Board of Aldermen 3-10-2020 Page 13
Alderman Lopez
| have comments to make but first | wanted to ask Attorney Bolton only because Alderman Laws brought it
up in his comments. Is there any conflict of interest if employer or as a bartender if he votes?
Steve Bolton, Corporation Counsel
No.
Alderman Lopez
So | just wanted to get that out of the way. The second thing is, kind of already went around this circle in
the past when we tried this the first time. | understand the point of the bartenders and the business owners
that are opposed to doing it. But | don’t see anything in the Ordinance that compels a restaurant to stay
open until 2:00 AM. | think they can all set their own hours, | know some like Fratello’s do close early
because they don’t want to deal with the late night crowd.
| think with regards to responsible drinking, as far as | know, the majority of emergency calls and over-
drinking happens at home where there is unsupervised drinking. | know that’s not necessarily a
responsibility that bartenders want to take on or business owners. But they are trained and they are
accountable to what they serve for people. So going out in public adds an extra step but | don’t necessarily
think that not raising the time frame until 2 is going to make a positive impact. I’ve been in cities where the
alcohol curfew was like 10:00 and there is definitely still a lot of drinking happening, it’s just happening
under the radar and in casual settings. So | am still pretty indifferent on this. | am listening to business
owners who say that they don’t want to be forced to do this but | don’t see anything in the Ordinance that
mandates a restaurant to stay open until 2:00.
Alderman O’Brien
Thank you Madam President. I’ve had a long history with this particular Ordinance. It first started in the
New Hampshire State House, being a Representative, | supported it and voted on it. | felt that it was up to
each individual community to make their own particular decision with this. When | saw it in our office as
you can look at the number two name that supported it. But since then, | have received, | did some
research on it, went out there and took it upon myself to do an experiment, talking to a lot of bartenders and
it was a tough assignment but | did do it. But the thing is, | agree this is a totally enabling Legislation that
you could say it is up to the bar owner if he chooses to stay open. But is it? It’s not enabling that
somebody that has not mentioned yet, really to the employees.
If you are an employee in the bar business, there’s nothing here in protection of the employee where the
bar owner must come back to the employees and say, “how do you vote on staying open until 2:00”. | have
had some people say, “you know being the bartender isn’t really my primary job”. You know, he takes his
position as like a second, moonlighting type of job. He is still expected to get up and work the next day. |
am not against, | think that the Nashua Police Department could handle the 2:00 license. | firmly believe,
not from personal experience, but if you are drunk at 1:00 you are just as drunk at 2:00. But the thing is, |
think we’ve got to think of the employee and when it comes down to it. And maybe in the future when we
look at this, because this goes as part of the puzzle if we start to get into the Performing Arts Center, we
can address this again at that particular time and perhaps make a decision on really where we would like to
go.
And then last but not least, it does come down, there’s another dangling particle with the parking of 2:00.
Right now it is 2:00, | wouldn’t be objecting to looking but we do have a study that is pending that will come
out. So maybe it is just not the right time for this, maybe we should wait and take another peek at it
perhaps maybe next year and | would be supportive of that. Thank you.
