Local News
The city will no longer pursue an earlier last call of one hour before closing or a 30-minute wait between drink orders.
Public backlash prompted the Cambridge License Commission to scrap two proposed alcohol regulations Tuesday night, dropping plans to ban alcohol sales during the final hour before closing and require a 30-minute wait between drink orders.
The revisions came after the board received feedback from residents and business owners, leading commissioners to conclude the proposals were “too restrictive to businesses and the consumer,” Jeremy Warnick, the city’s director of communications, said in an email.
The turnaround comes after the draft regulations were circulated throughout the business community last month, raising concerns and questions about how the measures would be enforced.
One business owner said they would have had to place egg timers on each table to follow the 30-minute rule between drinks.
However, the commission was quick to say that it was only a draft and that they have open ears before anything is set in stone later this year.
Three more listening sessions focusing on feedback from license holders are scheduled for this month. A meeting will also happen with the city’s Economic Opportunity and Development Division, business associations, and the Office of Tourism.
Afterward, the commission will have a formal discussion at its August and September public meetings before any votes are taken to update the rules.
The License Commission, made up of three people, the commission chair, the fire chief, and the police commissioner, first said it was updating the rules in January.
It came after they realized that there hadn’t been any significant changes to the rules in 10 years, and they wanted to bring it up to speed with state laws.
At the meeting on Tuesday night, Chair Nicole Murati Ferrer noted that sending the draft regulations to license holders before any listening sessions did not work and instead caused much more “confusion” and “misunderstanding.”
The commission voted to make changes to the last call and wait time rules, including removing a rule that would have created a separate last call for pitchers.
Those rules were “too restrictive and not in the manner of how this board operates,” Ferrer said.
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