Council must consider corrective, non-punitive ABC sanctions: Ryan

For the editor:

IIt is never in the best interest of Kearny residents to see small businesses and nonprofits fail. The City Council has worked with the Urban Enterprise Zone to improve the streetscape of business districts to increase pedestrian traffic and business customers. We have several establishments that have liquor licenses that must be presented to the board in its capacity as a hearing and enforcement body for alcoholic beverage control.

I believe the right course of action is to inform property owners of what they have done wrong and give them the time and tools to make improvements to comply with the laws as written. Although they have a set of rules to follow, it reads like an instruction manual for assembling Ikea furniture and we do extremely little to facilitate compliance.

There are liquor license renewal hours on Wednesday evenings, but no employee is designated to be exclusively available for this purpose. It is possible, and in many cases likely, that the officer responsible for overseeing renewals will be dispatched on a police call. There are business owners who have gone to renew their contract three or four times only to not have the capacity, once there, to achieve the stated objective.

Kearny has many new businesses (alcohol-related and not) that believe they are complying, only to find out they are not. The city offers sidewalk permits and has restaurants with outdoor space that may not know they can have outdoor entertainment — but no speakers due to noise amplification laws. Residents are filing noise complaints because customers are talking outside. Noise summonses are issued to people without agents equipped with the appropriate equipment to assess the noise level using a sound level meter.

There are some long-standing clubs and businesses that may not be aware of the various changes to the laws.

Maybe it’s time for the board to look at scheduled classes for bartender training and license renewal? Instead of trying to do it every week with an “as available” agent, schedule quarterly classes and refreshers with designated staff.

When they hear cases before the ABC Hearing Panel, that is the time to give corrective action plans and a deadline instead of a fine. Rather than closing an establishment for two weeks, give them 30 or 60 days to correct the problems, with a specific fine that will be implemented if they do not comply. Having no income for 4% of the year while working on a 10% margin will harm more than improve residents’ quality of life. I want our business to succeed: it improves the quality of life and the value of our property for everyone.

Melanie Ryan | Kearny

Melanie Ryan | Special to The Observer

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