Board of Aldermen 3-10-2020 Page 12
ON THE QUESTION
Alderman Clemons
What the Golden Rod copy does is it adds a 90-day, it basically says that the Legislation will take effect 90
days following its passage.
MOTION CARRIED
MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF O-20-001 AS AMENDED
ON THE QUESTION
Alderman Laws
So | will try to be brief about this. | consciously attempted to stay neutral on this because of the fact that |
am a bartender downtown and have been for 20 years. And | waited for people to call me who | knew so
we could discuss it and nobody called. And then last night | had the pleasure of enjoying an adult cocktail
with Alderman Clemons and we discussed this and he had moved me towards his side of the discussion.
So today before | made a decision in haste, | decided to dip into my phone contacts and | did an informal
phone bank of all the bar owners that | Know in Nashua. Not one of them is for this. So granted | didn’t talk
to everybody but | spoke to Mr. Focus from Martha’s; | talked to the owner of O’Brien’s / Odd Fellows; my
boss the owner of Penuche's; the owners of Fody’s Tavern and then the message you got from John
Plourde, the manager at Peddler’s Daughter. Some of them are a little bit more indifferent to it; most of
them are against it altogether. Along with all of the personal problems that | had with this such as overnight
parking being a big issue, they ticket starting at midnight, the bars are open until 2, that’s obviously a big
issue that needs to be addressed. The fact that there is a tremendous amount of responsibility and liability
on these servers and bartenders and establishment owners in New Hampshire, versus the people who are
actually the ones committing crimes, getting you know drunk, not being responsible. | had spoken to a
couple of my colleagues who are at the State House and agree with me and are willing to look at that. |
appreciate Alderman Clemons wanting to do this. | think that he has a compelling argument; but if the
argument is that this is something that is going to give restaurant owners more options and the restaurant
owners don’t want that option, then | think it kind of kills the entire idea for me. So because of that, | am
going to vote against this.
Alderman Tencza
Thank you. | have thought long and hard about this as well and | think that ultimately where | come down in
review of Mr. Focus and Mr. Plourde’s comments on this, what downtown businesses want. For me, really
a lot of it comes down to a public health issue with increased hours, extended hours of sales of alcohol. |
think that it would only make sense that it would increase the responsibility of some people and the
incidents of drunk driving and drunk driving accidents. And also you know | have been paying attention to
the news as of late, and have noticed that there have been plenty of studies that have shown that the US
especially around young people for liver related disease is on the rise and | think we’ve done a good job
here in the City of trying to promote a healthy, resilient City. And | think this maybe sends the wrong
message.
Finally | will say too that there have been some comments that the casinos want this, it would increase their
business, give back more money to non-profits. However, as Mr. Plourde points out, casinos are limited to
1:00 for their game of chance. So they wouldn’t be able to extend the hours of the casino, they would
extend the hours at the bar and thus make them more money but not necessarily giving back. So for all of
those reasons, | will be voting against this tonight.
