Board of Aldermen 12-22-2020 Page 25
establishments that are selling liquor as opposed to State Laws that are governed and enforced by the
liquor commission. So | asked Attorney Leonard if she would review that case and give us an opinion as to
whether or not that case has any effect on our ability to adopt this Ordinance. Could | ask her that, through
you.
President Wilshire
You can. Attorney Leonard?
Celia Leonard, Deputy Corporation Counsel
Yes, thank you, Madam President. | did review the case, that case was specific to the City of Manchester
trying to put in a secondary licensing scheme for establishments selling liquor. It specifically concludes that
while that proposed Ordinance in Manchester was found to be preempted that the Court did not conclude
that all municipal regulations affecting State Licensing’s are void and that there has to be a factual and
legal analysis as to whether or not a local ordinance and regulation would have the effect or intent of
frustrating the State’s authority.
As you are all aware, we have unique circumstances, similar arguments were put forth for the mask
ordinance and the City successfully defended that through various (inaudible) both statutory preemption
and constitution. We make similar arguments here. It is an interesting factual and legal scenario currently
where the State Laws themselves have been altered through Emergency Orders of the State. Those
Emergency Orders, while they may not be a statutory scheme, certainly affect one and the City’s, this
proposed ordinance, although | cannot guarantee anything, and do not know what a Court would do, | think
it is not clearly illegal and there’s very good arguments that the City’s, that this proposed ordinance does
not frustrate the State Authority as it is currently put forth through the emergency orders.
Alderman Jette
Ok, thank you, may | follow up.
President Wilshire
Alderman Jette.
Alderman Jette
So given the legal opinion that we can adopt this ordinance, | would like to speak in favor of it. | will try not
to repeat what Alderman Lopez so well spoke about the reasons for adopting this. But! would like to add
some things. You know the public comments both at our meeting last night and tonight and emails that we
have all received from the public and | want to assure the public that | have read all of your emails and I’ve
listened to your phone messages. You know | hope you forgive me and the other Aldermen who haven't
responded, | can only speak for myself. | haven’t responded to all of them because there have just been so
many and | have had to spend time preparing for these meetings myself. But | did hear them, | did read
them.
But | would just like to point out some people have said that there is a complete lack of scientific evidence
that would support this Ordinance. First of all, people have spoken about the Massachusetts curfew and
said that has had no effect and they cases have skyrocketed in Massachusetts. | don’t think that’s correct.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has shown that since the curfew was adopted in
Massachusetts, the number of new confirmed cases has leveled off, you know, has plateaued and has
started to go down. There was a high of 4,735 and it is down as of Monday a little over 3,000. So there has
been a plateauing of those numbers and a significant reduction.
