Sandwich shop owner angry over closing time

LYNN – A Market Square sandwich shop owner said a City Council-ordered 1 a.m. closing time is unfair, but councilors said a March 3 incident is reason enough to roll back People’s Choice’s hours after months of gradually inching them back to 2 a.m.”I’m going to talk to my lawyer. I don’t think it’s fair,” People’s owner Wilder Rodriguez said last week before walking out of a council meeting.People’s has pushed since last July to regain the 2 a.m. closing time it lost last summer, but police have kept a close eye on late-night problems in Market Square that initially prompted councilors to roll back People’s hours.Police Chief Kevin Coppinger reminded councilors a week ago by letter that officers ” ? last year identified a persistent problem with fast food establishments, particularly People’s Choice ? that were causing neighborhood complaints, tying up valuable police resources and contributing to a decreased quality of life in the neighborhood.”He strongly objected in the letter to a Feb. 11 council licensing committee vote extending People’s hours to 1:30 a.m. with a requirement for the shop to be closed by 1:45 a.m. Coppinger called the closing time extension “disappointing at the very least” and pointed out how police responded on March 3 to a disturbance call at 1:47 a.m.Rodriguez told councilors on Tuesday that he obeyed the conditions set on Feb. 11 by the council when a customer tried to get into People’s after employees stopped serving customers at 1:30 a.m.But Ward 3 Councilor Darren Cyr reminded Rodriguez that the Feb. 11 hours extension included – according to council minutes – “the stipulation that if there is an incident or a fight or someone gets hurt, the hours will be automatically rolled back to 1 a.m. closing.””You walked out with an agreement,” Cyr told Rodriguez on Tuesday.Since losing its 2 a.m. closing time last summer, People’s representatives have met several times with councilors to work on restoring hours so that its customers do not eat at competing shops with later closing times.Councilors, according to city records, underscored the 1 a.m. closing time last August and directed People’s to hire security on weekend nights. On Nov. 19, councilors allowed People’s to start closing at 1:15 a.m. with a requirement for everyone to be off the premises at 1:30 a.m.Rodriguez told councilors this week People’s hasn’t “had any problems” since his hours were extended to 1:30 a.m. He told them he called police “at 1:44 a.m.” after the customer tried to enter the sandwich shop on March 3.”I close my doors at 1:45 a.m.,” he said.Although Cyr and fellow committee members extended People’s hours a month ago, the vote never became official because council minutes show that Councilor at large Buzzy Barton and Ward 6 Councilor Peter Capano convinced fellow councilors on Feb. 11 to table the committee vote “until the council can receive input from the Lynn Police Department.”Coppinger in his council letter pointed to police statistics to support 1 a.m. as the right closing time for People’s. Police responded 17 times to the shop in the six months prior to the summer rollback “for a variety of calls including fights, assaults, noise, disturbances, larcenies.””In the eight and one half months since the 1 a.m. closing time was implemented, our responses have been reduced to six,” he wrote.