City officials, business owners and residents address liquor nips at public hearing

By Neil Zolot

EVERETT – Councillor-at-Large Katy Rogers and Ward 2 Councillor Stephanie Martins would like to see sales of single serving liquor bottles, commonly known as nips, banned in Everett. “We need to make a choice of profit vs. public health,” Martins said in reference to a desire to reduce trash and public drinking while taking local business into account.

Any decision rests with the Licensing Board. “They have the authority to regulate how liquor is sold,” Assistant Solicitor Keith Slattery explained.

Nevertheless, Martins and Rogers convened a Public Hearing on the matter to push the issue along on Thursday, April 25 in the City Council Chambers in City Hall moderated by Slattery. “This is an initiative from the City Council to the Licensing Commission,” Rogers said. “We’re going in the opposite order where we’re suggesting it.”

School Committee member at-Large Samantha Lambert was among those testifying. She feels banning sales of nips will “eliminate the source” of pollution on street sidewalks and tree wells, in parks and on private property.

Police Chief Steve Mazzie called nip pollution “a problem for years here. The issue has been more prevalent on streets near liquor stores. People drink them in their cars and throw them out windows. It’s the cheapest form of alcohol and the primary choice for what we call regular customers,” a term used by police for people they have dealt with frequently.

Resident Christine Reno said she finds nips on the porch and in the yard of a multifamily home she lives in “all the time.”

“One of the things that stands out to me on my walks is the number of nip bottles I see,” resident Matthew Judd added. “Let’s nip this problem in the bud.”

“Like most residents of Everett, I live in proximity to a package store,” Tom Mills said. “I’d

like to see a ban. From the standpoint of pollution, it’s a disgrace.”

Resident Rosemary Hughes said nips “are all over the place. It’s not just in gutters. They’re in yards and it’s not just one. Residents kick or sweep them from yards into the street or onto sidewalks because no one wants to touch them. Panhandlers frequent median strips and they’re filled with nips. We’d be fooling ourselves if we believe people buy a nip and go home to make a cocktail.”

Testifying against a ban were a number of local liquor store owners and operators. “Businesses will suffer,” Nila Patel said. “Businesses are already regulated, and putting more restrictions on businesses won’t help the public. You’re potentially affecting people that serve the community. It’s not the product. There are laws about public drunkenness, but it doesn’t stop it. There are solutions. Everett can do more. We participate in public cleanups in Revere and find more doughnut shop trash than nips.”

She also said a state law making nips returnable deposit bottles would help reduce trash.

“We will lose money,” Mario Perez added. “Let’s find a way to solve the issue and keep the city clean, but I don’t think it’s right to take away something that’s already there.”

“This will affect my business,” Paul Pietrantonio said. “The people who buy nips, that’s all they can afford. Let’s have another solution than taking business away from us.”

Harsh Patel said more fast-food restaurant trash than nips are found in cleanups and people buy them to avoid the cost of drinking at bars and restaurants. Martin countered that someone going to a bar or restaurant already intoxicated or partially intoxicated represents a liability for that bar or restaurant in case of an incident because it would be the last place they drank.

No members of the Licensing Commission attended the hearing. Earlier that day member Filipo Arloro Jr. said, “I live on a street with a liquor store and see nips on the street all the time. I also see people drinking in public and then getting into cars.”

New regulations might apply to new licensees only, with older businesses “grandfathered in” to continue to sell nips or the issue to not come up until renewals of their licenses. Distances to schools might be taken into account. “It’s easy to say you’ll make a change, but we’ve seen other communities fail to pass it or their ordinances have been challenged in court,” Arloro admitted. “How do you tell a company they can’t sell those anymore when it’s a big part of their business?”

Chelsea banned sales of nips in 2019 and their decision was upheld by the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission, which Slattery said codified the authority of licensing commissions. “It’s been beneficial and not many people have complained about not being able to buy them,” Chelsea City Council Vice President Todd Taylor said. “At the time I was ambivalent about it, but it’s helped reduce trash and decreased having to deal with chronic alcoholics on the street.”

Taylor was not at the Public Hearing, but a number of other Chelsea officials and residents were. Chelsea’s Police Chief, Keith Houghton, is actually an Everett resident. He called nips a “carry and conceal vessel of alcohol, designed to hide and drink in public. When we find people passed out, that’s the size of their bottle.” He also cited statistics of reductions in public drinking and alcohol-related medical calls after the ban.

More expensive nips would presumably decrease purchases by panhandlers and the like, but Houghton reported, “Liquor stores refused to sell the higher cost bottles. They were concerned with profit not public health.”

Former Chelsea City Council President and Licensing Board member Roy Avellaneda said the ban “cleaned up our community and our downtown. Other businesses no longer have to deal with factors affecting their business. I liken these bottles to access to drugs and that’s what alcohol is, a drug. They’re made to hide and consume quickly. In the war on drugs, you deal with dealers and users. Liquor stores are drug dealers. It was a big problem in our community and was a strain on our resources. If people have to go to the next size bottle (a hip flask size), that’s fine with me because the number of people trying to conceal the next size up will decrease because of the size.”

The same logic is applied to single beer cans or 12 or 16 ounces, plus their alcohol content is lower.

Avellaneda feels making the nips deposit bottles will not be enacted or take years because industry lobbyists will work against it and that a deposit would then prohibit banning sales of nips.

“I look at this from the point of view of pollution, not public safety, but appreciate the public safety aspect,” Rogers reacted. “This is about pollution, but we want to protect small businesses. Nips are hurting our community and designed to hide. Liquor stores in Chelsea are not harmed and at what point will we have to ask liquor stores to provide trash cans here?”

Related to that, Pietrantonio said he tries to talk to customers about disposing of the bottles.

“It’s not my intention to hurt businesses, but customers are not doing right by those businesses,” Martins added. She feels testimony highlighted a clear divide between the concerns of residents about trash and public misbehavior and the profit motive of business owners.

Concluding the hearing, Slattery said this issue will probably come up on a City Council agenda and eventually be an issue for the Licensing Commission to contend with. That process will include open hearings and meetings for the public to give their opinions.