SWAMPSCOTT — A Humphrey Street used car dealer has been hit with a violation notice from the town for having too many cars for sale on its property.
The violation could put a damper on Four Seasons Motor Group’s chances of renewing its Class II Used Car Dealer’s License, which expired in January 2019.
The license limits Four Seasons to having six cars for sale on its property at 460 Humphrey St., but the town’s building commissioner Max Kasper said he observed 58 cars on the site during a recent compliance inspection.
Several other inspections were conducted by Kasper and officers from the Swampscott and Marblehead Police departments since last May. Each time, officials said a vast number of cars were observed.
Kasper said the inspections, which check for zoning violations and compliance with the auto dealer’s license, are performed when a license is up for renewal. The purpose is to provide the Select Board with information ahead of its vote on the license.
“Put simply, there are too many cars in and around 460 Humphrey St.,” Kasper wrote in a Nov. 13 correspondence to Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald. “The operators of Four Seasons Motor Group do claim that only a small number of the cars are technically ‘For Sale,’ but in my opinion, this is at best, a semantic technicality.
“I believe that the operation of this business is in excess of what is contemplated and permitted by their used car dealer’s license. I recommend that the (Select) Board take action on this license so as to address what I deem to be noncompliance.”
Kasper recommended that the board take steps to formally request the violations be corrected and warn the owner of Four Seasons Motor Group that failure to comply may result in its license being suspended or revoked.
The Select Board will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 5, where the panel will determine whether there has been a violation, based on reports from Kasper and the two police departments. Representatives from Four Seasons Motor Group will present their own evidence.
Jason Panos, a real estate attorney representing Four Seasons, said the language in the auto dealer’s license is vague. It limits sales to six cars on the property, but he said there aren’t any specifics for the timeframe and the placement of vehicles. For instance, he said it could be inferred that six cars is referring to what’s allowed on either a monthly or yearly basis.
“The charge posted in the notice talks about overburdening the property with motor vehicles and there is no such restriction on the face of the license regarding placement of cars and we’re working with the town to hopefully find an amicable solution to this,” said Panos.
“The town has issued licenses on this property for many, many years without significant change to the activity and I guess the question is why has this become such an issue now without a complaint from anyone except for administration officials and police officials,” he said.
Regarding placement, Kasper and Fitzgerald said the license limits six cars for sale anywhere on the property. But a police report prepared by the Swampscott Police Department says the license calls for six cars for sale outside in front of the property.
During a November inspection, of the 58 cars observed on the property, 12 cars were in the front of the building, while others were parked in the rear lot and inside garages, according to the report.
Of the 12 cars out front, the report says six were identified as being for sale with stickers in the windshield, while the other six had a lemon law advertisement inside the front windshield, which is required for cars that are for sale and a smaller sticker identifying those cars are “not for sale.”
Kasper said the language of the license is in the process of being interpreted by the Select Board’s procedures. Although the board’s hearing will only make a determination on the car dealer’s compliance with its license and not on the property’s zoning violations, Kasper said the two go hand-in-hand.
On Nov. 13, Kasper wrote a letter to the property owner, Charles Patsios, informing him of the potential zoning violations at 460 Humphrey St. He noted motor vehicle sales is not an allowed use in the district, but the business is operating under a special permit granted by the Zoning Board of Appeals in 1978, which limits the amount of cars for sale to six and cars for repair to nine.
The current use of the property exceeds those limits, has contributed to congestion in the area, and appears to be a zoning violation, wrote Kasper. Patsios may need to appear before the ZBA for further zoning relief, he said.
“Swampscott is the fifth most densely settled town in Massachusetts,” said Fitzgerald. “It certainly is a point that any restaurant or business understands. We don’t have a lot of land and if you’re exceeding that regulatory allowance, that’s going to put an imposition on everybody else, and that’s something we have to be very cognizant of.”
