The Brockton Enterprise reports that City Councilor Tom Monahan wants to explore ways to better promote downtown businesses after the License Commission Wednesday night rolled back the closing time of Joe Angelo’s Cafe & Deli.
During the three-hour hearing, commission members voted to reduce the weekend hours of Joe Angelo’s from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
The action came in response to a series of fights in the parking lot behind the downtown bar, including a May 12 brawl in which two people were stabbed.
Monahan said bar owner Joe Angelo wants to have talks with other councilors, police and fire chiefs and the owners of other downtown bars about what can be done to help downtown businesses thrive. Monahan wants to talk about what the city can do to better promote downtown business.
“We can all sit together and see what we can come up with to bring business to these establishments,” he said.
License Commission members voted to roll back the bar hours after hearing testimony from a half dozen police officers and public input from three city councilors, including Monahan, Paul Studenski and Jass Stewart.
The 1 a.m. closing is a permanent roll-back, but Angelo will be able to reapply in six months to have the 2 a.m. closing reinstated.
Commission member Scott McDuffy told the newspaper that the commission would keep an open mind moving forward. “We’ll look at it and see how that (rollback) affects things and changes it, hopefully for the best,” he said.
In addition to closing an hour earlier, the commission is also requiring all entertainment to stop at 12:30 a.m. and no admittance to be allowed after midnight.
The commission also passed new rules for all bars and restaurants with a 2 a.m. license, requiring them to not allow anyone into the establishment after 1 a.m., to stop all entertainment at 1:30, and to stop serving alcohol no later than 1:45.
