Melrose Formally Adopts Rules for Breweries
Breweries can now apply to open up shop in Melrose, but Licensing Commission decrees that they must abide by the city's food service rules.
On Monday morning, Melrose's Liquor Licensing Commission (LLC) formally voted to adopt rules for the issuance of local "Farmer Series Pouring Permits" — in other words, anyone who wants to open a brewery in Melrose can now apply to the Commission to do so. This brings to a close an effort which Mayor Brodeur has spent much of the year steering through various city bodies. We may not have to wait long for our first application; among the public hearing attendees was Jason Taggart, one of the founders of Democracy Brewing and part of the group planning to apply to open a small brewery at 360 Main Street (the brewery, which would operate afternoons and evenings Wednesday through Sunday, is an independent venture unrelated to Democracy).
The Commission opted, controversially, to subject breweries to the same basic food requirements restaurants are subject to. This means that brewery patrons will be required to order food with their beer, though the one-drink allowance will still exist. Mayor Brodeur had explicitly asked the LLC to waive food requirements, since many breweries in surrounding cities do not have food and few if any have food requirements. Public comment during the hearings also overwhelmingly supported dropping any food service requirement for breweries (one city councilor, Ward 3’s Robb Stewart, wrote in favor of keeping the food requirement). Despite this, the Commission essentially did not entertain the idea, focusing instead on their desire to maintain consistency with restaurant rules and to discourage a "barroom… from opening in this community."
This requirement will not mean that breweries need to operate actual full-service kitchens. Instead, it means they must have a set food menu of some sort -- examples given during the hearings included bags of nuts, or reheated pretzels -- and they must require patrons to purchase that food after their first drink. A brewery could also partner with other restaurants or food vendors at their discretion. The prospective brewery at 360 Main will certainly not have a kitchen. The total space in there is around 2,000 square feet, which will probably be split roughly in half between the brewing area and the taproom. These are experienced operators, and I'm guessing that they will make do with a microwave or a toaster oven while facilitating a rotating series of food partnerships if logistics allow.
I’m sure the mayor gets pitched with ideas all the time, and he (and the city’s Director of Economic Recovery and Business Development Lauren Grymek) deserve credit for identifying this as a win for Main Street and giving it the full support of his administration. But residents should view the LLC’s decision as not just silly and illogical but also potentially problematic, since the Commission -- which only has three members -- could now choose to give an applicant a hard time simply because they don't think the suggested food operation meets the spirit of what they imagine the community wants. During the Commission's hearings, it appeared at times that some commissioners were frankly unfamiliar with how breweries operate, and there were two hearings on the subject where only two of the three commissioners were attending. One could imagine a situation where a hearing is held, one commissioner is absent, and one commissioner doesn't support the applicant's food plan. This could at best delay the process or at worst wind up scuttling it altogether.
Residents should watch for this upcoming application and make sure to vocally support it to the Commission. The Mayor made clear during the hearings that his personal preference would be to fully waive the food service rule citywide, but explained that he didn't want to propose a broad rule changes while restaurants were under modified COVID orders. By the time this brewery opportunity arose, he chose the more tactical option which was focused on breweries alone. This approach to decisionmaking -- a preference for inaction error over action error -- is, depending on your perspective, either a flaw or a benefit of how municipal governments tend to operate. Either way, any potential changes to the broader rules now fall to Mayor-elect Grigoraitis. I'm not aware of any public statements she's made on the subject, although she did state during the campaign that her goal as mayor was to make sure residents are spending as many of their dollars in Melrose as possible. I have little doubt she's aware that the existing rules can at times function as a sort of subsidy to places like J.J. Grimsby’s, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her send something to the Commission during her term. But for now, let’s make sure the brewery application gets supported. As for patronizing it once it’s open, I imagine it’ll become the toughest seat to get in town.
It's time to take a close look at the "blue laws" that hamper economic progress in Melrose. Should our new mayor make that an item on her agenda, she will have my support.