the green where you’d have that curbside type pick up. Curbside pick up would be along here, for San

Board of Aldermen 5-21-2020 Page 11

Francisco Kitchen. There’s a narrowing of the roadway back here to accommodate this new condition.
Continuing along, you have the blue here does not represent outdoor dining, what is represents trying to
maintain a consistent outdoor dining experience. Vehicular traffic, you have the traffic to continue through
the roadway here by being confused by having an extra turn lane or additional capacity which may cause
congestion later on down in the intersection. Continuing along, again you would have curbside outdoor
dining, am just going to back it up here a little bit, show that this is High Street. High Street, as of today, you
cannot make a left to go north on Main, you can only go right, going south. This would be outdoor dining
here, curbside here. We provided outdoor dining here, but it may not be used as outdoor dining as the plan
continues to happen. This still will be maintained for vehicular reasons. It may be more like the blue
condition over here where we are just maintaining an outdoor space which you have to do to maintain this
type of floor for vehicular movement and public safety reasons.

On East Pearl Street here, you are going to have the curbside pickup back in through here and then the
outdoor dining right in through here. That would service these restaurants, including Fratello’s. Fratello’s
would have an opportunity to have outdoor dining right in through here; curbside parking would be here,
this would be MT Local’s right here. This is Surf, this is again could be Surf right here as well, curbside
parking. We also have, | believe, Joanne Kitchen and Main Street Gyro in through here. The narrowing of
Main Street for going north does not happen back here at Kinsley, it actually happens closer to St. Patrick’s
and the condition would begin right in through here. So you’d have all this capacity and you would not
interfere with the volume back here.

This plan has been reviewed both internally and externally. It has received public comment. An
informational briefing was given to the Board of Public Works. I’ve had individual conversations with many
of the restaurants and shops on Main Street to make sure we were accommodating their needs. | am
pleased to report it has been well-received by many, many people. So with that being said, Madam
President, | think | very quickly went through this for you and addressed, | believe, the concerns.

President Wilshire
Thank you very much Director Cummings. Alderman Jette, did you have any other questions?
Alderman Jette

No, thank you very much Mr. Cummings for going through that. | do want to say that, you know, this
Ordinance was proposed, or this plan, in the Ordinance to enact it, it was in response to the Governor's
starting to open up the economy and allowing various businesses to reopen. One of them being
restaurants, but the Governor’s Order does not allow indoor dining, only outdoor dining. Most of our
restaurants rely upon indoor dining for their business and don’t have the capacity to accommodate outdoor
dining. So this plan gives them outdoors, an area outdoors where they can serve their patrons. So | think it
is a good idea. A side benefit of this, there has been talk for a number of years about the possibility of
narrowing Main Street on a permanent basis, similar to what Concord did in order to kind of re-design Main
Street in the downtown area, to make Main Street more of a destination and less of a thoroughfare.

So as a side benefit, | think it is a great opportunity for us to experiment with that and see how that works
out. So | appreciate all the work Director Cummings and a lot of other people have done on this and | am
going to support it. Thank you.

President Wilshire

Thank you Alderman Jette. Anyone else?

Alderman Clemons

Yes, Madam President.

Board of Aldermen 5-21-2020 Page 12

President Wilshire
Alderman Clemons.
Alderman Clemons

Thank you. And | hope that you can afford me a little bit of leeway here because the question that | am
going to ask is actually geared to Director Cummings or Corporation Counsel and it may not seem
germane, but | will get to that. So my question is, is there currently an Ordinance or rule that prohibits
umbrellas with advertising downtown?

President Wilshire
Director Cummings?
Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development

Yeah, | can answer that, Madam President. What there is, there is a regulation in the current outdoor
dining process that was approved by the Board of Public Works that prohibits logos or something of that
nature “advertising” on umbrellas in the right of way.

Alderman Clemons

OK. My question next would be definitely to Corporation Counsel and | am doing this because Alderman
Laws was unable to attend this evening and he wanted to perhaps entertain an amendment to see if we
could potentially have an exception to that rule via an amendment to this to allow for that. The reason being
is that on the east side of Main Street, the sun gets extremely bright in the afternoon. A lot of the
restaurants that are downtown are able to get through their various liquor vendors or other vendors, you
know, umbrellas or things like that, that they can get for free. If they were able to put them up on their
tables, this would definitely be there for the customer experience, plus it wouldn’t cost them anything.

The issue is that on some of these, you know, to get a non-branded one, the really nice umbrellas that you
would want that won’t blow away in the wind, you know, somewhere cost anywhere between $150.00 to
$250.00. So my question to Corporation Counsel is because it is a Board of Public Work’s rule, would it be
possible for the Board of Aldermen to pass an amendment to this Legislation that would temporarily allow
umbrellas with advertising and Logos?

President Wilshire

Attorney Bolton?

Attorney Bolton

| have not looked at this recently but it seems to me that this question came up two or three years ago and
while there is in the Board of Public Works Set of Rules about outdoor dining and placement of tables and
so forth wording about advertising signage, which encompasses that located on an umbrella. | think the
real impediments are the regulations of the State Liquor Commission. And they have on four inch
maximum for advertising, four-inch maximum size for Logos and Advertising of alcohol products. So beer,
wine, what have you. That seems to be the biggest impediment. So it may be that you want to address
that in amendment to this Legislation; it may be better to let us take a longer look at this and bring it up as a
separate piece later. | am not 100% sure that you can achieve your objective, because you cannot
overrule the State Liquor Commission.

Board of Aldermen 5-21-2020 Page 13

Alderman Clemons
Ok so yes and then, you know, with all due respect to Alderman Laws | am glad | asked the question. What
| will ask you if you can look into that for us a little bit further, so that we can propose Legislation to get that

done. It could be that some of these liquor distributors know that that’s a rule and they manufacture these
things that way; | don’t know. But yeah if you could look into that, that would be great. Thank you.

Unidentified Speaker
| hate to interrupt, but we have lost the bridge. So we are getting it back right now.
President Wilshire
Ok, we are going to hold.
Unidentified Speaker
I'll get right back to you on it.
President Wilshire
Thank you.
Alderwoman Lu
| was eager to drive through and just see what it looked like to have restaurants open and people on the
sidewalks chatting and eating. | think that with this opening it will probably attract a lot of people who feel
that way even if their towns aren’t open up or if they don’t live in a town. It is going to attract a lot of people
in the beautiful weather, even just to watch. And as we do every year, | think we may have a lot of
motorcycles coming through and my concern is the loud exhausts. And | think to make this a great
experience, we should, | am hoping that we can have the Police Department have dedicated patrols to stop
those loud exhausts before they can enter the Downtown area because | think that will just make it a much
better place for the people that are downtown. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Thank you, Alderwoman Lu. Anyone else? Would the Clerk please call the roll?
A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderwoman Kelly,
Alderman Caron, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Lopez,
Alderman Tencza, Alderwoman Lu, Alderman Jette,
Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire 12
Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED
Ordinance O-20-015 declared duly adopted.
President Wilshire

And that Motion carries. Ordinance 20-015 is duly adopted.

Board of Aldermen 5-21-2020 Page 14

O-20-018
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderwoman-at-Large Shoshanna Kelly
Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman Thomas Lopez
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
Alderman Jan Schmidt
Alderman Patricia Klee
Alderman June M. Caron
RELATIVE TO FACE COVERINGS
Given its first reading:

MOTION BY ALDERMAN LOPEZ TO SUSPEND THE RULES FOR A SECOND READING OF O-20-018
BY ROLL CALL

A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Klee, Alderwoman Kelly,

Alderman Caron, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Lopez,

Alderman Tencza, Alderwoman Lu, Alderman Jette,

Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Wilshire 12
Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED

Alderman Klee

Madam President? | think they’ve asked us to take down the presentation because no one can see us on
the television screen.

President Wilshire

Director Cummings, can you take down the presentation at this point?
Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development
Yes, I'll be happy to. | am going to do that right now.
President Wilshire

Thank you.

Alderman Caron

Alderman Wilshire, can you hear me again?
President Wilshire

Yes, we can, Alderman Caron.

Alderman Caron

OK, | don’t know if you got my vote.

Board of Aldermen 5-21-2020 Page 15

President Wilshire
We did.

Alderman Caron
OK thank you.

O-20-018
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderwoman-at-Large Shoshanna Kelly
Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman Thomas Lopez
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
Alderman Jan Schmidt
Alderman Patricia Klee
Alderman June M. Caron
RELATIVE TO FACE COVERINGS
Given its second reading

MOTION BY ALDERMAN LOPEZ FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF O-20-018 BY ROLL CALL

ON THE QUESTION

Alderman Lopez
And I'd like to speak to it.

President Wilshire

Alderman Lopez?

Alderman Lopez

So | proposed something similar to this or at least | asked the question as to whether there were any legal
reasons we wouldn't be able to augment our Public Health expectations that we, for example, wear shirts
and shoes in restaurants prior to the Governor’s Orders to open within phases. | had briefly suggested that
maybe we should wait and see what he did thinking that he would likely include some sort of plan for
wearing protective equipment with his phasing and then that didn’t turn out to be the case at all. So my
concerns originally were that we were just hearing more and more reports that business owners were being
blamed for trying to take precautions to protect their patients. People were wiping their noses on
employee’s shirts and generally abusing them. And | felt like this was a role where the City needs to take a
leadership role in Public Health Protections because that is where we are elected and we have the access
to planning and staff to implement it in a reasonable way. So | wanted to make sure that the City was an
active participant in this strong public health standpoint.

More recently with the phased opening and steps that we have been taking, it has become evident that we
are not going to go right back to the way things were. We are going to have to start making changes and
kind of recognize that there is the risk of the COVID-19 Epidemic but there is also the necessity of
maintaining an economy and helping small businesses achieve the success that they need. So | think that
this is a crucial step in all of that because businesses can’t afford to lose employees due to an outbreak.
We can’t afford to have manufacturing plants or stores closed because multiple employees were suddenly
caught with COVID-19, whether or not its fatal, they are still are out sick. So there is that element of risk
and then additionally the danger to our senior residents. Nashua has a large senior population and while

Board of Aldermen 5-21-2020 Page 16

we have seen in New Hampshire most of the fatalities taking place in Assisted Living Facilities, that is
because those are facilities where individuals have no choice but to share air and a common HVAC
system, work with common denominators like staff and share food and all that kind of stuff. So they are by
far the most at risk but we have a large number of senior housing programs too.

When this was reviewed by the Board of Health, all three medical doctors on the Board unanimously
supported this. Their questions weren’t about whether or not this was a good move, it was whether this
would be adequate to fully protect us or not. There’s a lot of discussion about the changes that COVID-19
has taken. Being a recently discovered and a newly emerging disease, we had no idea even 3 months ago
that infants and toddlers would be showing Inflammation Syndromes where they could potentially lose
limbs and have life-long impairments. We didn’t know that younger people, who we thought were just
asymptomatic and not at risk, were starting to present a higher occurrence of heart, stroke and arrythmia
and risks like that.

We had been proceeding along the assumption that only a small percentage of elderly people would be
impact by this permanently, when the Public Health reality is that a huge number of people will be impacted
either directly or indirectly, either fatally or in a manner that impairs them. So there’s a tremendous amount
of risk in reopening in the phased manner that we are doing, particularly here in Nashua. As Alderman Lu
pointed out, as we start to have people eating outside and the weather turning nicer, you are going to see
people coming from right over the border, which is one of the hot spots in the country, coming to check out
what’s going on, coming to experience their own return to “normal” and that puts our business people at
risk. That puts our local residents at risk. We already know in Mine Falls and other outdoor recreational
facility, there’s a huge uptick in the number of Massachusetts plates that are coming over to use those
facilities. If we aren’t careful in Nashua, we are going to open ourselves up to unintended consequences.
When we start to phase the reopening up at the same pace as the rest of the State, then what is happening
north of Concord isn’t going to be the same as what’s happening in Nashua. We are going to see more
and more people coming and using these facilities. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle; we need to
make sure that businesses have a large enough population that they can serve to even pay for the
expenses of reopening. We need to guarantee their success and we also need to protect them and
assume our own role of governors of Nashua.

So | think it’s important that we consider this. | think this is a situation where we have a clear signal from
the Board of Public Health that this is something that’s important. Their opinion is qualified and in the
meeting the question was asked to enable this, “Does the Board of Alderman have to take action”. And to
enable this, and Attorney Bolton can correct me if | misspeak, both the Board of Public Health and the
Board of Alderman need to agree to enact it. Only one of those Boards needs to decide to remove it. So if
the Board of Public Health decides that the coast is clear, ICU capacity is at a safe space and we have
something approaching herd immunity or if miracle vaccine is — | mean I’m not going to put any faith in that,
but if it happened, then we would be able to take corrective action and there wouldn’t be a huge amount of
Legislative Process with which to do it.

So | think it’s important that we set this in place now in order to protect ourselves from the risk that we
cannot reverse course on. | think it’s important that we keep in mind that our businesses need us to do this.
They need us to protect their ability to do business and they need us to do our roles that we have been
elected to do.

President Wilshire

All set Alderman Lopez?

Alderman Lopez

Yes.

Board of Aldermen 5-21-2020 Page 17

President Wilshire

The motion before us is for final passage. Is there further discussion on the motion?
Alderman Clemons

Yes President Wilshire?

President Wilshire

Alderman Clemons.

Alderman Clemons

Thank you. | have a question through you to Corporation Counsel. Can you clarify what the penalty is for
this Ordinance if it was to pass the way it is written tonight?

Attorney Bolton

A court could impose a maximum of a $1,000.00 fine. That is true for any violation of our Code of
Ordinances, unless some other lesser fine is particularly established.

Alderman Clemons

So to be clear, no one could be arrested for this?

Attorney Bolton

A violation subjects someone to arrest it does not subject them to a jail sentence. Presumably, if they were
arrested, they wouldn’t have to be arrested, they could be summonsed, but if arrested, presumably they
would get reasonable bail and be ordered to appear in Court. My expectation is if there is a violation for
mere failure to have a proper face covering, no one is going to be arrested for that. It would be where
some further offense took place, failure to leave the premises when directed to do so, could constitute a
criminal trespass. If the Police attempted to remove someone from a place where they weren’t authorized
to be because they weren’t wearing a mask, you get an additional to criminal trespass, you very often see
where the person resists arrest, perhaps assaults an officer, perhaps gets loud and belligerent to the
disturbance of others and you get a breach of the peace complaint at the same time.

It would shock me entirely if someone was arrested merely for the face covering violation and it would
shock me entirely, if someone on a first offense and only offense were fined $1,000.00. As | said a jail
sentence is not available for an Ordinance Violation.

Alderman Clemons

OK thank you. Madam President if | could continue?

President Wilshire

Alderman Clemons?

Alderman Clemons

My problem with the way that this is written right now is that there is no warning mechanism, there’s no, it is
basically up to the discretion of the Court, you know, up to what they are going to put the fine at. So my,