there you go Steve the chair notes the time is six o'clock I call this meeting of the Amherstoning Board of Appeals to order my name is Steve Judge as ZBA chair I want to welcome everyone to this meeting we'll begin with the roll call of the ZBA members Steve Judge is present Mr. DeLon Maxfield present Ms. Thera-Marshall here mr. David Sloveter here mr. Vence O'Connor here quorum is present also attending the public hearing tonight is Ms. Christine Brester applying director and mr. Rob Wachilla planner for the town Rob will be the principal staff person for the ZBA going forward he comes to us after working at the planning department and where welcome Rob we're glad you're here thank you we anticipate that Rob more of the building commissioner will join us later pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 extended by chapter 2 of the acts of 2023 this meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to observe the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone no in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means the zoning board of appeals is a quasi judicial body that operates under the authority of chapter 40 a of the general laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health safety convenience and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst in accordance with provisions of Massachusetts general laws chapter 40 a an article 10 special permit granting authority the Amherst zoning bylaw this public meeting has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and mailed to parties at interest all hearings and meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff and may be viewed via the town of Amherst YouTube channel and the ZBA webpage the procedure is as follows the petitioner presents the application to the board during the hearing after which the board will ask questions for clarification or for additional to gather additional information after the board has completed its questions the board will seek public input the public speaks with the permission of the chair if a member of the public wishes to speak they should so indicate by using the raised hand function on their screen the chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak when you are recognized provide your name and address for the board for the record all questions and comments must be addressed to the board the board will normally hold public hearings where information about the project and input from the public is gathered followed by public meetings for each the public meeting portion is when the board deliberate and is generally not an opportunity for public comment if the board feels it has enough information and time it will decide upon the applications tonight. Each petition heard by the board is distinct and evaluated on its own merits and the board is not ruled by precedent. Statutorily for a special permit the board has 90 days from the close of hearing to file a decision for variance the board has 100 days from the data filing to file its decision. No decision is final until the written decision is signed by the sitting board members and is filed in the town clerk's office. Once the decision is filed in the town's clerk with the town clerk there is a 20-day appeal period for an agreed party to contest the decision with the relevant judicial body in superior court. After the appeal period the permit must be recorded at the registry of deeds to take effect. I also want to note the presence of Rob Mora, building commissioner who just joined us. Tonight's agenda public hearing ZBA FY 2023-14 the spoke LLC request for special permit under section 3.352.2 of the zoning bylaw to change the use of a building located at 1 to 11 prey street aka 15-33 prey street Amherst, Massachusetts 01002 from a three space commercial building consisting of a bar, general cleaners and a laundromat to a single space commercial building consisting of a nightclub and request for the special permit under section 5.042 of the zoning bylaw for live or prerecordialed entertainment. Map 11C parcel 274 BG general business zoning district. That'll be followed by the public meeting and discussion of the application. There'll be general comment period from the public on matters not before the board tonight. Other business not anticipated within the last 48 hours and adjournment. So the first order of business is ZBA FY 2023-14 the spoke LLC request for a special permit under section 3.352.2 of the zoning bylaw to change the use of a building located at 1 to 11 prey street aka 15-33 prey street Amherst, Massachusetts 01002 from a three space commercial building consisting of a bar, general cleaners and laundromat to a single space commercial building consisting of a nightclub and request for special permit under sections special permit under section 5.042 of the zoning bylaw for live or prerecorded entertainment. Map 11C parcel 274 BG general business district. Are there any disclosures? Yes. Yes. No, Connor. I filed this afternoon in the town clerk's office a disclosure that the owner of this building is also the owner of the residential units unit in which I live. Mill Howell apartments. And I don't believe that we'll have any impact on my ability to hear the matter before us in a fair and impartial way. Thank you Mr. O'Connor. So noted. We held a site visit of the northern disclosures. We held a site visit on Tuesday afternoon. We entered the building, observed the space, the doorways, windows, observed the planned layout for the space, including a dance floor, the staff room, storage next to the staff room as well as the bathrooms. We had a discussion about the noise abatement measures proposed by the applicant. We went outside to observe the exterior of the building, surveyed the parking situation, saw the location of the two sheds to be built, where the delivery vehicles and trucks would also operate. We observed the property lines where the fences would be located and discussed the raised curb or threshold on Prey Street. Other questions that were asked during a site visit. It was asked what the space in the attic would consist of. It was asked if buildings, if businesses would be open at 8pm or after the anticipated time of opening for the nightclub, those of the other businesses in along Prey Street. Does the abutting bank have an agreement to let the spoke live use their parking spaces? Do the abutting Jones property buildings have Uber ride share traffic lining out in front? There was mention that the Tom parking lot will not be used by spoke employees. The employees of the abutting businesses in Jones property usually park around until about 5pm was a representation of the applicant. It was asked where the handicapped access and parking is. The raised curb was identified as potential tripping hazard or concern. We asked how the applicant would address this. It was asked what the cubic feet of air moving through the ventilation system is and does it meet past COVID post COVID standards? We asked what the average height of men and women in the U.S. are and how many students at UMass are over 21. I think there's that summarizes pretty completely the questions and observations we made. Is there anything that anybody wishes to add? Ms. Marshall? I would say we talked about the queuing outside also. Good point. Thank you. And I believe I asked whether there were any solar activities planned for the building? Correct. Good. Thank you. Those are good additions. I appreciate it. I want to go through the submissions we have received. First, the submissions from the applicant. We've seen a ZBA FY 2023-14 ZBA application. Management plan with the attached addendum including additional information required for restaurants. The lease agreement between Jones property and the spoke. The sound analysis conducted by Bill Forbes of SPL systems with recommended improvements to the building. Been a submission rendering of the signs that will be placed on the north and west elevation of the building. Screenshot of the shreds that we replaced at the rear of the property. An image showing a palette of colors choices for roof shingles. Combined site, floor, and elevation plans prepared by Fitch architecture and community design. Those include sheets 1, 0.1, 0.2, sheet A.1, 1.1, sheet A.1.2, sheet A.1.1, 2.2, 2.0, and 2.0. Planning staff submissions include memos from the design review board. Previous decisions pertaining to the applicant. ZBA FY 1984-64 ZBA FY 2001-33 ZBA FY 2008-18 and ZBA FY 2012 ART 14 decision document. Those are all for 35 and 37 East Pleasant Street. Zoning amendments passed on December 19, 2022. Updated section 3.352. Updated section 5. Updated article 11. And updated article 12. In addition, we have some town documents sent to the staff that are noted in the record. One, the letter from Scott Livingstone, the chief of police, a letter from Carl, but from Captain Chris Baskholm of the fire department, and a letter from town engineer Jason Skeels. I think that is all the information, all the submissions that we have. Is it not, Rob? Okay. There also was some supplemental materials that were sent as well. Yes, we received something from the University of Massachusetts, which includes email conversation between Planning Director Brestrup. My Apple watch is talking to me. I'm sorry, email information, email conversation between Planning Director Christine Brestrup and Nancy Buffon, Associate Vice Chancellor for University Relations regarding the age of UMass students. I think that's it, right? Good. Ms. Marshall. Sorry, that last piece, that communication from Ms. Buffoni, was that just to Ms. Brestrup? I don't recall seeing it. Did it? I think it got, I received an email this afternoon with that information. Okay. Double check your, double check your mid afternoon, Ms. Brestrup. Okay. I believe there was one other piece that went to us that we sent out to you and it had to do with a question that was asked about parking in the downtown, how many spaces there were available and how many spaces were permitted to a few of the different buildings downtown. So you should have that in your email as well. Yep, that's exactly right. Thank you. Yep. You did receive that. Okay. If there's no other comments regarding submissions, we'd like to look at who's representing the applicant. Please state your name and address for the record. I'm representing the applicant. I am the applicant, Chad O'Rourke, Sixth University Drive, Amherst, Massachusetts. Great. Go ahead and make your presentation, Mr. O'Rourke. Thank you. So what we're proposing to we're looking for a change of use of the building from, as you had said, from a, what had been for years, a bar, general cleaners in laundromat to a change of use as a nightclub. We are looking to operate this business Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and some Sundays during the school year. It is a business that's favoring the student, the general student population that's there. As indicated, I currently own the bar located at 33 to 37 East Pleasant Street, which is the spoke. This would be sort of an extension of that premises. It is a separate physical building, so we are applying for a separate liquor license, but we would be using the same name. It would be supplementary to our existing bar at the, at location at East Pleasant Street. And we are doing so because during the seven years I've owned it, I've expanded twice in that building. I took over the existing bar in 2017. It was located in the middle of three businesses in that building. We were adjacent to us was Amherst Southern Pizza and Amherst Copy. We, in year one, we expanded into the Amherst Southern Pizza side. During COVID we expanded over into the Amherst Copy side, and at that point we had created a nightclub half the building right now up there is a tavern side and the other half is a nightclub. And with the success of that and the what's been happening in the town of Amherst with our, with our bars and nightclubs and sort of lack thereof, we've made the decision to try to expand yet again and be able to utilize the adjacent building to us to take the concept of what we call SpokeLive, which is the nightclub, and be able to expand it into that building next door, giving us the ability to separate the two different styles of a pub, tavern, and a nightclub and be able to separate them into the two different buildings. So again we're seeking approval from the zoning board to for change of use of that building located at one through 11 Prey Street to that. Rick, can you walk through, that's your purpose, let's understand that, can you walk through the planned changes you want to make to the building? Some of the things we talked about on the site visit, including the sound abatement, the layout, etc. Yeah, so the layout of it would be that of a nightclub like you had indicated, half the building would be a larger open room, which would consist of a dance floor in the bar area, and then the other half of the building would have the back room, the storage, the restrooms. And what we would, what we would be proposing is everything we're doing, we know that the the major topics of conversation are going to revolve around noise control, crowd management, queuing, stuff like that. It's all stuff that we've learned and done for seven years in the existing building that we have. Our everything we're doing, the renovations that we're doing to the building, are all done for purposes of sound reduction to meet the requirements of the town of Amherst to bring the decibel ring to 70 decibels or lower at the property line. The renovations include, so it is a brick-faced, cinder block structure of a building. I'm sorry, go ahead. You know what I think would be helpful, a good description, be helpful if we could have a picture of the floor plan. Rob, can you share your screen or so you can point to this, Chad, then we see exactly what you're talking about that might be easier and also more informative to the public. Yep. Sorry to break up your presentation there, but that's perfectly okay. Can everybody see the plans okay? Rob, can we do so actually if you want to, Rob, right now if you want to stay on that page because we can look at this right now from an external perspective and then we can go to the next page and that would give us more of an internal perspective. So based on the plan that you see in front of you, that's the proposed new building. The existing building would be to the bottom right corner of this picture over there, right there.  So there's 33 parking spaces total amongst the two buildings there. We're in downtown so there isn't a parking requirement. We do have the benefit of having parking which is a huge benefit and there's also the bus stop that's right there at the front of where the bank building is for anybody that's familiar. It's the upper right corner is the is the bank building there. So from again from an exterior perspective the the things that we're working on we're proposing to do behind our building up top of this picture is the new development that's going on downtown with the with the building the apartments that are there. We share the property line with them. They are going to be putting up their own fence perimeter to separate the properties and we would connect to the back of that at the backside of the building for years the the carriage shops was there the Amherst pub was there. There were these dark alleyways and these kind of nooks and crannies in that back area. That's all going away with the new development that they're doing back there in conjunction with what the Jones properties has done in their corner of the Jones owns these two buildings here that's that that one there which is our proposed new building and the one to the left of it on this picture is the existing Jones building. That that that parking area in between the two buildings for years was sort of this black hole area and so now with all the development going on and what we're doing we've we've we've cleaned it up and we've taken it back. It's well lit over there. There's cameras over there. That's the area where we currently have the trash and recycling and we would continue to have that over there. That's picked up weekly by USA waste and it's the same company we use at the front building for services. That would all be fenced in all the way over to the to to meet the defense that is the cemetery behind it. What that creates is an area that doesn't give anyone purpose for going back there. We would take control of the backside of our building. Jones is taking control of their building. Like I said we've well lit it now we've cleaned it up back there and it's given us a nicer area. The front side of the building has a walkway 72-inch walkway along it. It is a little bit wider at the bottom left corner there where you see the curvature of the sidewalk. That just follows the contour of prairie street. That's 15 feet wider at its peak. There's an awning at the front of the building as well. So the sidewalk is twice as wide as what it looks like on the diagram here and it's like I said it's a 72-inch walkway that runs along the front of the building. It's a private walkway. The public walkway is located directly across prairie street from the building. So that sidewalks that are there and then our and then our sidewalk does wrap around the side of the building. So looking at it from this perspective the right side of the building is the main entrance and then there's three exit points at the front of the building which are 72-inch double door, no-moo-yong egresses that would allow for safety obviously. And then we proposed to have two sheds in the back area within the fenced in area. We use those for storage purposes. That's on the upper right corner there would just be our dry goods, extra cups and stuff like that that we use on a regular basis. The one that's closer to the dumpster side obviously being a tavern, a pub tavern. We have kegs and empties and rags and other things that we need to operate that are picked up on a weekly basis for service, for exchange and stuff like that. That's the what we would use that shed for to keep that in. That would give access to our distributors and our vendors that we that we work with to be able to get back there. Deliveries would come in from that side. There's a back door which you'll see on the plan, the interior plan next. That allows for delivery drivers to get back there, park their vehicle in one of those two spots on the side of the building or both if they need to and be able to deliver from right into the backside into the employee area without ever having to go through any public area. And then trying to think what else is there, while we're on, is there any questions at the moment by anybody that I know you guys are probably not at that point. Do you want me to go over anything else on the exterior aspect of this while we have this open? While we have it up, can you just show us where the lights are? I see some. I see two in the front of the building and light pole, but just run through the lighting. Yeah, so the the awning, that front awning that runs along the sidewalk, there's 12 LED can lights that are built in underneath that awning. It's very well illuminated. All lighting was existing done by by the Jones. It's all LED. It's all downward facing. You know, again, I've been in this town for 22 years as a business owner in conjunction with Jones properties. We understand the requirements of downward lighting and always having those considerations and everything we do with the buildings. The all four corners of the building are already illuminated with LED floodlights, downward lighting that illuminates all the corners. The egresses have lights over them as well to light up the the egresses. And again, down that awning has the can lights built into the top side of it that illuminates the entire walkway. And it's it's it's very well illuminated. It's very safe for sure. Thank you. Is there any anything else that you want me to go ahead for the exterior? That sounds good. I see no other. Oh, Ms. Brestra. Yep, Ms. Brestra. So I just wanted to know if can you point out where the handicapped parking space is going to be? Yeah, so that we're where his arrow that you see the white arrow that's on that picture. Oh, that's my way to start. So the black arrow right there that he had right in front of that arrow that very last spot where these two sidewalks come together right there at the front right corner of the building. That is where they come down on slope to be handicapped accessible. And that first spot is large enough for a handicapped accessible spot. And then we have one on each of the other parking lots. We have handicapped accessible spots as well. Okay. You can proceed, Mr. Yep, go ahead, Chad. Okay, so if you want to be up if Rob, if you can go down to the next layout here, I would actually even do we have a if you go to the next one, is there a better?  Yeah, this one might be confusing. Do you guys have a preference of which one you'd like to view of the two? That's better right there. You like that one? Yeah, that's I find that better. So yeah, so looking at this one, again, as you thank you for zooming in, Rob. So the main entrance of the building would be there on the side. That would be an entrance only point. And then the three front 72 inch doors would be an exit only point. The way we manage and operate the business, if you leave through those exit only points, you are not allowed to return in at that point. You must go back into the front. That gives us complete control and management of everybody coming and going. We do, we run a very tight system. We have for years again in seven years. We've never had an ABCC ABCC violation, police violation, anything for underage shrinking. We have no tolerance for it. We are very strict about it. All our employees are trained that way. You are not allowed to work for us as a doorman, unless you are a crowd manager, CPR and first aid certified, you are not allowed to work for us as a bartender or a bar back unless you are tip certified. And we do ask that they get CPR and first aid certified as well. So all our staff are professionally trained. We don't hire just anybody off the street. And like I said, we are very strict about how we manage our queuing, our lines, our patrons, everybody. We use a scanner system by ID science, which we have for years. I think it's become the standard in our community. For all alcohol service based places to use, we scan everybody at the front door there. It helps us keep a database of anyone that comes in. If there was an incident, it also helps us to eliminate somebody if there was an incident in the past, often us bar owners in the community, we do communicate with each other. And so if there's an incident at one venue that with a particular patron and we want to ban them from our venue, we can simply go in with their name and if they ever tried to get in and scan their ID would automatically pop up and indicate that they're not allowed in. So at that main entrance point, the reason we do it that way is because of that, it gives us a tremendous amount of management control of the patrons coming into the building. So at that point- Mr. O'Rourke, we've got a question here from Ms. Marshall. Yep. She has her hand raised. Thanks, I could. Can you hear me? I'm unmuted, right? Yep. Yeah. All right. So I have a question about doors. The main entrance, perhaps it's, well, it's the only entrance for patrons. And maybe it's just the scale here, but is that wheelchair accessible? It looks pretty narrow. It's 44 inches. Yeah, it is. I think it's just based on the drawing. If you look at the double doors, those are 72 inch doors. Yeah, I think it's probably the ratio of what you're looking at on the picture. It's obviously hard to see it on scale, but that is a 44 inch entrance door. Okay. Thank you. And then the exit door into the back, I know if you want to call it an alley, but behind the bar there, no, no, that one. Yep. Is that also an emergency exit? Yeah, those are 36 inch doors. That would be, that's for, to be honest with you, the reason that's in and the only reason it's going to be left in, it's sort of going to be hidden amongst the backside of the bar, but the reason that's there, again, living and learning and lessons I've had, and I've owned three bars in my life. Equipment behind the bar can often be very big. And sometimes it's very hard to get things like kegerators and refrigerators and those type of pieces of equipment that we use in the bar business in and out from behind a bar. And so that door has been purposely left there for ability to be able to remove or swap out equipment. And yes, it would certainly be able to be used under cases of emergency to be for our staff to be able to go out the backside. Same thing with the other door you see in the picture there from the employee room. That's that we were, we've designed that, that way from a couple reasons, one to be able to allow the employees to separate from the general public. So coming and going as you, as you probably can imagine at sometimes a busier night as we have staff overlap and come in at different hours. It's easier for them to come in the back door be able to put their personal items down safely somewhere lock up, get ready, dress whatever they have to do to go out into the working world out there without having to go through the front entrance and deal with the general public. So that's why that, that door is back there. Also, that allows our delivery drivers to be able to come in, go straight into the walk-in cooler, which is right there to deliver the kegs and bottles and any other alcohol-based beverages or anything that gets stored in there. We do have an employee bathroom proposed in this, which is, which is great again, separating our staff from the general public, allowing them to use the restroom if they need to and get right back to work is an important feature. And so that was, that's something that's built into that back room. And so, did that, did that answer your question? Yes, thank you. I just, I just was hoping it's not like deadbolted, but still there'll be crash bars to open those doors in an emergency. Exactly. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Yeah, every door, I mean, the main entrance door, of course, is going to be crashed, a crash bar. If there was an emergency, we want to get everybody out any door, the closest door possible. So again, outside the realm of an emergency under general functions of the business, we will not allow anybody to exit that point at the main entrance. It would be exit only at those three egress doors. Upon emergency, you would be able to exit from the closest door in any direction and every one of them will have the push lock style door. Nothing would be deadbolted. So yeah, so from egress perspective, that's exactly how everything would function. Is there, so going back to that point, so the main entrance there would take you into the main room, the dance floor area. As in, again, this is an open dance floor area, no tables and chairs. The design of this again is simply safety perspective. As much as it seems as though it might be nice to have tables and chairs in a nightclub, they do become hazardous. They become tripping hazards. They get thrown around, moved around, thrown on the floor. They are more of a nuisance than a benefit. And so we've designed this with that floor plan in mind to not have them around and have an open standing area, which is easier to manage. It's safer. And so the bar is a nice long bar that wraps around the perimeter of the room, giving access to various points. We would have as many as eight bartenders working there. And then the, talking about the egress doors and how we manage and how we've always managed. We have mandatory, we have two dormant at the front entrance and then we have a dormant staffed at each exit door that are not allowed to move. And so in addition to that, we have two to three dormant functioning inside that are allowed to move. And then we have one to two dormant functioning outside to regulate our line and make sure that we are controlling our general population outside. Obviously being an Amherst, one of the things we learned really quickly is that we are as responsible for our patrons that are outside of our building as we are our patrons that are inside of our building. And so one of the things that we do is we make sure that we monitor and take care of our lines and our property at all times that there's no incidences outside that everything's under control that we don't have sound issues. Of course, that is one of the major concerns of this space and we understand that. So again, with the sound proofing aspect internally, everything we're doing is with that in mind of how we can mitigate the sound from the inside out. And so again, from the management of our doorman, we have somebody that is stationed at each one of those exit egresses, two people at the front entrance working the scanner system and checking IDs and making sure all that's done correctly. Our exit door staff are there to help patrons make sure they get out safely, open the doors, make sure they get out into the public way and onto the direction they want to go. Obviously when leaving this building, the general direction is either going to be heading towards East Pleasant Street or heading towards College Street. And there is a private sidewalk in front of our building, which they could follow all the way down in either direction to the public way on East Pleasant Street or to the public way on College Street or they can cross over to Pre Street at which point they have public access to both of those roads as well. So going back to inside and managing that aspect of things before we start really talking about internally I'm trying to blend the exterior stuff with the interior stuff which would be egress in management of the patrons. So again we, at the end of the night when we're closing and we're asking everybody to leave we open those doors. Our doorman are trained they currently do it to follow our patrons out make sure everyone of the general public is outside of the building and then moving on we've always had it as policy that we do not allow congregating in and around our property. Our doorman follow everybody out they ask people to keep moving along and then they always circle the perimeter of the building to check for things like trash and patrons and people that are around and make sure before they go in and they do their their nightly requirements of closing down that everything on the outside of the building is buttoned up and then at that point they'll go back in and they'll help the the bartenders and the bar backs and those staff members inside to do the duties that they need to do inside. And that's something that's the way we function for seven years even as the little 1700 square foot bar with one entrance and one exit that we were before to what we've become that's the way we've always managed. I used to own a music bar in Sunderland and that's the management of patrons and live music and we learned all that from that business years ago. So returning to inside you've got the layout there of the bar and the big room and like I said there's two bar backs there's eight bartenders in a general night there for on each side of that as you go up and down the bar there four on each on each side of the corners and then on the lower part of the floor plan of the building there that's a 60 inch egress hallway that would give public access down to the two bathrooms. The apparel room that's in the bottom corner over there is not something that would be open during the general hours of the public. We sell a tremendous amount of apparel t-shirts, hoodies, hats anything that we can put our logo on we try to and so I'm sure that you've seen them around town and other places and so that would be an apparel room where we would store things and allow us some space over there because we need it and it sort of was done on purpose because we kind of had this dead area of the hallway and the last thing we want is a dead area where anybody can hide and hang out so we created that room for storage for the purposes of trying to utilize that space without making it an area for anyone to congregate and then the nice part is again with an exit only there the door being located across from both bathroom entrances that doorman has the ability to regulate a line for bathrooms or people leaving often people on their way out will visit the restroom first and then head out so we do expect that part of the exits are used often right there and so that person would you simply have to monitor that door and be able to monitor the bathroom so it's nice because we do have a staff member that will always be able to monitor those bathrooms and then again looking at the bathrooms are what they are that there's 11 stalls in the women's room two handicap accessible stalls and that one and then the men's room would have nine urinals and two full handicap accessible stalls as well and then so Mr. O'Rourke can you do me a favor just identify I only count nine nine stalls in the women's room and I notice that it says I notice it says you need 10 so I'm assuming you'll comply with whatever the state requirements are but I only come up with nine yeah we would of course and you know going back to the requirements of what we would have to do for inspection services obviously anything we do in there is going to go through the permitting process and we're going to have regulations through through Rob Morris his whole office we're going to have we were going to deal with Chris and Jeff over at fire and you know we're that billing is going to be fully sprinkled as required so all those all those requirements of permitting process will obviously be done you could be right with the nine bathrooms on there I thought yeah I just I keep counting and I keep counting nine but um you know I feel like we have a you know you know lower plan on that one on it um but yeah that might be a great layout it's a handicap accessible stall yeah walk in and then it would be I guess on this would be seven or six six yeah you're getting seven stalls of regular size and then one fully handicap accessible one at the at the very top there and then the main side it would be you know just kind of the flip to that you would have the the urinals as you walk in and then two fully handicap accessible stalls at the end got it we can talk to Rob later on about yeah making sure that that's comports with state and local law okay sure and that's part of the again when we go through the plumbing inspection um and I and I work with the plumbing inspector that's that's something that'll be you know check on him and then of course for final inspection purposes David Kody or David Westgevitz or wherever I work within that and then back in the employee side of things so the employee back room is designed for as much storage as possible at you know what we've got shelving that runs along if you look at the the layout of the what's what's called the employee back room there right in the middle that has running along the sidewalls all the way down and around are all storage areas dry goods liquor shelving storage all that kind of stuff as much shelving needs as much shelving as we can put in because the one thing we always find is they're just simply not enough so we will we will utilize those walls for for storage we have the entrance point there of the walking courts a 20 by 10 walking courts very large again you know one of those things where we try to utilize the space that's there to create as much usable space as possible two large ice machines a utility sink an employee bathroom at the end and then to the right of that employee bathroom the picture is is where our water tanks would be that little storage area that you see that's straight ahead there by the back door the water main comes in right there so and it's exposed in the best way to safely tuck it away from anybody being going to hit it or doing some is making a closet there and again for us it's just general storage we can never have too much of it so that's a that's sort of a generic storage closet there with the water main tucked into it and then there's an electric panel back there to the right of that rear regress door we have two electric services that come into the building the first is that one right there in that employee backroom to the right of that door and then the other door of which we were talking about earlier on there's an electric panel just to the side of it in there as well that's in the bar the main nightclub side yet right there and that'll be built into the the backside of the bar it'll be it'll be hidden but there like I said there is too electrical services that come in there's one gas service that comes in that's on the very backside left side of the building it comes in and it goes right up into the attic and it services our our furnaces that are up there it's the only thing that's serviced by gas from a utility perspective there's three gas versus go ahead I just I noticed Miss Marshall has a for hand up yeah thank you yeah maybe before we get up into the attic I assume that as patrons are entering their IDs are getting checked that someone is counting how many folks have entered does that mean all these doorman at the exits are also counting how many are departing so that you have a up-to-date capacity I mean they all communicate with each other yes sorry go ahead no that that was my question yeah they all communicate with each other for for exactly that purposes so that we know how many people exit then they communicate with the the front doorman that allows us to know how many people we can let in at that point one of the things we're actually working on this year which we we hope to get in places a software that will allow us to do that through an application it's crazy to think that in this world of everything at my wife's in the back saying that we're we're using one but we're trying to develop our own because it is kind of crazy in this this day and age with this business that there's not just a go to application that allows that function and it's something that we've lived and learned through many years and again we've owned three bars and as we've expanded through this and it's something we've talked about working on and developing is exactly that a software that would allow for very easy communication amongst everybody not only the doorman but that would allow our bartenders to know it as well and it's something that could be integrated into our systems we use all of our all of our registers are through square and all of those are Apple iPad based so they all communicate with each other and that's something that we had we had talked about integrating into there because we can do that with our scanner system as well our scanner runs on on a tablet system as well so and then even beyond that you know talking about technology everything's on our phone these days so we we can manage this entire business our thermostats our alarm systems our registers down to the minute of people of what's being run through with a credit card all under one application on our phone so it makes it a really nice tool from a management perspective so so yes we we do that and we're actually trying to do that even better we're we're we're continuing you can get it I think the question was can you get a net number of people in your place and the fact is you can do it by communicating the exits and yep and we already we already do that they so Mr. O'Connor has a question as well too yep go ahead Mr. O'Connor has a question yeah I'd like to know what the length of the hallway between the the end of the bar and the and the the entrance on I guess on the the layout that's shown there the left hand exit to the to the beginning of the left hand exit from the from the bar area or from the previous exit that's a five foot hallway yep and I wonder what what the what you believe the the length of that hallway is so I don't have the exact answer for you on here but okay that's good you can submit it later yeah we can and we can try to formulate that a little bit right now to answer your question so the the building is 100 feet long that room is is exactly 62 feet wide so from that brick Mr. O'Connor when you were in there the other day you did you notice the the concrete wall that still resides in the middle of that building the one that goes through the ceiling so it's not quite the center they must have been a fire wall or something that they did I've scaled it out yep I've scaled it out and it seems to me to be about 40 40 feet plus or minus but I for purposes of evaluating the project if you have an exact number that would be helpful I can certainly get that for you so from that wall that brick wall to the to toward the room that you're looking at that's 42 feet there and that apparel that apparel room is roughly about 10 so you know again in trying to here we're about 32 feet from that brick wall to the left edge of that door the door 72 inches so you know you're talking about maybe 28 feet if that's what you're looking for the first part of that door does that make sense to you yeah so from the the edge of the the floor to ceiling wall you can see it's just a little bit ahead of the five foot measurement of the width and and to the as you said the left edge of the exit that's opposite the bathrooms yeah well 32 feet I would say 32 feet there okay and another question I know you have Mr O'Connor that you asked the other day and I did get the answer for you as we were talking about heading in you know I was talking about utilities and we're talking about heading into the the attic upstairs the fresh air exchange and so there's three there's three current furnaces air handlers in the building and so those will have 12 to 14 inch ducts they have to determine the size it's a minimum of 12 inches up to 14 inches that'll allow for an 800 CFM air exchangers one per unit and that would allow for six air exchanges per hour that's more than the requirement we would be required four per hour per the guidelines that you were asking me about those units will allow for six because each of them will do two for those so again there are 800 CFM intake intake ducts on those and if you have comparisons with other with the university facilities that have similar situations maybe with the the exercise facility at the mall without naming it I think we all know what it is and so forth so we have a comparison because it's always it's important to meet the minimum requirement but the question is what how does this facility compare with other public uses at the university at Amherst college the exercise place at the mall so we have some sense of where your facility fits in the and and not just with relate to the code yep okay if you could if you could get provide us with that information it will help it will help us put your proposal in context with regard to no problem yeah and like I said the the the minimum and four air exchanges per hour where what the units we have in there would allow for six and again for your perspective of understanding the layout the main room there the larger room has two units in it that function for that room itself and then the back area what has has one single one obviously the design of that is we don't need as much in the back area as we we would in the front area so so to service that front area one one services that back if that helps too and what and in terms of the bathrooms how is that how are those do you have air exchanges for both bathrooms yeah they're vented out through it so each above each stall goes to event system that is ducted outside the eve of the backside of the building and on both the men's and the women's bathroom and there it's tied together to its own its own duct system and then you also had a question about the the attic space again when we're talking about up there so I think one of the questions we our phone call got dropped yesterday during during the conversations of some of this stuff so forgive me on that one but in the attic space the the building will be sprinkled obviously required to to sprinkler the building general area would be drop ceiling you had asked that question and above the drop ceiling obviously with the the requirements through the Amherst fire department will we use fire tech who does who's did our front building and they'll do this building as well and and they already have it all mapped out of the drawing for the the fire suppression system and so that would be that would of course have sprinkler above and below the the drop ceiling that's in there if that helps answer your question that you had yesterday about the concern the safety concerns above the drop ceiling right but so is it your understanding that the entire attic the hundred foot width of the attic would be open from one end to the other correct yep yep with the exception of that firewall that's there there is a breakthrough on that firewall I don't know if you're able to see it when you're there for the site visit yesterday directly in the middle of that the existing firewall that goes all the way up through there's a breakthrough at that point and so that fire does carry all the way through all the way through the ceiling okay so there'll be a firewall between the bar and the customer area and then one and then on the on the other side of the firewall will be the employee back area the storage area and the bathrooms yep exactly that's in place we're not going to remove that that center wall that's there will remain it goes all like I said it goes all the way up through and above the the roof line on the outside of that that will remain we're not going to take that out so continuing I'm trying to think of the other questions that we wanted to specifically address on the inside I mean that's the that's the I think I've touched on everything on the inside is there does anybody else have questions the only thing that I think we we want to go through was the sound abatement and the and how that I mean you talked about it a little bit but yeah you had an engineer come in you're going to put an additional four inches of foam on all the walls you're going to reinforce the doors you're going to reinforce the windows you're what about sound up through the roof I forget what's what you're doing on that yeah to the ceiling Miss Marshall had a question before I talked about is there anything was there something else then or I'll just if you could address these at some point I saw raised in some of the documents we have a concern about I guess essentially maybe needing a booster for emergency radio communication after after if if the insulation is so good I guess that firefighters inside can't communicate with firefighters outside so I'm sorry I actually just learned about that today yep okay so perhaps there's no resolution of that yet or you're just you will have to do it if there's a exactly that that is something that would have to be reactionary so with with with Chris Baskham and the Amherst Fire Department from what I understood what I learned today is that when the when the building is finalized when we're going through our final inspection points with them that they come in and they would do a radio test for that reason and if there is electromagnetic interference or anything that would take away that their their radio signals the option is there is a I guess there's a booster type of system that can be installed in the building that would allow for their radios to communicate in there I'm new to that that's new to me as well and again I just learned about it today and but it is something that has a solution to the problem and that is something that when again when we go through the final inspection we would discover at that time and then have to resolve at that time to okay requirements thank you yeah the other question was that there was I assume in the fire departments report that if you have any combustion sources you will need hardwired CO monitors and you mentioned there is gas so you will be installing yep have an outside monitor exactly that gets built into the monitoring system so we pay for a monthly monitoring system we're required to so amongst the the sprinkler system we use target alarm they are a a monthly monitoring system that regulates specifically to the fire suppression system we have beacon protection for our personal safety monitoring system in addition to that target alarm does the the fire suppression system monitoring so that's all tied into that correct and so the lines are generally in the sprinkler system of things you're going to have your normal sprinkler heads that you know of you're going to have things like strobes in the bathrooms and the in the hallways and stuff you're going to have your CO monitor like you were just asking about an alarm smoke alarm system monitor as well whole stations at each egress so all those things are built into in designing into the system that fire tech does for us thank you Mr. O'Connor yeah I have a Mr. O'Connor just a couple of questions on looking back on my notes will there one question about the the main entrance we have metal detectors there we use them yeah we have we have a wand system that we use right now it's by I can't think of the name of the company it's the it's the major one it's the company you see on all the metal detectors and the ones we do use them currently at the at the existing bar and for safety measures it helps us and believe it or not it's actually done a great job of finding nips that people try to sneak into our place it's amazing what those things will pick up on last nips that increases your sales it's a profit margin no profit margin you're not the the biggest thing that it does for us I don't know why people insist on flushing them when we provide trash cans in the stalls for them to throw them in but often when we have plumbing problems and we use we use Fletcher out of out of Aguam I haven't account with them for any emergency needs that we have whenever we've discovered that we've had a a emergency need of plumbing it happens to always be a nip and so it's done world of wonders using those metal detectors to eliminate things like flasks and nips and those problems that we that you might assume you know incur in this business so yes we do use a Mr O'Connor and with regard to the at the beginning you said that the this would be a basically an operation that would be a school year related yep and and then the other thing is with regard to the bill to the work it's being on done the building just if if you have from your perspective how far into the future are you looking with regard to what you're doing with this building in this iteration are you going to be a time frame yeah what what is your time frame for for the work you're doing you're proposing to do on this building um yeah so as you saw when you walk through it it's pretty much just about gutted at this point we're we're getting to the point where and we have the the permit for that for the for the for removing the stuff the building I don't know how old it is I think it's between 50 and 70 years old so as you might imagine upon the permitting process of whatever we want to do when it comes to electrical and plumbing everything has to be replaced in that building right I understand yep that was the justice but how far in the future do you see this particular iteration of work and activity how far in the future do you is this a a 10-year project a 20-year project that what we do will last is that we yeah yeah so I have a 20-year lease with Jones and so we're you know we're hoping to be you're a long time yeah okay that that's that's sort of that's useful information thank you and so is it before I before I go on to Mr. Judge's questions regarding noise reduction and stuff is there was there anything else that you guys wanted me to touch on because that's a big that's a big subject which I'm going to go over all that with is there any other the little stuff that you guys had questions on let's move to the let's move to the the sound yeah so sound sound mitigation obviously you know from from the very beginning from the very design of this everything that we were doing had sound mitigation in mind and we had to we knew that was going to be one of the main subjects that would that would come up in this and so the the structure of the building is cinderblock blown in insulation cinderblock foundation and that is faced by four inch brick that alone is considered soundproof but to be on that for purposes and at the site plan we touched on this a little bit and you guys had walked through and seen it for purposes of the fact that this building is on slab and we need to get utilities electrical other things around the building we're going to frame out a four inch wall on the inside the perimeter of the building all around on the inside and that would allow us to bring things like electrical through it water through it anything that we need in various areas well that also adds to the noise reduction of the walls themselves so the walls insulation that goes in the attic the roof itself the the drop ceiling all that is already considered soundproof so now we have to look at the points of penetration of things like windows and doors and so the windows that are in there right now are plate glass they are noise reducing but they are certainly not anywhere near what we would need so I've been working with Amherst Glass and spoke to them about what their professional recommendations would be and we everything boiled down to half inch tempered glass which would in itself almost probably bring us down to the point of the noise reduction requirements that we need we work with Mr. Tint who would tint the front of those windows that also adds a decibel reduction those two things together will bring us down at the point of the windows to reduce our decibels requirements to meet the requirements of the town of Amherst we also have another ability if we need to go beyond that we can add a plexiglass internal trim over the the inside of the window that right there would definitely get us down at the point of the windows at the doors you know it's can I just I hate the interruption I go ahead go ahead but I just no no I just want to make sure that I understand I I read this I thought that you were having that you had proposed to have the plexiglass centerpiece between the two panes of glass are you saying that that's still something you're considering and you're not planning to do that unless you need to correct just clear that up for me yeah we were never planning to do that we would prefer not to but of course if we have to based on the noise requirements that we'll have to meet to in order to open this we we would do that and I think I don't have the exact numbers in front of me at the moment but I think that would have added let me see I may have it right here I think those yeah the plexiglass adds another 16 decibel reduction so it's pretty significant between the between the existing plate the laminated glass panels are 50 decibel reductions the the tint the absorption of the of the vibrations that the tint reduces another 10 decibels so just the the windows and the tint alone is a 60 decibel reduction in sound so that would allow us to to meet the requirements at the points of the of the windows and then you know looking at the doors there I know one of the questions that had gotten asked by design review board was you know would we or would we consider doors with with windows in them or why aren't we and the simple answer to that is is that any any point of contact any penetration through something like a window or door areas where noise can get through and so to to to keep noise reduction in mind those solid core double doors that would be put in our soundproof doors so that right there allows us to to meet those requirements of of noise reduction so that we can you know at the point of the property line which is pretty close to this building that we can meet the requirements of the 70 decibels or less for the town so that Mr. Judge did that answer it answers quite I'm not sure that I wouldn't want to require the the the polyvinyl doodle laminate but I understand what you're saying that's already that's already part of it that is part of the laminated glass the pv the pvv that you're referring to is yep yeah that is part of that is what makes the laminated glass so the tent the tent is in addition the tent is in addition to all that correct but the tent the tent in the window will will the the laminated glass pvpv windows in the tent are what I want to put in the plexi glass the additional if we needed to reduce it even more okay so that's that's not the not the the pvp that's just that's already in the glass got it correct yeah the pvp is already part of that two-piece laminated glass that that's what makes up that half inch window panel that would go in and lastly this is a really elementary question but I think noise is incredible is a very important issue here so all these are termed and all these measures that you're taking are our reduction from some but I don't know from what point so this it says it's a 60 decibel reduction it's a 18 decibel reduction what is it a decibel what is the starting point what are you reducing from I guess so I so I 100 decibels 100 decibels would be your considered to be your normal bar nightclub volume at starting volume and then at that point for live music or for recorded music yes for recorded music yes yeah yeah we're not looking to do we say I know live music's a relative term we're not looking to do live music I think when you hear the perception of live music you think of a five piece band perhaps in there that's not the type of live music we're looking to do it's simple jukebox DJ that type of stuff single person live music in there it's not it's not a a five piece band or anything along those lines of going that's not our intention and so you know that the noise reduction there again if you look at the if you take the 100 decibel rating mark and you reduced it 50 to 60 decibels which is you know what the windows and doors would do that right there would hopefully get us down to the 40s so it does look like we're we're not really close to being questionable but again we we we're trying to make sure that we have solutions to problems like if at the point of the windows it wasn't that we have a solution to resolve that issue which would be the plexiglass trim on the inside of it so it would give us another got it so yeah and again we thank you yep and you know the main the main feature for us is that the the structure of that building being center block and brick is is a significant amount of of noise proofing around the building that I mean the whole the the left side of the building the entire backside of the building there's no penetration of windows at that point at all back there so you know you have a significant amount of noise reduction your soundproof out the backside of the building so your goal for total sound reduction or your goal for total sound production outside the building at the property line is 60 decibels is that what your goal is yeah so at the property line or is it 50 well 70 is the requirement by the town of Amherst so obviously I understand we're going to try to achieve and 60 is very realistic of what I think that we can achieve at that point okay Mr. Maxwell Leah just for my point of reference what is what's the noise reduction currently at the spoke that's there what do you guys get for noise reduction from from those windows I don't know we haven't done an analysis on that building there those are tempered glass windows as well so if you take this the inner tempered glass window that that you would have in place and many of those have been replaced Amherst glass just replaced two of them for us with that those those tempered glass windows have a 50 decibel reduction standard and a half inch piece of glass on those as well the night the the live side currently in the building there at the front we do have half of it as the pub side happened as the live side the live side building the the wall that faces Garcia that has no window penetration in it so that is completely sound proof and then we do have that noise reducing 10 that's that's how we that's how I learned about that for Mr 10 is that we used it on on that side over there on the front of the windows that are that are on that current night club side I haven't done a sound analysis over there to be able to answer your question honestly but again if you take the basics of what we learn from this one I would say we're probably getting at least a 60 decibel reduction at that point over there alone thank you is there so again going back to the the noise questions and concerns especially you know on the interior part is there did I did I answer Mr judge what you answered my question I might have another one but Ms Marshall has a hands up well my my remaining questions I think have to do with the noise has to do with all the people outside I think I'm reassured that the sound created inside the building will not cause a problem outside the building but I do have some questions about management of the people outside and the noise that they make let me just ask a question on the interior sound and then we can get to your question so we keep on the same topic and we don't bounce around too much you may have answered this Mr O'Rourke but I was looking through trying to look through the the sound analysis when you did how do you mitigate the sound in the ceiling do that go over that for me again yeah so the sound in the ceiling is mitigated by the design of what's up there so you have the drop ceiling which drop ceiling tiles themselves have a noise reducing properties to them and then you have the the insulation and the attic and then you have the structure of the attic itself so that like the physical exterior structure of the building the along the roofline as well as all considered soundproof because there is no penetration through that roof I don't like doors and windows so you've got foam on the roof and on the side of the roof right yep correct and then and lastly the sound that would escape from this from the ceiling and the roof would that be picked I'm I'm a novice at this would that be picked up by sound monitoring because I'm thinking of the units right behind your building the apartment buildings there will there be sound that does escape will that be able to be picked up by the sound monitoring that may be required of you as a condition of the application I mean I I honestly don't know I think in most sounding houses the sound is always done from the street level vertically not horizontally yeah so I yeah I can't answer that question honestly for you okay all right that's fair but it's it's something I'm interested in so yeah I'm putting it out there all right it really makes sense yeah and I think you know a lot of this topic as as all of downtown Amherst gets redeveloped I think this will be a a topic of discussion for for many businesses for sure yeah Miss Marshall go ahead with your question I guess okay you asked your question I guess we can proceed with well I want to get specific about it because there are two things about this project that are are interesting to me particularly interesting that is you have a new apartment building going up right right there so even your current operation you know the nearest residents are quite a bit further away than they will be starting this fall so I'm wondering and now you will have two queues a queue at each of your buildings with the road in between do you have a plan to prevent just like a street party starting to develop as people see their friends you know in the other lines or they're coming back and forth and just generally the noise of all those people and yeah and disturbing the residents yeah yes I do and we and you know again we we do our best to monitor that we part of our employment is working the exterior of the building as a as a dormant I learned very early on in our COVID days when we were having to have a line out there separated six feet apart we needed to monitor that I also learned very quickly that we were responsible for everything that was happening out there so at the time of COVID as you can imagine when we had a significant reduction in capacity and we at some point had the same amount of patrons that wanted to come in and we couldn't put them in there that's when the lines things started to really to start for us and we had to put spacing outside on the on the walkway we had stickers that were done by Emerson copy in circles of six feet and so at that point we started having part of our dormant's jobs of being outside monitoring the line and for purposes of separation everything else and what we learned from that is that you know from a management perspective it gave us great control of everything as well and so like I addressed earlier at the end of the night when when we are closing down and we are removing our patrons from our our bar we we don't just open the doors and kick them out and turn around and go in our entire staff and you know I think Emerson copy Emerson police would would speak on our behalf for this they you know they've witnessed it they've been a part of it we've never had an incident at our venue is just that we we our staff you know so I'm gonna go I'm gonna go back to answering your question of during operating hours how we do that but again the major part of that would be at the end of the night of course when when the larger crowds are shuffled out the door and on and and my staff is is trained to to follow them out and encourage them to move on and and and go on their way down the street and it's it's worked it's always worked and and so you know during the hours of operation when there is a line or when there is patrons outside we we have staff members whose sole job is to to monitor that outside and regulate them when we do the best we can we have an excellent relationship with with the Amherst police department often the officers will stop down at the beginning of the night check in with us hey if you guys need anything let us know you know and again Amherst as you know Amherst is a very small community it's a very small main road they're never far away I can tell you that when we've had incidences where we had had had to call the the Amherst police department it's almost instantly that they're there so and then the other reality we've faced in this community and it's a great truth is that these students that go to UMass there's only so many options and places for them to go and the the last thing they want to do is get in trouble and get banned from one bar or not or all the bars and as I had I told you before we all communicate with each other there's only half a dozen bars left in this town and we all know each other we all communicate with each other if there is an incident at one we all know about it right away and we all watch out for each other and if we have to ban somebody we usually do it together we have done that in the past and so we try to we try to be great about communicating amongst each other with that same thing with door guys just internally if someone goes out the back door let's say we remove a patron from the back door because they're being unruly or whatever reason we're instantly communicated amongst all our dormants to let them know you know hey this person this name we can't always get a name obviously we aren't always able to get an ID but if it's somebody a red sweatshirt with a hoodie I just had to remove them from the bar they're not allowed back in our staff also rotates so again with the floating with the floating dormant that we staff no dormant our dormant that are that are staffed at the point of egress is that are not allowed to move are not stuck there all night long we have a we have a rotation so we have rotate we have the two dormant at the front we have our floating dormant and throughout the night they periodically rotate into different areas you know it takes the boredom away it takes complacency away it allows them if it's warm or cold to to warm up and and and so on and so forth and so that allows us to be able to stay on top of almost everything going on there and so Mr. O'Rourke Mr. O'Rourke yep so from your I understand that's a lot of good intent to try to and probably a good history at the at the spoke because I haven't heard that that's a problem but you have a potential I read this 342 people queuing out in front of the of the building right now if you look at it and you have how many people that will be out how many personnel I won't call them bouncers how many people out front will be taking care of that that's potential 342 while you're waiting to open up the the bar on the last Friday night of school yep two you got how many people out there yeah two it's it's well organized you know we have queuing down the side of the it's not it's not just a a blob of people all over the sidewalks in the streets we don't allow that and again I mean the reality is at the end of the day it is a public pre-street is a public way there is only so much we can legally do and we try our best but go ahead I don't want to interrupt okay so so then I guess the next question is for Rob or for Chris so you try your best you aren't able to control it some night the police come and they try to and they get it under control right where does this what's the threshold where this becomes where it's determined to become a a consistent problem or something that we have to we have to deal with how do we look at this because this is new to me I mean I don't know that we have another I don't think we have another nightclub of 500 people in this town or even a gathering outside from the university of the University of Massachusetts fieldhouses and stuff but we don't have a gathering spot for I don't think 500 people anyplace else what's the kind of the trip wire to say you know we got to we got to go back and look at this we've got to install some additional safeguards for the crowd control out front I just you know because your two guys may not be able to do it consistently and there may be a problem how do we look at that in the future Rob what do you do so you know first of all I think it'd be the police department that would be responding and they're authorized on the use since regulations to to deal with noise and nuisance disturbances so I think they would be you know first of the scene and and making decisions to either you know move a crowd along you know and decide if they're able to stay cued to you know potentially enter the establishment you know from that point you know we're we're going to be enforcing whatever set of conditions that that this permit results in along with the management plan that chat is presented and you know if there's deficiencies or if there's improvements that need to be made it's it's a discussion you know that we have with with Chad or his manager you know it happens you know we've had these situations from time to time Chad's very responsive in any of the conversations that have taken place related to his establishment and has sought to make improvements and and been pretty successful at it so you know we would use whatever tools we have in the permit and rely on the police department for the the late hours enforcement yeah but in case there's in case it comes up with that despite all the good history and the good intentions of spoke live it's a continual problem if we haven't put something in the conditions we don't give you the tools to deal with it is that right so we have to put something in our conditions or is there kind of a is there is there's sort of a a standard that if it becomes too obnoxious there's another either bylaw or or local ordinance that allows us to take a look at this again or to limit the gatherings outside so so we're going to try to establish as many conditions as we can that we think would be effective but then we're also going to suggest you know similar to what I did with and just as a reminder the the current spoke was extended doubled by an administrative approval through article 14 so it was something that didn't come to the board but a condition that what that I put into that permit and would recommend into this permit is a review you know there could be a 12 month and 18 month review so that that's kind of the last stop for understanding problems that couldn't be resolved in the the other ways that are available or you know by the responsiveness of the the business owner and that's something the board has typically done and we can you know we can work on the language to make sure that that works for this particular situation okay thank you miss marshall did you have your hand up well I just I just wanted to maybe reiterate or clarify my concern that that part of the dorm outside dormant the crowd control folks job is that that that people if they want to go in they're in in a line either this queue or that queue and there's not a massive people chatting in the middle of prairie because I live nearby and I do walk and drive through there all times a day so it you know it it can't become like an outdoor like a pedestrian mall it really does have to be kept clear and I just see kind of the possibility for it to get disorganized because there are these sister establishments you know just like a hundred feet apart so that's all I just I just want to know that that's that road is going to be kept clear yep I understand Mr O'Connor go ahead go ahead Mr O'Rourke no no Mr Mr O'Connor you can you can go first because I'll address no no yeah just answer Ms Marshal's question then I'll call on Mr O'Connor yeah so Ms Marshal I couldn't agree more I mean that these are all the things that you know again when we when we decided to make this move to go over there I mean part of it you know and and being completely honest to you part of the reason we decided to do this was that after COVID we were hoping that more more bars would open or more places would would come back online for us because it is harder for us to manage the people outside than it is for us to manage the people inside of course and so you know the the objective here was well when when the pub went away in Old Town Tavern went away and and you know maybe some of the other establishments downtown I mean the the the crowd control of Amherst isn't unique to Amherst as as anyone who's been around for a long time knows we've had many many establishments over the years and unfortunately we've lost a lot of them and part of the reason we've decided to make this move is sort of because we had to and and and it's we the reality that we face in Amherst is we need more places for these students to be able to go because we don't want these massive lines we don't want them congregating and massive groups in downtown Amherst we certainly don't want them doing that in basements of fraternities or in neighborhoods of residential properties and and the reality is if we don't give them options in places to go that is what's going to happen and so you know with with this it was one of our ways of trying to help a little bit and solve the problem because it was overwhelming for us and you know and and it is for everybody and so you know if we could take the people that want to go out in downtown Amherst that create these lines and give them another place to go under management and control it is a better option for for everybody and so again you know everything we've done from the beginning of this and the design and the conversations and the meetings that we've had we always knew was going to revolve around noise control and crowd management control and so you know where we are trying to put those elements in place and I know you and I understand you guys are doing that that's the responsibility of you guys as well is to make sure that you put those requirements in the the special permit that that that enforce that my personal objective is I'd like to have I'd like to own this place for a long long time you know I don't I'm not going to turn around sell it to someone else tomorrow and I understand that as you guys evaluate this you have to think about what's the worst case scenario of the future of the next person that may not manage it the way we manage it and the things that you have to put in place to do that so again from our perspective we are trying to think about all those things and how we can do it better and I mean that's always been in my personal opinion that's always been the way we function as a as a business is we are the standard in how can we how can we do it better and make it right that's how we've always tried to operate so Mr. All right Mr. O'Connor Yes Mr. Chairman yeah as I as I look at the QA in areas one through four on the the side of the building that faces Prey Street I've observed high school students walking along that walkway for years I think that the the potential numbers there's a queuing capacity table on the right hand side of the building at the lower right corner of the building as you look at the sheet those numbers are just from my perspective unrealistic and I think that whether we have to have some kind of public performance situation to demonstrate or whatever but I I simply do not believe that in an outdoor situations that many people can be accommodated in the areas that are described as one through four either individually or collectively simply on the sidewalk I think that it'd be nice if it could happen if but I don't believe that the the queuing numbers are a realistic approximation of what what people will tolerate and accommodate themselves too and I think we have to look very seriously at those numbers and and think about what's more realistic this Mr. O'Rourke would you have part of your management plan would you be amendable to having part of your management plan to tell us how you deal with crowds I mean you're when you're going to have a large number of people sitting and or standing along the sidewalk in front of your building and maybe filling back to the other Jones buildings it's going to be when the before the club is opened up probably right because then you're going to bring in the you're going to bring them up to 500 people into your club there may be people that are waiting outside but that that would be over the course of eight to between eight and one o'clock and you'll have some ability to move people on so would your management it would be helpful I think for Mr. O'Connor and maybe and for Ms. Marshall they can make up their own minds on this and for me maybe to have amend your management plan say how you're going to handle that will you tell we're not going to have people standing more than 15 minutes before opening I don't know what the answer is for this but some way to deal with a concern that I hear from two board members about the sort of aggregation of people out in front and I think the time to worry about that is is before opening and because you can move people and then to have something in your management plan saying that you know when we reach 200 people standing up front or 100 people standing up front we're going to ask people to move along and come back later so can you give some thought to that and would you do that for an amended management plan yeah and you know again I think for all intents and purposes of these conversations part of of what we're here for obviously is asking permission to the board to allow this to happen in in addition to that is to have you know those stipulations that put in that be put in place that make you guys comfortable of allowing this to happen I mean that's what we're here for so you know if the board felt that that's necessary to make it at a level of comfort for them then certainly I don't think that's unrealistic I don't think it's unreasonable I mean these queuing numbers were done by an architect so so I mean there I think there would have I would I think there should be some sort of meeting in the middle of of that you're you're you're you know Mr O'Connor basically questioning the the professionalism of an architect and design but I don't disagree with you on and I get where you're coming from of of taking that number and and looking at the reality of the amount of people in that number so I I understand that as well so you know Mr O'Rourke what I would suggest is that you be prepared to come up with that plan yourself don't I'm not the expert on how how long you want to have people out in front although I don't think you want to have them for half hour and how many and then kind of come back and come back to us perhaps with something that says you know for the people cannot gather more than 15 minutes before opening or 30 minutes before opening and there can only be so many people and if we reach X amount if they so many people my bouncers move my outdoor people move them along that would be part of your management plan and you know and the same thing during the course of the evening you know I mean that would be helpful to yeah but I guess my question for you would be what isn't that something that you guys would be that didn't put in the special permit as a requirement we would yeah we'd put it as a requirement but I want to get you're the expert and we're not the experts you're the experts on crowd management what you think happens with your your place and I think it's it's somewhat arrogant of me to tell you what to do and so I want to rely upon some of your expertise and see if you can come up to something that we'd agree with and then put it in the condition okay that would be my suggestion to you okay would that be something that Ms. Marshall and Mr. O'Connor would that respond to some of your concerns yeah I would say that there's gotta be a more realistic evaluation of how each how how many people can comfortably stand in each of the spaces for a period of time and especially since with school out from mid-December through January you miss a lot of winter but it gets pretty cold out there and I think you're concerned about how do you manage this amount of people and and what is a reasonable amount of people for each of the queuing areas I think is again he's the expert let him come up with his his thoughts on it so that we can evaluate them Mr. O'Chilla thank you Mr. Chairman so one thing I also would ask of the board if if you don't mind me doing so is if the applicant could provide more specifics for the live music which I believe is just a DJ in the booth on the top right corner but in the management plane he doesn't really address that so I was wondering if the board would consider asking Mr. O'Rourke to consider amending or at least adding a supplemental description of ways going to do in terms of managing live music and when it's going to be played et cetera Mr. Chairman yes Mr. O'Connor yeah and I I'm a little concerned about an indoor environment at what point does an indoor environment decibel level tend to degrade the hearing of the individuals who are in the room for x amount of hours and there's got to be some information about above 90 above 100 you know whatever that that level is I'm I'm concerned I've heard expression about concern about the outside decibel level I'm concerned also about the indoor decibel level that would that might have a negative impact I'm you know I'm I'll be 82 in September my hearing is still pretty good but we don't want to be creating a situation where exposure to decibel levels that are not recommended is over a period of hours continuously that we we allow that so I'd I'd I would like to hear something from Mr. O'Rourke about that because I think we should be concerned about the long-term impact on hearing of decibel levels inside that may damage the the attendees hearing is there an indoor standard Mr. O'Rourke for bars that I was made aware of again generally if you're taking the 100 decibel rating of a nightclub or you know for sound I don't know I'm not a a medical doctor that studied long-term decibel ratings on on patrons I don't know the answer to that question I don't think Mr. Rustrop or Mr. Mora Mr. Rustrop or Mr. Mora do you know if there's like health health or regulations on this or there's standards on indoor noise in buildings that govern buildings in Amherst or statewide we'll have to research it specifically for nightclub setting Mr. Chair I don't you know there's there's different standards for construction in other you know situations but for this one I I don't know fine I've had a hard time hearing you because I went too many went to too many loud rock concerts in the past Ms. Marshall yes so back to the queuing capacity I I have no reason to dispute the architects like conversion factor how many square feet for per person but I do want to make sure and I just if it's in the fine print I just haven't seen it and I apologize that the architect is is not using the entire width of the sidewalk but only half of the sidewalk because right they have to be able there has to be room for other people to pass by so so that these calculations are not to just how how many people can be crammed onto the full sidewalk but just half so if you would confirm that thank you yeah I can ask the money architect that I don't know the answer to that question I think it was designed you could see the dotted line that that's on that I think it's indicated to be that way but I don't I don't know it says that's the set it's called awning but I think it's to stop it no that might be the awning yeah it's the awning yeah you're right okay Rob are you keeping track of some of these requests for information that we have okay thank you and I'll look through the recording tomorrow too to double check on all those conditions all right yep Mr. O'Rourke we've interrupted your train of thought quite a bit so what else would you yeah what else did you like to what else did you have planned for your presentation so we can nothing I think you know again I I think the main subjects are of course the noise control and the crowd control I think those are what everybody's major topics were here I think the other stuff is pretty straightforward so you know so any other questions that you guys as a board have that I can address at the at the moment based on on those feel free to interrupt me all you want for that all right I've asked a lot I'd open it up to other board members here for I have some other questions but I'd open up and give other board members a chance to ask some questions Mr. Maxwell yeah if we're it sounds like we're gonna be just having a I assume another meeting on this one so we've got a lot of information we need do you think it's possible we might be able to get an idea or some kind of measurement of what the noise level is outside the regular spoke on a weekend night between now and if this were to continue are you asking are you directing that question to me yeah that's that's that's to you I'm yes I'm sure we could no that's gonna be phenomenal that can that could be a real helpful thing to for us to judge the noise levels coming from the proposed establishment go ahead Mr. Maxwell oh yeah just just one follow-up because I know so I live far enough away from spoke to be uh to not be considered a butter but sure by the end of this meeting I'll be able to hear it so the one thing I would definitely be interested in it's uh the noise when the door is closed and everything is closed off so I think when as people are coming in and out that's obviously gonna let for for a lot more noise to seep out which that's just gonna be the nature of of that business but what it is specifically I'd want to know what does it sound like when everything is all kind of closed up and sealed I understand and I would do it from you know we we would certainly get obtained information on multiple sides of the building obviously because again that side that faces Garcia's is considered soundproof just by the sheer design of it versus the front of the building let's say and same thing back building we have three doors I've penetrated so thank you that would be very helpful Ms. Presta I wonder if if Mr. O'Rourke could provide information on how many people are normally queuing outside the existing bar the existing spoke you know how much room do they take up maybe he can show on a sidewalk where they where they stand and how many of them there are and that might give a frame of reference to this new place that we're looking at and you know be able to judge one versus the other thank you that'd be valuable Ms. Marshall I noted in one of the submissions a comment that there should be a hydrant within a hundred feet in the nearest existing hydrant is further away than that so Mr. O'Rourke do you have any idea if the town will need to put in a hydrant and who's respond who has to make that happen and pay for it I'm curious or whether the it's not really it's not a requirement just a preference you know maybe Rob Rob more coming into that more I certainly would direct that at Amherst Fire Department I would think but with the building being sprinkled I don't know if that overrides that Rob or am I wrong there it doesn't it doesn't override the standard that the fire department cited so you know they've they've noted that as a requirement and you know there could be alternative compliance if you know the fire hydrant is 20 feet further than you know what the code requires but that'll be you know these are all issues that would get sorted out through permitting one way or the other the fire department will be satisfied if there's if there's a need for a hydrant and there sometimes that's the case relocating or adding an additional hydrant that's done at the cost of the applicant not the town so that would be something that that they would be responsible for if there isn't another solution so Mr. O'Rourke I had a couple of quick questions one is on the on plan a 1.1 that's so that's your that's the floor plan there's a it looks appears to me to be either a door or some kind of an opening on the left hand side right above the apparel room what is that if you can just move the cursor over to the apparel room and right over there what is that that was that's eliminating there used to be a side door there for the laundromat it's no longer there that's that's bricked in I don't know if it was on the floor plan or why Mark has that in there my architect has that in there in the design but there's nothing there okay yeah so that is not a it's not an entrance or exit all right so that we have to have the you know we're gonna have to have the right plans for the you know final presentation but you probably if that's not gonna be there you gotta you gotta fix it being locked in it's it doesn't show it as an opening if you look at the kind of the other doors the other doors have that's weird it has this you know a broken line so yeah okay all right and then the other one I want to talk to you about is I'm a little concerned about and Mr O'Connor raised this as well on the site visit I'm a little concerned about the sort of the bulkhead for lack of a better term that runs along the sidewalk out in front of the your your the three emergency exits it's I went over there today to measure it to look at it and it's 15 inches 16 inches above the parking lot and it's a little over seven seven to eight inches depending on the you know the side what were you where you measure it seven to eight inches above the sidewalk and I look at that and say you know on a clear day and with your bright lights it's probably and when people and there's not a lot of people there that's not going to be a problem but if you have a lot of crowd if you have crowds if you have an inert God forbid an emergency situation where people have to get out that looks like a recipe for real a real trouble a real disaster as people try to get out that that those emergency doors the the raised portion doesn't sit right in front of the emergency the doors to the kind they're off some of them are off the off center and you you won't see that as you're running out and the first person over that trips then you've got a I mean you've got a soccer you know I think of a soccer style situation that I would hope to avoid so that was a the bar that existed there before must have had that same setup how did they deal with and how do you plan to deal with that situation it seems to me that that might be something you want to talk to Jones about removing seven inches that the topper that runs along that sidewalk because that I just can see in an emergency situation that could really be a problem so can you speak to that yeah I mean I I understand we are coming from that perspective I mean this is something that's been designed like that for a purpose I would assume we don't know if it's drainage or what what the reason they did that I we're also gonna you know we again we can only base on assumptions of why they designed this and my anything part of the assumption yeah it people from stepping out onto the the parking area because that's essentially what that is the sidewalk is a 72 inch egress it's it's a wide they're not stepping out of the door and onto this area in my personal opinion I feel though there's plenty of room to walk out that door and down a private sidewalk to to the ends of the sidewalk where they where they would be directed to not Mr. O'Connor go ahead but go ahead yeah I'm I would just say I I'd recommend maybe for the board members and and for the applicant to review the police reports on two two licensed suspensions that were handed out to Panda East when that when the before the Amherst Select Board what happened was that there was a complaint of underage drinking the police came in and the patrons who were there exited the room in a big hurry and my concern is that anytime these the especially the two westerly doors the one that's opposite the bathroom is down a hallway that I consider a real hazard but the two the two doors that are that that exit the main room they go out right to this real tripping hazard and then even if that that seven inch rise is eliminated you then have a another seven inches down to the sidewalk I think the entire area opposite from the from these doors to the street because people are not going to turn right and left and use the sidewalk they are going if they're leaving this building under some duress of any nature they're going to want to go straight out to the to pray street and you can't do that with the current arrangement that's a lot in that there are a lot of people that are proposed to be be in this room they are not going to turn right and left after they go out the doors they are going to flow straight out these doors both of the doors on the west lee edge and and the the egress from those doors to pray street has to be completely unobstructed and it has to be in such a way that that there's a gradual slope that would be acceptable to the building inspectors so that people can exit that the the main the dancing area or whatever in a in a safe manner and yes if you're if you're leaving at the end of the day no problem but if you're leaving because of some emergency situation this is a potential for people to break arms and legs and be injured in a lot of other ways that would would not make attractive photographs and I just I would urge the applicant to speak to the the property owner as had been suggested and maybe have the architect look as to how to to make a clear path from those doors to what would be the safest location at that time of night which would be pray street Mr. Mora is there what what agency regulations govern the safe exit from a building in this situation who is it fire department here is it the state building code what governs what's considered safe in the state of massachusetts or or in amherst for exit in this kind of in this type of building it's the state building code in force five buildings yeah yeah and is does this comport with the state building code right now what well it does you know it has it has the wide sidewalk in front of the building you know I think there's you know Mr. O'Connor is raising other types of issues that you know are worth considering that could potentially be hazardous but it doesn't necessarily mean it violates the code you know by providing the sidewalk either direction with a sloping walkway to the to the public way satisfies the code but that doesn't mean there couldn't be improvements or there doesn't mean that there aren't hazardous situations under you know certain scenarios so but I don't think it's a code issue okay well I guess that would be something you need to Mr. O'Rourke I would think you would want to try to address at the very least if there's something you can do with the seven inches and come to the board and talk about that maybe at the next meeting talk to Jones and see what they think I know Mr. O'Connor had more expansive concern than I raised but I'm looking at us I'm just looking at that and I don't want to think the worst of all possible situations but I just don't know how in a bad situation how that would be safe yep I understand that I do have a concern about that I mean the argument would against it is it's a parking area in front of it I think that's one of purposes of the curfewing I mean I can't imagine you'd have to look at the downtown dressers could make the same argument that says anybody that's gonna walk out of a a bar or anything in downtown's not just going to go run out onto North Pleasant Street blindly there's all parking in front of that as well so yeah but there's not a seven inch rise before the seven you don't have a seven inch rise before the street that's what that's what I'm concerned about that's what I saw for my concern Ms. Marshall I would say it would be too bad to create a more likely hazard while trying to prevent an unlikely hazard by removing that curb which keeps helps to keep people from falling off the sidewalk as they're just walking as opposed to fleeing secondly perhaps part of this concern can be addressed by the management plan that is what are those doorman doing in the case of an emergency no they're not just pushing people out the door but some of them are outside safely guiding people you know to it to a safe to a safe exit I think that you know you do raise a good point about not creating an additional hazard but it's and I I a railing perhaps would make sense you know that would keep people from coming over from falling over that seven inch rise that would might be one way to address it and I think I think Ms. Marshall's suggestion on the having an address in the management plan also makes a lot of sense Mr. O'Connor yeah I'm you know if people have observed the results of even a small number of people in the hundreds panicking in a in an enclosed area I mean and there are a number of unfortunate circumstances that are available for discussion people who are in panic are not going to be able to be managed they are going to run and and that is why I mean these this sidewalk is nowhere near as wide as some of the sidewalks in the in the other part of downtown and people are not going to be able to be managed by a doorman or two if there is an emergency and and therefore we have to create a structural situation that will accommodate the emergency because if everything if if there weren't the possibility of emergencies then the billion specter could could be the one to permit this such a a billion such as this but that's not the case and I think it is important that we can't plan for every emergency but we can we can say that in an emergency the exit doors have to safely accommodate patrons who are probably not going to be walking out calmly is that a hand raised Mr. Maxfield yeah just I think just another consideration for us on this matter too I think if we were to have it remove the that seven inch rise directly outside of the doors where it's going to be painted as well I think it does create also a more clear delineation of where people are and aren't supposed to be standing as well as improving safety because in normal circumstances in an emergency people would simply leave and go down the sidewalk but where I think in the event of an emergency people inside are going to know what that is before the people on the side walk do and when people come out they're going to have a crowd to their right and their left and are going to go forward into that that seven inch barrier I think possibly a railing to raise it so it's not a tripping hazard it is a possibility as well but I think there is a benefit to if it can be removed just outside those doors I think it creates a lot of benefits as well as a improved safety Mr. Sloviter I think this is a valid topic to pursue especially in the era of guns and random shootings and who knows what that's sort of the extreme emergency that comes to mind with all this I think a railing would be a terrific idea for not non-emergencies to control the movement that might be helpful but if we're really talking about emergencies a railing will restrict movement it will trap people and for some reason the incident in I think it was South Korea earlier this year where a hundred people were trampled because they were in a confined area is I don't think we want to confine the area I think I'd rather have a few broken bones than crushing I have to I have to comment that I'm very impressed by Mr. O'Rourke's general answers and his management history and the proper staffing and all of that so there is there's reason in my mind to to give credibility to everything that he has been saying about operations but if we are now discussing emergency situations with stampeding people who have just heard a bunch of gunshots and I can't believe anybody would think that a gun incident is not possible a stampede is the word that comes to my mind and that's really what we're talking about it's we love to think it's unlikely here in lovely tranquil Amherst but they thought that in Louisville and everywhere else so stampedes out of the door don't need a seven inch lip they don't need a railing they need safe quick egress I don't know I'm not proposing an exact solution because I think a non-gradual ramp is almost as bad as a step so I'm not I'm not sure what exactly to do but if we're talking about a lot of people coming quickly out of three doors we need them to disperse very quickly without tripping hazards okay well Mr. O'Rourke can you put your thinking cap on and talk with your architect and talk with Jones maybe you can come back with some ideas you've heard some thoughts here about the concerns we I think pretty well expressed by the board I didn't I bet you didn't think this was going to be the issue that we spent this much time on but I think in today's world it's just something we have to think about especially when you're looking at a at a 500 hopefully you'll have a full you'll have a full establishment and you'll have 500 people that that you have to think about so that'd be really a really helpful if you do that and come back with some ideas and we'll give it some thought as well Mr. Wachila would it be okay with the board if I shared a list of concerns and talking points from tonight's meeting with the applicant just so he has a good idea of what to bring to the next meeting okay I think well before we get done tonight we're going to go through a list of things that we of ideas with questions that we have we're going to have just so we all have on the same page and of course Mr. O'Rourke should have that because otherwise he won't be able to answer our mind Bob you can email you can email all that stuff today that'd be that'd be easier and better you know kind of the hitting point says I've been making my own my own list of stuff but I mean again I think I mean I do think that we all kind of knew the subjects that were going to matter to everybody and the ones that we could address the most so yeah but yes if you can you know that's going to be fun okay that would be helpful one thing that I did notice I think we exhausted discussion about the the sidewalk and the we want to call it one of the questions I did have was is there there's not a traffic impact statement and we haven't really dealt with traffic is a lot and I know you have an assertion in your in your application that you don't think there's going to be a lot an a large impact is that something that members of the board are comfortable with do we think this is sort of a common-sense approach do you think we need to have a traffic impact statement from the applicant and I would like just to hear a discussion about that and then move on because if we're going to require one he should know about it now if we're not going to require one I don't want to have to burden the applicant with an unreasonable unreasonable task so what do people think Mr. next field did you have some thoughts on this you I mean I know you're I kind of rely upon you because I know you're on the licensing board you've got some experience with bars and and I mean not your personal experience with bars but your professional experience your volunteer experience with bars what do you think about that and what do you think about the the need for traffic impact statement my initial feeling is probably not just because I think although I definitely think spoke live is going to be a little much more busy than Old Town Tavern was if you consider we already had Old Town Tavern there and we had the pub at one point all spoke was still operating there I don't think it was causing any traffic issues that I'm aware of I don't expect this to cause more traffic issues of people driving there I think you're going to see you know Uber coming down there but we're Pre Street I almost feel like does get treated like a it is a public way but it is often treated as a kind of like a parking lot road you're going in there if you're going to those businesses I imagine most traffic would still continue down North Pleasant to the rotary would be my expectation I could probably be I might be able to be convinced that I'm wrong on this and we might need traffic study but if you're asking me I don't think we would need one Mr. Jones can I need Marshall absolutely yes a quick comment on what Mr. Maxwell touched on so rideshare services that is something that was was brought up in here and I and wasn't discussed real quick but just to give you guys a little bit of answer on that so obviously that is the the major thing we do not get a lot of people that drive a lot of people walk a lot of people use the the public transportation and a lot of people use rideshare we do not allow the Ubers or whatever the businesses are these days of rideshare to to stop at the main road of East Puzzich Street we do direct them down prairie street for those purposes and what Mr. Maxwell says where the you know the perception of prairie street has always been sort of that of a parking lot side street that is the truth that is there's not a whole heck of a lot of activity I think Jason skills from the town would would support that and so you know with the rideshare aspect of things we direct them down prairie street for those purposes because it's safer easier for them to not have to turn around and you know come down from East Puzz and continue down straight and around so that is I'm sure one of the topics that would come up in this and that is how we handle that Miss Marshall made you have you have your hand up yeah thank you Mr. Ork is a couple times said College Street I think you mean Triangle Street Triangle Street is on the other yeah not even close I don't see a need for a traffic impact study but I would like to see on one of the drawing and actually you know some markings for where you ask the rideshares to queue up I'm into light and if you if they're coming in from East Pleasant you know if you envision it as a one way flow I would like to see that on the drawing I mean I think you said that at that time at night there's very little few vehicles are parked in front of the building and either of those Jones buildings so is that on that side kind of across the the parking spots that you're asking these vehicles to queue up anyway that's why I think a drawing would be helpful to me like I said the parking aspect of things you'd be surprised to see you know in that perspective in front of the building down the Jones building of how many open spots there are at night which goes to show you the lack of driving which is good that's what we encourage we don't want anybody leaving and getting into a vehicle so we obviously do our best to encourage the ride sharing you know that's a a really that would could be a really persuasive piece if there was a even a first study just of how much parking is available on a given night just from the the existing spoke patrons and clientele if there's still a lot of parking available there now that tells us something I think indicative of of the users the customers that you're likely to get but even that would be even that if you would do that that would be valuable just even I mean we'd have to take you at your word for it just kind of go out take a look and do a survey but that would be valuable Mr. Sloveter did you have your hand up I well wait a minute oh I'm unmuted how about that I sort of did mostly I was just touching my face I think that a comment that Mr. O'Rourke made when we were at the site visit of that he the that spoke is only open Thursday, Friday and Saturday with an occasional Sunday perhaps and that they don't open until eight o'clock I have been on pray street in the evening and it's close to a ghost town most nights it's really quiet the business is closed so there's sort of an inherent protection against traffic problems because no one else is there and I thought that was actually a valid point that is hours of operation coincide beautifully with all of his neighbors not being there so I find that credible and I I actually agree with Mr. Maxfield that my initial inclination is that a traffic study is not is not necessary unless somebody walks down walks there on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday and sees a problem but I have never seen one and I've driven through there so I'm I'm pretty comfortable that that's the case Mrs. Marshall you said you live in that area so I think you probably could verify that as well by living in that part of the community and I'm sure you've seen that to be true as well there that's true although I must say if I'm driving up East Pleasant because I I might take pray street over and then up to Cottage street frankly when I see so many people outside the spoke I just stay on East Pleasant because I don't really want to you know drive in where maybe there are a lot of people milling about so so I guess I'll so I don't in fact drive there at least on when the spoke is hoping for at least there are cubes but yes generally pretty darn quiet Mr. O'Connor yeah so I'm familiar with the street because from about 2006 to 2014 I was the transportation for four teenagers who attended and their and their teammates and classmates who attended Amherst regional high school and so the the only traffic I would say that will end up there is maybe some foot traffic from football games basketball games track and field meets and so forth soccer soccer games maybe foot traffic to the buses it was just speaking of the buses though I I would given that the the hours the closing hours proposed to be one o'clock I wonder if we could if the staff could forward to us the bus schedules for the buses that run on East Pleasant street past here that would be used because I I think even university students who might come to this location would tend might tend to take the buses that run through the center of the campus so it'd be good to know when those buses I was the ride home last spring from February to May for somebody who got off of work at 11th you know 1230 at night and lived on East Hadley Road and so I'm familiar with driving down East Pleasant street at this at these times at nights and how few buses there are so it would be good to have some information about the bus service and also if we if we had and I in providing rides to people who don't have cars I I have I've gotten occasional yeah I you know I tried to call an Uber but I couldn't find anyone so there are times and seasons and so forth where the availability of Uber and Lyft activity is not not all that great so I if there's some kind of way that those organizations could provide us with information on there the extent of their operations and the availability of of drivers it would be helpful I I don't know whether they can do that all I know is from personal experience that those who who who work in the healthcare field mostly who who do not have all-in-mobiles often are are their co-workers refer them to me because they can't find an Uber when they need one and so I think that's all part of trying to figure out I mean I think the other members who have said that they don't think of the traffic survey is needed I think are correct but I think if we're going to depend on the buses and Uber and Lyft we need to have some parameters before us so that we can have thoughtful discussions about how realistic all this is so Rob can you get bus schedule that'd be easy enough to do I'm not sure how you get a survey of Lyft Mr. O'Connor I don't know how they get a survey of Lyft just ask them how many drivers are available in this area but I don't even know how where you'd go for that maybe they can figure it out but I don't know if you call San Francisco and ask them I just don't know what you do no I I think they have regional coordination you could I mean there's a way to contact them obviously they a lot of people contact them every day so the question is just do they can they tease out from the from their information something would be helpful to us for the shot see what you can do I think it's yeah what's important is we know we can get the we got a lot of information from the boss we can get that might be able to get something from from Lyft and and Uber if can it's a it's a bonus I think but it's a it may be really time consuming to try to search that out and again I think that if the last thing you can do is you know if a couple of photographs over the next couple of weeks would be really helpful it shows us how empty the parking lot is at 10 o'clock that's just that I think that would actually kind of seal the deal I think on a traffic study and and remove that as an issue Mr. O'Rourke okay that'd be helpful yep Ms. Brestra so I was thinking that Mr. O'Rourke must have information about the availability of Uber and Lyft if those two services are already serving his clients so maybe he could help to provide some of that information too yeah I mean I've never never ever contacted them directly like Mr. Judge had indicated I don't I don't know how you would go about that but I mean we as as the the operators of the business and employees of the business see it utilized often you know and it's a service I think that is readily accessible I wouldn't know how to answer Mr. O'Rourke's question on that because I don't know it to not be accessible by anybody that needs it you know and getting the PBTA schedule obviously would would certainly be a an indication to would be able to answer one one of that part of that question but the accessibility of Uber Lyft those apps these days as far as I know are generally very accessible especially you know if you're talking about during the hours of our operation Thursday Friday and Saturday where it's not an obscure day that's that's the day I think where they they are running the most and are the most accessible okay so do we have other do we have other questions comments concerns things that people wish to have at least addressed in any conditions that we impose we may impose if we decide positively on this application at the next meeting I guess I just had one last thing and this is I think this is what you were referring to that you just discovered today Mr. O'Rourke but on page nine of the project application report under the terms from the fire department from Mr. Baskham's letter he talks about consider requiring emergency respond to radio coverage in accordance with section 916 of the MSBC and NFPA 72 sections 24.5 I have no idea what those are but I would guess that that's the what you were talking about correct I mean I had it outlined for you to explain it to me but but you didn't we both are in the dark but it's the it's the radio access right yeah well Mr. Morrow enlightened me on it today on what it is and explain better of what the system is but that's exactly you know what we had talked about before it's a it's a reactionary thing once the you know once the sound mitigation systems are put into place and that's satisfied I think at that point during their inspections of to sign off on from the fire department's perspective of things that's part of the what they perform in their inspections and if they determine it to be a necessity to to install this booster system that that it gets done and then the design review board had three requests that they had they made one includes the hours of operations on the door one talks about the main entrance of putting a sign on the north side of the building saying main entrance this way pointing to the main entrance and the last is that I'll try and be and including doors and awnings to be painted white are you willing to put that is that something you intend to do and if we put that in a condition is that something you would do yeah I mean I know you do it if you put it in a condition but is that something you're willing to do yeah it's not something I'm not willing to do I think during that design review board discussion you know part of the the argument to the signage thing was that it may not be necessary because the reality is is you're going to know where to go the it's it's suitable okay it's subject to put to put a sign that says this way to hear and then the lighting the illumination yeah this way to the front door yeah yeah I mean you know where you see where the line there the queuing starts you see where the dormant are you you know you see the illuminated part right I don't I don't think it's necessary but again if the board at the end of of everything deems it necessary and then so be it and the illuminating signs I don't personally want to illuminate the signs I don't find it necessary to if the if the in terms of maybe like a sign box we could certainly put a downward lighting over the sign that's what we have at the the current spoke building our spokes signs are not illuminated per se as like a sign box goes where you think about the illumination from behind the sign they're illuminated above the sign you know that's a topic we had discussed that with the design review board as well so they didn't specify you know yeah I don't see that as anything it's just sort of lighting the sign and I think part of the topic that came up the reality is is then I mean people are going to know we're there I think that was one of the topic that's you know so again with the design review board they they sort of left it up for discussion yeah I guess the the white trim is the agreed upon thing and the other yeah yeah I see you to consider it right yeah that's there that's just what we're going to I think what the subject that came up with that one was you know what do you get the brick is the brick and that's the roof is the roof and what's around the rest of that what's the trim around the windows and it's white wood trim and and you know the discussion was that we're just going to paint it nicely make it clean looking and there's nothing majorly impactful that's I don't want to supersede the judgment of the design review board because I don't have any sense of good design anyway so that's their job Miss Marshall you have a good sense of judgment and oh no no no I'm just asked and I'm not going to claim claim that but I know there's a streetlight you know in the parking lot and there are probably some right on East Pleasant so I wonder if if the light is so downcast it doesn't illuminate the building at all or or whether it will in fact feel it by the lights that are already present right above the corner right above where that entrance is between us and the bank there's some pretty major lighting right there on the parking lot it's very well let perhaps somebody and maybe I'll be walking there in the dark you know just notice if the light impinges on the sides of the building okay any other yeah Mr O'Connor yeah I wondered if we have any observers who might have suggestions something that we've entirely missed I don't know if any hands have been raised in the audience but if if there are might this might be a time to check with we will we'll get to public comment as soon as we're done with our discussion and there and that will be shortly but we're trying to wrap up the discussion right now amongst board members and the and the applicant but I I agree it's always helpful to have the public comment any more comments from the board all right let's see if there's public comments and if you do have a comment you wish to make please raise your hand and if so we'll call upon you with the help of the staff when called upon please state your name and address for the record and address your comments to the board and try to keep your comments to around three minutes so Mr Chairman we do have we do have one hand raised from Pamela Rooney do you want me to make her talk okay yep all righty bring her into the room there you go let's see if you could make me talk Pam Rooney 42 Cottage Street so I often come down Cottage Street and I cut right across to Prey Street because I don't and I would not be able to see what kind of crowd was there until I get around the bend I want to talk a little bit about the traffic on that street it is foot traffic that does worry me um oftentimes when I come down Prey Street I have to ease my way past people starting to queue up at spoke number one thank you for the question about when does the bus run I'm not sure the answer but that's a very good question so even though there may not be a lot of vehicle traffic on that street there also has never been a 560 person venue on that street before so we don't really know the draw we don't really know the uber traffic even to bring people there the the you've all brought up some very very good questions about the queuing and the noise outside in terms of the queuing what occurs to me is that at spoke number one the queue is the sidewalk and that completely fills the public sidewalk which we're expecting our high school people going downtown to use we're expecting other people to use and that that is a concern I have had to ease past people that spill out either coming across East Pleasant Street or spilling off of the sidewalk on the north side of Prey Street um the concern another concern on the this new side of the of Prey Street the south side of Prey Street is that again queuing will be essentially filling that sidewalk and so those of us who walk that side of the street or anyone coming from East Pleasant Street to join the queue will end up having to skirt the parked cars which puts everybody literally everybody but the queue in jeopardy of of the traffic so it's probably not vehicular traffic but pedestrian traffic that most concerns me if there are if there's a plan where Uber queuing can occur that would be very helpful parking spaces I know there are 32 spaces across the street I don't know where the 20 number came from because at that hour of night I think I don't know I don't know what's being occupied now except those those folks that have the general permit that live in typically in in Kendrick Place trying to cover all my notes here number number one concern never ever ever any outdoor dining or outdoor music please number two can somebody provide a comparison of the number of 560 patrons compare it to what does the spoke spoke number one currently contain what are the other downtown just establishment like the Drake I don't remember those numbers but I think we should refresh our memory on that all of those other places perhaps except the Drake are places that serve food and some alcohol this is going to be a alcohol only pretty much establishment and behavior noise all of that has to be all of your management has to be commensurate with this alcohol only activity with a great deal of a great number of people I looked at the looking now going inside restaurants does that meet the state code does that meet the state code for drinking establishments again with no food it's not a restaurant where you you know use the restroom once this is lots of lots of liquid lots of volume I lived in North Amherst across from what is now the harp Mike's Westview Cafe notoriously had people urinating outdoors all the time because they had insufficient restaurants in that facility and we certainly don't want that happening in Kendrick Park you've talked about noise thank you for bringing that up again it is the noise in the queues outdoors that concerns me the most then the carefully managed indoor noise so kindly consider that outdoor noise and I look forward to more of that discussion about the seven inch curb which is to keep people from stepping off to the parking area as a normal walker I totally understand the concerns raised about the emergency egress and hopefully you'll talk about that again thank you very much for letting me speak thank you sironi any other comments from the public all right this is the opportunity for you Mr. O'Rourke to respond if you if you need to I mean I know a lot of those subjects have already been discussed but if you wish to respond to any of the public comments yeah the bathroom the bathroom now is your opportunity the bathroom concern by Mrs. Rooney is done by a code and so the bath our capacity is determined by the bathrooms so I can't have three stalls in a 500 person capacity it doesn't work that way the architect was hired to design design the capacity based on there's two things that come to play the the the bathrooms and then the square footage in the capacity determined based on that the bathrooms are sufficient to meet that capacity so that's all done by code so that hopefully will satisfy her concern on that but but it is it is determined that way there is an architectural design board that's in place