Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2020 Page 4
President Wilshire
Anyone else? Kurt, you’re up.
Kurt Mathias Boston Billiard Club Thank you Chairman, Chairwoman, | apologize. | want to vote against
this, want you to vote against this simply because it is not going to help the spread of COVID-19. | don’t
believe it is going to spread COVID-19. We have 171 employees that work at Boston Billiard Club. If
this goes through, when you vote yes tomorrow, there is over 100 people that are going to go out of
work tomorrow. We have no work for them if that happens. Please, use common sense and do what
you can to vote to make this work. That’s all | have to say. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Who is next? OK, name and address for the record, please.
Lyle Kent My name is Lyle Kent, | live in Connecticut but | work at Boston Billiards for Kurt. So |
understand the need for doing it at 9:30 cause that’s when people start to drink and they start to not
listen or not use common sense, which is what | am assuming why they are doing it at 9:30 etc. But
think it’s important to take things on a case by case basis. | live right next to Foxwoods and Mohegan
Sun and they are doing a horrible job at keeping people in line. If you’ve ever been to Boston Billiards,
the employees are doing an incredible job of making sure everything is wiped down before anybody else
sits, wiping down the tables all the time and making sure people where masks to the point of — you
know, you'll get customers that berate some of the employees and they just take it with a grain of salt. |
think they are doing an amazing job especially considering other places. | think it should be focused
more on punishing the places that aren’t taking this seriously.
Kurt has already shut it down twice, you know, to keep us healthy. We all want to make money, we all
want to keep our economy going, but at the same time it’s useless if you don’t have your health. But
he’s taken that twice, two times he’s done that and there are other places that don’t. And | think you
should focus more on punishing the places that don’t take it seriously as opposed to making everybody
take aloss. That was my two cents.
President Wilshire
OK, thank you. | have Jim Rafferty?
Jim Rafferty Yes, | didn’t want to cut off the other gentleman. Thank you for the time, | appreciate
everything everybody does. Kurt and Boston Billiards is correct, it’s going to hurt the charities and the
two charity gaming facilities; it is going to hurt the workers. | have workers come to me every day and
say, | can’t buy the food for my family without this and it is going to hurt the businesses. | think the
science, I’ve been talking to many of you, and telling you about the science. | am passing around a
New York Times Article that questions the science of whether this is going to hurt not that | — | believe
the Board of Health but there’s real questions of whether the science is correct on this matter. And we,
at the River, we really are taking this seriously, take everybody's temperature, added all sorts of
expense to make sure the place is safe, cleaning every day. Everything is going full speed to try to
make this environment as safe as possible and it would be a shame if the Aldermanic Group turned that
off.
Now the other thing is if you just shut down Nashua, there are other choices for Charity Gaming
Facilities around the State and other people will go to other places. It would extremely, | think, unfair just
to close down this City. | know it’s well intentioned. But | would close with saying | don’t think this
Aldermanic Group and | appreciate what all you guys do; you should not confuse activity with
accomplishment on this one. Just doing something might have a negative affect that overwhelms the
positive effect that you’re doing. Please don’t confuse activity with accomplishment. Thank you very
much for the time.
