Setting the bar for last call in Lynn

LYNN – Local restaurateurs and other business owners will ask the city’s License Commission next Tuesday to extend liquor-serving establishment closing times to 2 a.m., but opponents have mustered public safety arguments in favor of keeping the current 1 a.m. closing time.The hearing will be held in Veterans Memorial Auditorium in City Hall starting at 6 p.m. Commission Chairman Patricia Barton said the three commissioners could vote to keep the current 1 a.m. closing time or set a 2 a.m. closing time, but said a vote on Tuesday is not definite.”We could extend the hearing to another day if we haven’t heard both sides,” Barton said.The License Commission voted in December 2007 to roll back closing times from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m. after listening to police concerns about early-morning crime and urging from former Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. in favor of a rollback.Barton and fellow commissioners John Krol and Miguel Funez were not on the commission in 2007, but Frederick Riley, the Lynnfield attorney who unsuccessfully fought in 2008 to reverse the 1 a.m. closing time in court, will be before the board on Tuesday arguing on the Lynn Restaurant Association’s behalf for a 2 a.m. closing.Riley said he will argue that the commission in 2007 “was without sufficient basis” in ordering bars, restaurants and nightclubs to close earlier.”I will ask the commission to see that the rollback in 2007 was a mistake and ask for the 2 a.m. closing to be reinstated,” Riley said.He said he is prepared to “come out in strong opposition” to arguments supporting the current 1 a.m. closing. According to city records, 45 bars and restaurants and 11 nightclubs in Lynn hold city-issued all-alcohol licenses. Six restaurants hold beer and wine licenses.Krol Thursday called next week’s hearing “the most serious matter taken up by the board in the three years I have been on the board.””My opinion is public safety comes first, but I’m going to listen to both sides,” Krol said.Lynn Police Chief Kevin Coppinger said crime overall in Lynn is down 9 percent when police statistics for 2009 through 2014 are compared.”A 1 a.m. closing is a piece of this,” he said. “It seems to work.”Coppinger said he will urge commissioners to consider “the big picture” in weighing a move back to 2 a.m. He said a later closing time has “a domino effect,” reflected in local prostitution activity and trouble at late-night eateries and 24-hour convenience stores.”It’s manageable right now,” the chief said.Proponents of a 2 a.m. closing time have an ally in Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy. She wants the commission to consider her proposal to try out Saturday, Sunday and Monday 2 a.m. closings during “a trial period” extending to Nov. 1.The commission would review the trial period during its October hearing and, stated Kennedy in a letter to the commission, “…determine whether to extend the trial period ? or reduce/terminate the late closing arrangement.”In his 2008 legal arguments aimed at scrapping a 1 a.m. closing time, Riley said liquor establishment owners lost money and endured an economic impact by being forced to close an hour earlier.”Lynn Restaurant Association members, by and large, are very reputable and hardworking and some have been in the city for decades, even generations,” Riley said on Thursday.Coppinger said a 2 a.m. closing time makes Lynn an attraction for bar and club patrons who want to continue drinking after establishments in neighboring towns close.”A lot of (Lynn) bar owners run a tight ship, but if we go back to 2 a.m., we’re going to go back to being that destination city,” he warned.In her letter to the commission, Kennedy also proposed requiring any establishment open until 2 a.m. to close their doors at 12:30 a.m. Coppinger said there is “no way” to enforce the admission restriction with employees leaving establishments or smoking outside and returning.Funez has been on the commission since March and said he has received calls from supporters and opponents of a