Special Town Meeting to Consider Beer and Wine

Westwood's Board of Selectmen met tonight and voted to call a special town meeting on Tuesday, October 21. Three warrant articles will be on the agenda. The Finance Commission will likely conduct a hearing on September 22 for public input.

Article 1 is a home rule petition to authorize the town "to grant three licenses for the sale of wine and malt beverages at food stores." A food store is defined as a "grocery store or supermarket with a floor area of more than 1,000 square feet" and "not a convenience store, specialty store or any store that sells gasoline."

Article 2 is a technical "placeholder article" to be specified by the time of the Finance Commission hearing, if it is needed for land taking issues related to Westwood Station.

At the meeting, Westwood Resident David Feyler presented a petition with over 100 signatures to place a third warrant article on the agenda granting two more liquor licenses. On advice of counsel, Selectman Pat Ahern noted that presuming the signatures are validated, the article is required to be included. Town Clerk Dottie Powers estimated the validation could be done easily by tomorrow.

The special town meeting is designed to break the legislative impasse over the home rule petition approved at the May 5th Town Meeting and now before the legislature as House Bill 4832 by Rep Paul McMurtry. Resident Joanie Morgan questioned what tonight's vote would accomplish...whether this action by the selectmen would result in the passage of the bill now on hold in the legislature? The selectmen admitted they had no guarantees, but they hope and believe this solution will persuade Rep. Scaccia to change his position and support the home rule petition. It is clear this is the solution worked out between multiple parties over the past weeks.

Article 1 differs from the article passed at town meeting by removing the language that was designed to limit the applicability of the petition to Wegmans. Article 18 applied to grocery stores of greater than 100,000 square feet located in the overlay district (Westwood Station). This article has a 1,000 square foot minimum and applies to any store in a commercial district, other than a store that sells gasoline. Similar ideas were discussed at town meeting, but because of the required legislative process, amendments were not in order at town meeting. If the article passes at the special town meeting, it will mean the town has authorized 4 licenses--the one to Wegmans and 3 more that could go to Roche Brothers and any other grocery/food store that fits the definition in the full text of the article.

Warrant articles must be publicized to the town and presented at a public hearing by the Finance Commission. At that hearing, residents can propose amendments and the language reworked as desired in time to finalize the article for a decision at town meeting. But at town meeting, the moderator will likely rule amendments that have not gone through this public review process to be out of order. I was wrong in my belief that we could modify Article 18 back in May; the Finance Commission hearing will be the place where things are actually finalized.

Resident Eddie Germano questioned how the whole alcohol issue came up in the first place--whether this was initiated by the Selectmen or Wegmans? Selectwoman Nancy Hyde said Wegmans had asked the town for this. She said Wegmans has indicated that if they could not obtain the license they would seriously reconsider the Westwood location. Germano felt the town should not be "kowtowing" to the requests of the outsider--if they don't like our rules, let them go elsewhere.

Forbes Road resident John Harding questioned why the town could not place this on a ballot to have a public referendum on the issue and get a better sense of the entire town's position instead of relying on a few hundred people at a town meeting. Selectman Pat Ahern noted that 1) "the ship has sailed for the November ballot" and 2) even with a referendum, further legislative action would be required to enable the town to grant the licenses anyway. Ironically, the legislative impasse over Westwood's home rule petition had been blocking just such a measure by the town of Melrose--which was in fact allowed to pass through and meet the September 5 Secretary of State's deadline for ballot issues.

The next step in this process will be the public hearing by the Finance Commission, tentatively scheduled for September 22.