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Date: 2/15/2023
NORTHAMPTON — During the Feb. 2 City Council meeting, Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra presented a plan that would call on the legislature to provide Northampton with seven additional above-quota all-alcohol licenses on top of the 32 already allowed with the city.
“We have been working very closely with [state] Rep. [Lindsay] Sabadosa to bring forward this order to petition the General Court for additional special act liquor licenses,” said Sciarra.
Without this all-alcohol license, many businesses in the city are limited to only serving certain types of alcohol. With an all-alcohol license, a business – particularly a bar or restaurant – can broaden what they serve on the premises.
Due to a state-controlled law, Northampton is already over its quota for how many all-alcohol licenses it can hand out to businesses. By petitioning for these additional seven licenses, the city is hoping to give more alcohol-serving businesses a chance to secure one.
“I think this is something that’s really important for our economic development,” said Sciarra. “We are struggling to bring in new restaurants because they can’t get a license.”
For example, Sciarra said recently there was an interested party looking to open a restaurant in one of the larger empty spaces within the city. Plans were dismantled, however, once there was no guarantee they would obtain one of these all-alcohol licenses.
Aside from deterring new businesses, the absence of additional licenses is also making it harder for existing businesses to offer an expansive list of alcoholic beverages.
During the meeting, Sciarra explained that when a business with an all-alcohol license closes in Northampton, that license comes back to the city for re-issuance by the Northampton License Commission. But because multiple businesses vie for that license, the city normally must spearhead a lottery process to determine who gets the license.
For example, four current businesses were interested in acquiring Sylvester’s special act license after the longtime restaurant closed last spring: The Dirty Truth, the Tea Pot restaurant, Jake’s Restaurant and Paul & Elizabeth’s. The license was eventually redistributed by lottery to Paul & Elizabeth’s during the last License Commission meeting in January.
“But, that leaves those three businesses without a full liquor license that really believe that it would be helpful for their business,” said Sciarra.
The Sierra Grille restaurant also had one of these licenses until it closed, and when that happened, seven businesses with aspirations for the license were part of the lottery process.
“This is something that we think is really important as we’re trying to help our current restaurants survive and always trying to bring in new places for some of our empty storefronts,” Sciarra said.
Outside of the 32 all-alcohol licenses, Northampton also has 13 wine and malt licenses, 17 package store licenses, six general on-premise licenses, three licenses for clubs three for inns and nine seasonal licenses.
“The addition of all alcohol is significant for the financial model for restaurants,” said Alan Wolf, the mayor’s chief of staff. “That is a major driver behind the mayor’s initiative here.”
City Councilor Garrick Perry, who has spent most of his life in the service industry, said that the bread-and-butter of restaurants is alcohol sales.
“Being hindered by just serving wine and malt really leaves a lot of money on the table,” said Perry. “As someone who’s lived under the shadow of these limited licenses and seeing how this has hurt our city, I’m very excited that we’re taking this initiative.”
The next step is for the City Council Community Resources committee to discuss this petition. According to Sciarra, Sabadosa is interested in filing this legislation.