Edgartown restaurant Il Tesoro at the Terrace is in danger of having its liquor license suspended.
The South Summer street restaurant, located inside the Charlotte Inn, was supposed to reopen by Feb. 5 following a short closure. As of now, it remains shuttered. Selectman Margaret Serpa said at an alcohol hearing Monday that if the restaurant was not reopened by Saturday, March 30, the selectmen would suspend the year-round alcohol license.
Il Tesoro owner A.J. Black did not attend the meeting.
The Vineyard may be known for its “dry” towns, but four of the six Island towns could be considered the “wettest” — at least by some standards. According to a list of 75 Massachusetts towns with the highest number of liquor licenses per capita, Oak Bluffs is the fifth wettest town in the commonwealth with just 128 residents per liquor license.
A sharply divided gathering of 270 West Tisbury voters agreed to take the first step to allow the sale of beer and wine in restaurants on Tuesday night. It was an annual town meeting when nothing seemed to come easily and voters bogged down frequently, and when it came time to vote on the beer and wine question late in the evening, tempers had begun to fray. “It’s totally unfair, we are being ambushed by this whole scenario,” said Kell Hicklin, owner of the Lambert’s Cove Inn and one of the backers of the petitioned article.
There will be one more beer and wine license in Edgartown this summer, and that has some local business owners uneasy.
Appearing at a public hearing during an Edgartown selectmen’s meeting on Monday, attorney Sean Murphy, representing John Ready of the proposed Edgartown Meat and Fish Market in Post Office Square, said that an additional alcohol license in town would not affect other businesses.
Oak Bluffs selectmen unanimously approved an application to alter the premises over Danny Quinn’s Pub, allowing Mark Wallace to move forward with plans to create a banquet hall facility that could accommodate large events such as weddings, dances and balls.
Selectmen agreed to sign off on an application that will be sent to the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission (ABCC). Under state law any establishment that serves alcohol is required to make an application to the ABCC any time they make substantive changes to the premises.
Sparks flew at the Aquinnah selectmen’s meeting Tuesday night when one board member clashed with a town businessman, claiming that he had knowingly acted outside the law this summer by storing alcohol in a truck on his property.
The board held off on renewing Matthew (Cully) Vanderhoop’s liquor license for the Aquinnah Shop restaurant after selectman Camille Rose said she could not in good conscience approve the request for someone who had repeatedly failed to follow the law.
