Just in time for holiday festivities, the selectmen voted this week to renew the liquor licenses of Harvard’s two beer-and-wine package stores as well as those of two businesses with permission to sell alcoholic beverages on their premises. But for one of the stores, the Grape Vine on Ayer Road, the renewal is subject to a new condition—or an old one, depending on your point of view—that must be met by Nov. 30.
For the Grape Vine, once again, the issue was whether store owner Robert Hirsch had met all of the conditions of his current liquor license. When the selectmen approved that license this past spring, they gave Hirsch until Nov. 30 to acquire a missing occupancy permit from town building inspector Gabe Vellante and to bring the entrance to the Harvard Plaza, where the Grape Vine is located, into compliance with a plan approved by the Planning Board in 1974, but never fully implemented. At the time, discussion among the selectmen focused on the noncompliance of the Harvard Plaza sign, but other aspects of the site, such as the Jersey barriers that divide the entryway into two lanes, drew less notice. Since then, Vellante has issued the missing occupancy permit and Hirsch has moved and rebuilt the Harvard Plaza sign. But on Tuesday, Selectman Tim Clark insisted, as he has in the past, that the license required Hirsch to comply with all aspects of the 36-year-old site plan and that without a written statement from Gabe Vellante, who enforces such things, the BOS had no way of knowing whether he had done so. With Clark pointing to the continued presence of the Jersey barriers, it was clear that he did not feel the condition had been met.
“This seems like another thing you pulled out of a hat,” Ricci said to Clark. “We told the guy he had to move his sign; he moved his sign. We told the guy he had to have an occupancy permit; the Town Administrator [Tim Bragan] has the occupancy permit.”
“We didn’t tell him he had to do anything with the Jersey barrier,” added Selectman Bill Johnson, who also claimed the barriers weren’t on his own radar at the spring hearing. “I’d like to find a way that if the Jersey barrier is an issue, we make it a requirement that part of this renewal is that it get addressed in ‘x’ amount of time.” To ask Hirsch to comply “at the 11th hour,” said Johnson, “seems unfair.”
Vice-chairman Marie Sobalvarro, however, said that building inspector approval was part of the step-by-step liquor license application process the BOS adopted earlier this year and therefore should not come as a surprise. She said that if the BOS found the step onerous, they could vote to drop it entirely from the procedure, in which case they would have to drop it for all other liquor license applicants. And the town has one more to grant, she reminded her colleagues.
In the end, the selectmen voted to renew the Grape Vine’s license, but only if the BOS receives before Nov. 30 a written letter from building inspector Vellante stating either “that the site entrance complies with the town of Harvard bylaws,” or “a written exemption is provided.” Three selectmen voted in favor of the motion; Clark and Johnson voted against.
In addition to the Grape Vine, the three other businesses whose licenses were up for renewal were the General Store on the Common, Fruitlands Museum, and Shaker Hills Golf Club. Police have received no complaints about any of the establishments, including the Grape Vine, whose license was the only one not renewed by unanimous vote.
