MA: Legislature shoots down liquor law revamp

The Andover Townsman

August 18, 2016

Nearly everyone agrees that the state’s current liquor laws are antiquated, and cities and towns regularly have to petition their way around them.

So why is it, when two governors now — one Democratic, one Republican — have said it’s high time for change that the Legislature refuses to budge?

Last week a measure to give local cities and towns more control over their liquor licenses was cut by legislative leaders from a wide-ranging bill to eliminate obsolete laws. That means local legislators never got the chance to vote on it. The bill has been signed into law, but without any reform of the liquor licensing system.

That’s unfortunate on a number of levels.

The current system, put into place in the post-Prohibition era, limits cities and towns to one liquor license for every 1,000 residents. But in practice, few communities stick to the cap. Salem, a small city with a thriving restaurant industry, has twice the number of liquor licenses the cap would allow. In recent years Beverly, Peabody and Danvers have all added new licenses.

The only way to add new licenses, however, is by petitioning the state Legislature to grant additional licenses, a process that can take many months.

“It’s a huge waste of time and money for local governments to have to keep going to the Legislature for more licenses,” Amesbury Mayor Ken Gray told reporter Christian Wade. “We need control over local issues.”

Indeed, there is no good reason to give politicians from other areas the ability to determine how many liquor licenses Newburyport or Andover or Gloucester should have. That’s a decision that local officials can handle on their own. But every attempt at changing the process has been stymied; House Speaker Robert DeLeo of Winthrop opposes the changes, and nobody, apparently, opposes DeLeo.

The process comes with other needless regulations. New liquor licenses granted by the Legislature must be tied to specific addresses, so if a business plan falls through at a particular location, it can’t be transferred to another one. That’s become something of an issue in Peabody, where a city councilor has complained that five new licenses are being wasted because hoped-for development hasn’t taken place.

Whether that’s really a waste is debatable. Peabody Mayor Ted Bettencourt says he’s committed to bringing a hotel to the downtown, for example, and it’s a good thing to preserve a license to help make that happen. Local officials can agree or disagree on that strategy, but the decision should be theirs to make — not the purview of state legislators.

Prohibitionists may have viewed liquor as “demon rum” in the early years of the last century, but nowadays a liquor license is an economic development tool.

“Restaurants are a big part of the local economy,” Mayor Kim Driscoll has said. “The last thing we want to do is turn away potential investors.”

Yet it happens over and over again; a restaurant opens and must wait months, losing money, to get a beer and wine license. Or three restaurants vie for only one available license, driving up the cost of that license for businesses.

Streamlining government is a goal that has support on both sides of the political aisle, so it’s particularly frustrating to see that goal ignored when it comes to liquor licensing reform.

Gov. Charlie Baker has said he may revisit the idea of local control of liquor licenses in the next legislative session. We hope he does, and that local legislators give it their support.