Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Committee on Ordinance. I'm Chairman Pedro Espinall, to my
right is Vice Chair, Councilwoman Shelley Peterson, to my left is Councilman Oscar Varga, as well
as Councilman Justin Roy. Thank you so much for being here. Today is October 22nd, and
the time is 6 p.m. Thank you. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
Chairman Espinall.
Present.
Vice Chairwoman Peterson.
Present.
Councilwoman Harris is absent. Councilman Vargas.
Present.
Councillor Royas.
Present.
You have four present and one absent. You have a quorum.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I know that there is so many people here.
You will all have an opportunity to speak before us,
so take your time. Make sure you sign in.
I'll enter today's motion to take an item out of order.
So moved.
Second.
Thank you.
Madam Clerk, Item Number 2, please.
Item Number 2 is an ordinance in amendment of Chapter 27 of the Code of Ordinances entitled
The City of Providence Owning Ordinance Approved November 24, 2014 as amended to change the
zoning district on the official zoning map for the property located on Assessors Pl.
Lot 33, Lot 341, 22 to 24 DeSoto Street from R3 to MMU.
Thank you.
And we have from our planning department, Mr. Bobby, to present on this.
Bob, as you walk towards us, I'll entertain a motion to enter into the records of A.
So moved.
Motion is made by Councilman Peterson.
Second by Councilman Bagas.
All in favor?
Aye.
Opposed?
The ayes have it.
Also, I'd like to take a motion to enter into the right
collectivity, which is the letter from the CPC.
May 4th, by Councilwoman Peterson,
second by Councilwoman Bagas,
and in favor, aye.
Aye.
Opposed, the ayes have it.
Thank you.
Mr. Asa, thanks.
Mr. Chair, members of the committee,
Robert Azar, Deputy Director,
Department of Planning and Development.
This petition, I believe, has a substitute
is that right? Yes. And has that already been accepted? It has. Okay, thank you. These are
three lots on DeSoto Street. They're currently zoned R3, which is three family residential.
However, they're occupied by industrial businesses and sometimes we see that that you have these
sort of legacy businesses that might have been established before there was zoning or
they may have been established by variants, but this is an area that has a predominance
of industrial uses and it is directly adjacent to the MMU 75 zone which is a mixed use zone
that allows for a variety of different uses including light industrial, residential and
commercial. All zoning changes have to be consistent with the comprehensive plan, particularly
the future land use map. This area is intended by that map to be one where medium density
residential uses are located adjacent to business and mixed use development.
So given
Given that, the City Plan Commission voted unanimously
to advise the City Council to rezone these lots to MMU
based on the conformance with the comprehensive plan
and with the purposes of zoning.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Acer.
City Sergeant, can you bring me up?
Anyone that has signed up to speak
on item number two, please.
Thank you.
The first person that has signed up to speak on this item is Derek Sacko.
The next person is Gracie Mendez.
I wonder, City Sergeant, is this for item number two?
He may have taken the wrong one. It doesn't say I'm going to decide on number two.
Is there anyone here that signed up to speak on item number two?
because I see six people signed up on this item,
but it might be the, your intention may have been
to speak on a different item,
exactly.
So, do we have anybody to speak on item number two?
All right, so hearing non-city,
I'll just, can you put this back there?
All right, hearing that there is no one here
to speak on item number two,
I'll enter the motion to close the public hearing
Second by Councilman Bargas on her favor aye, opposed the ayes have it,
and after hearing
the testimony from the CPC, Mr. Azar and all these data facts, I'll entertain a motion
to approve.
So moved.
As amended.
Motion is made by Councilman Peterson and second by Councilman Bargas on her favor
aye.
Opposed?
The ayes have it.
that item number two is approved.
I'll let this in a motion to take another item out of order.
Second.
All in favor, aye.
Aye.
Opposed, the ayes have it, thank you.
Madam Clerk, item number four.
Item number four is a petition from Gilberto
as applicant and landowner J&B Auto Repair
and S&E Properties, LLC,
submitting a zone change for the property located
on Assessors Pl. 110, Lot 409, 118 Silver Lake Avenue from R3 to C3.
Thank you.
Mr. Azar, will you be speaking on this one?
And now I'll entertain a motion to enter into the record exhibit E.
May the Councilor Warren Peters, second by Councilor Auden favor aye.
Opposed, the ayes have it. Thank you.
And I'll let us attest the money to be exhibit.
Madam Clerk, do you have the exhibit?
It
is the letter from the CPC.
We're doing it.
Okay.
Yes.
And also I'd like to take a motion to enter into the right collection F, which is the
letter of testimony made by Councilwoman Peterson, second by Councilwoman Baiga, all in favor
aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
Yes.
But thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hazer.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This petition is for a piece of property that is currently located in the also the
in the three-family residential zone, and like the last one, this is a non-residential
use. It's an auto repair facility. And it's a little unclear how this became to be an
auto repair facility, but the city doesn't recognize it as such. It's possible that
it had some sort of non-residential use, some commercial use, and over time it kind
morphed into a auto repair facility without getting the proper zoning, and I believe that
this is currently under violation and it doesn't have a license to operate.
So the owner has petitioned to change this to C3, which would allow for auto repair.
It so happens that there is a C3 zone directly across the street on Farmington Avenue,
And because of that, and the way that the future land use map of the comprehensive plan is drawn,
it would be permissible for you to change this to the C3 zone.
So the City Plan Commission did have concerns about the condition of the site
and the way that this facility is being operated,
particularly that there's no screening from neighborhood property and there's no tree canopy or any sort of landscaping at all.
And there was also some evidence that there had been some storage of vehicles and maybe even some repair being done in the public right of way.
So these are conditions that have to be the way it's operated with respect to outdoor repairs and things like that.
Those are going to have to be rectified if they're still going on as a condition of getting a license and complying with zoning.
But the City Plan Commission in its recommendation to approve this has requested that the petitioners
screen the property in compliance with Section 1202 AA of the ordinance and that they meet
the canopy coverage requirements under the supervision of the City Forester.
We would ask that prior to this zoning change going into effect that they get a zoning
certificate to indicate conformance with these changes and also there is a request that a
footnote be added to the map to limit the use of the lot to vehicle repair and service.
If you don't do that then this lot would be eligible for any other use in the C3 zone.
So you know if you if you so choose you could you could amend this
To add that footnote.
Thank you, Mr.
Do we not do we have anybody that has signed up to speak on item four?
City Sergeant, can I get anything you have a night in four?
On item number four we have Stephanie amongst our which right to come up and speak on item four.
Oh
All right, City Sergeant, could you please put this back?
Mr. Aza, what was the recommended amendment?
Could you come up again please?
The recommendation was that a footnote be added
to the zoning map to limit the use of the lot
to vehicle repair and service.
So that would be so that other types
of commercial uses wouldn't be allowed.
it would just be for that. So a vehicle and repair service? Yes. Thank you Mr.
Acer. What that said from Mr. Acer, I want to take a motion to amend number 4 and put
the food note in there for use for vehicle repair and service. Seconded.
Seconded. Seconded by Councilman Vargas on a favor, aye. Opposed, the ayes have
it. I also want to take a motion to close the public hearing on item
Item number four, seconded by Councilwoman Peterson,
seconded by Councilwoman Vargas on her favor,
aye, opposed, the ayes have it.
Being that no one else signed up to testify on this item,
so following the instruction from the CPC,
I want to take that motion to approve.
As amended.
Made by Councilwoman Peterson,
seconded by Councilwoman Vargas on her favor,
aye, opposed, the ayes have it, thank you.
Item number four is approved.
Let me ask you this, because I want to get through the main topics that I hear.
Did anyone signed up to speak on item five, six, or seven?
These are zoning matters,
on item five.
And we just did four.
Okay, so I'll let you take a motion to take another item out of order.
Second by Councilor Peterson, second by Councilor Bagas,
and a favor, aye.
Opposed?
The ayes have it.
Madam Clerk, item number five, please.
Item number five is a petition from America M. Scungio.
Esquire, Scungio, and Priolo, 167 Main Street, Westerly, Rhode Island, 02891, requesting a zone
change for the property located on Assessors Pl. 32, a portion of Lot 38, 268 Carpenter
Street from R3 to C2.
Thank you, Madam Clerk, and we also have a sub-A on item number five, so I'd like to
take a motion to enter into the record sub-A, made by Councilwoman Peterson, second by
Councilman Vagga, all in favor, aye. Opposed, the ayes have it. I'll also enter in a motion
to enter into the record exhibit F and exhibit G, which is a letter of testimony as well as
a letter from the CPC. May the Councilwoman Peterson, second by Councilman Vagga, all
in favor, aye. Opposed, the ayes have it. Thank you. City Sergeant, can I get the
signed up list for item number five please.
And this one we have America, I'm sorry, Mr.
Aza please first. Mr. America, just give me a second here.
Mr.
Chair, okay, this one is a, there's a piece of property that's surrounded, a piece
of property on Carpenter Street that's surrounded by property in the C2 zone.
All of it is owned by the same property owner, and it's used for commercial purposes except
this property at 268 Carpenter has a house on it, but the rear yard of it is also used
for commercial purposes.
And originally there was a bit of a convoluted request to change the zoning for two different
parcels, but in speaking with the petitioner, everybody agreed that the goal here is to make
it so that the most of 268 carpenter can be used for commercial purposes.
So our suggestion was to simply change that lot from R3 to C2.
to. As I said, it's surrounded to the west, south, and east by C2 already. And there is
a house there. There are residential uses which are allowed in the C2 zone. So this
is a very simple zoning change. It's supported by the future land use map of a comprehensive
of plan and the City Planning Commission unanimously approved a recommendation for the City Council
to change this to C2.
Thank you, Mr. Azar.
Okay, Mariko,
good evening.
My name is Mariko Scungio, I represent the applicant.
I just wanted to bring to the attention of the committee that the petition was amended
As Mr. Hazar said that the entire portion of the lot at 268 and the amended petition is proposed to be changed to C2 from the R3 zone and that the second petition which is number six on your agenda was withdrawn.
Just wanted to make sure that that was clear on the record.
We have that.
Okay. Thank you.
That's all.
Thank you so much.
Okay, being that no one else signed up on item five,
I'll enter that motion to close the public hearing
on item five.
Second.
Second by Councilwoman Peterson,
second by Councilwoman Vargas on her favor, aye.
Aye.
Opposed, the ayes have it.
And I'll entertain a motion to pass item five
as amended.
Second.
Second by Councilwoman Peterson,
second by Councilwoman Vargas on her favor, aye.
Opposed, the ayes have it.
Item number five is approved.
I'll entertain a motion to take another item out of order.
Second.
Made by Councilman Peterson, second by Councilman Beigel
and in favor of aye.
Opposed, the ayes have a.
Madam Clerk, item number six, please.
Item number six is a petition from
America M. Scungio, Esquire, Scungio,
Empriola 167 Main Street,
Westerly, Rhode Island, 02891,
requesting a zone change for the property
located on Assessors Pl. 32,
to a portion of Lot 596, 1155 Westminster Street
from C2 to R3.
Thank you.
Being that the petitioner has requested
for this item to be withdrawn,
I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing
on item number six,
made by Councilwoman Peterson,
seconded by Councilwoman Vargas on her favor, aye.
Opposed, the ayes have it.
And I'll entertain a motion to continue indefinitely.
Made by Councilwoman Peterson,
seconded by Councilwoman Vargas on her favor, aye.
Opposed, the ayes have it.
Item number six is continuing definitely.
Thank you.
Wishing to take another item out of order, please.
Made by Councilwoman Peterson.
Second by Councilwoman Vargas.
All in favor, aye.
Opposed, the ayes have it.
Thank you.
Final clerk, item number seven, please.
Item number seven is a petition from Jeffrey Padwa,
Esquire One Park Row, fifth floor,
Providence, Rhode Island, 02903,
dated July 1st, 2025 on behalf of OneCharles,
the applicant LLC requesting to amend
the Providence Zoning Ordinance
to change the zoning district
for the parcel located at OneCharles Street,
assesses plat three lot 616 from R4 to D145
to allow the continued use of the property
as short-term rental
without an owner occupancy requirement.
Thank you. Mr. Azar.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This property on Charles Street is directly
across the street from the D1 downtown zone. It's surrounded by a multifamily complex,
and it consists of historic brick mill type building that we understand has been
used for short-term rentals for a number of years. With the comprehensive plan we
expanded the R4 zone in part, well primarily, to generate more housing in
the city and because we wanted long-term housing we imposed a condition on the
R4 zone that any short-term rentals have to be owner occupied so this this
petition came to us because they've had a long-term short-term rental here and
they want to continue to operate it that way but not with the requirement
that it be owner-occupied, and given its location directly adjacent to downtown, a logical zoning
change to effectuate the goal of the petition would be to include it in the downtown zone,
but at the 45-foot height limit, that's what D-145 means.
And that would also provide some protection as it is a historic building against any kind of demolition without a significant review.
And so the City Plan Commission considered this and given its location, which is, again,
you know, kind of in a downtown location and not in the neighborhoods, not in the more
residential neighborhoods, the commission felt like this was a reasonable request.
So they voted to make a positive recommendation to change this zoning to D 145
Thank You miss days on
City Sergeant, do we have anybody that signed up on item number seven?
Good evening, Mr. Chairman members of the committee. Thank you so much
Appreciate your time and attention. This is I represent Carlos Varum and the LLC one trials LLC the owner of this building
building. These images were part of our petition. You can see kind of the unique location of
this property. If you go down South Main Street and North Main Street goes to the right, and
Charles Street goes straight, and he's just on that little tongue right where the Moshassik
River is. You can see it's an old mill building. He did buy the building about four or five
years ago and complied with the requirement that he get a special permit every year
to use this for the short-term rental.
The zone change, recent zone change,
then required is to be owner-occupied.
This is not owner-occupied kind of a building
and so that's why we're requesting the zone change.
As Mr. Azar said, it is consistent
with the comprehensive plans and conformance
with the goals and objectives of the zoning ordinance,
also supported by Councilwoman Andrew Bois.
Thank you. Any questions from my committee members?
Here and now, thank you so much.
I think I have a question.
Councillor Mabarraga, please. Jeff, please.
Sorry. I'm so sorry.
So the short-term rental is the whole building or one unit?
All five units in the building.
All five units short-term rental.
Yes. Short-term rental means like RBMB, something like that.
Yes.
Thank you.
Carlos, would you like to speak on this or?
How are you? My name is Carlos Varum. Good evening.
I'm the owner, one of the owners of one Charles LLC. The other owners are my wife, Jennifer, and my two parents.
We've been investing in Providence for a long time, bringing dead properties and distressed properties back to life.
and we have a lot of long-term rentals in the city and we have a little bit of
short-term rentals as well here.
We've been doing it for over six years. On any
given day, there's 20-25 people working for us between managing,
building, communications, cleaning, laundry, deliveries, maintenance, et cetera.
In 2022, as Jeff said, we did purchase this property.
It was used as commercial, and we turned it into five residential units.
We closed on May 2022, and on June 2022, we pulled our first temporary use permit for
short-term rentals there. We've consistently renewed that every single year since we've
owned the building. During this time, it co-existed peacefully with surrounding properties. There's
been no nuisance complaints, zoning violations, or enforcement actions.
The rentals have
not resulted in any traffic congestion, parking problems, or degradation of neighborhood
character, guess have been well managed. Operations are very professional, consistent with hospitality
model that benefits the city and the economy.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Van. I see it's a family business. We appreciate that and thank you for investing
in Providence.
Thank you.
I'll entertain a motion to close the one
that I just got.
Before we close the public hearing,
I'll entertain a motion to enter into the record,
exhibit I, which is a CPC letter,
may by Councilwoman Peterson,
second by Councilwoman Vargas,
on our favor, aye.
Oppose, the ayes have it.
Thank you.
And now I'll entertain a motion to close the public
hearing on item number seven.
May by Councilwoman Peterson,
second by Councilwoman Vargas,
on our favor, aye.
Opposed, the ayes have it. Now I'd like to take a motion to approve item 7.
Seconded by Councilwoman Peterson, seconded by Councilwoman Bygaston.
Opposed, the ayes have it.
Can I be a record to oppose?
I'm sorry.
What was that?
Item 7.
You're abstaining?
No, oppose.
So we have 300 positive, one in the negative, the motion passes. Thank you.
Okay, so now we'll go back to item number one, which is pertaining to entertainment.
Before we do that, I'd like to acknowledge our city solicitor who is here tonight.
Thank you so much for being here. Council President Rachel Miller is also here.
Councilman Miguel Sanchez, thank you for being here.
Councilwoman Harris, Chairwoman Ryan was also here.
My apologies that I didn't acknowledge you before.
Chief of Staff and our policy team.
Thank you so much for being here.
Madam Clerk, Item Number 1, please.
Item Number 1 is an ordinance in amendment of Chapter 27
of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Providence
entitled, The City of Providence Zoning Ordinance
approved November 24, 2014 as amended to change
to change articles 2 and 12 relating to entertainment.
Thank you.
I also have a sub-bay on item number one,
so I'll entertain a motion to enter into the record,
sub-bay, made by Councilwoman Peterson,
seconded by Councilwoman Varga,
so I'll enter in favor of aye.
Opposed, the ayes have it, thank you.
I also have entered in a motion to enter
into the record, exhibit B,
and also see which are letters of our testimony maybe I guess woman Peterson
second second by Councilman Vargas on a favor I oppose the ice habit I'll also
entertain a motion to enter into the record exhibit see we
don't order so
we have thank you so much okay mr. A's up please good
evening again mr. A's
Good evening again.
This is item number one, correct?
Yes.
Just want to make sure.
Okay, so this ordinance is actually relatively simple.
It would make some amendments to the way we deal
with entertainment in the zoning ordinance.
Incidental entertainment is a definition
that is proposed to be changed.
and incidental entertainment, we created this a number of years ago which is
specifically entertainment that doesn't need an entertainment license from the
Board of Licensing and it was always intended to be background music and
and the way it was originally defined was music that was played over an
existing sound system with a previously established playlist. And then if it was live music performance,
it was limited to not more than a maximum of three acoustic instruments that couldn't
be amplified in any way. So even if you had in the corner of a restaurant someone playing
acoustic guitar with a microphone that wasn't at a loud volume, that wouldn't even be
allowed because it was amplified, although you could have music that was amplified over
a sound system.
So there were some inconsistencies in the way this was originally written.
And so the intention of this is to change the definition of incidental entertainment
so that it allows for live music performance, it allows for pre-recorded music played
from a pre-selected playlist, but there's no limit on the number of instrumentalists
and there's no prohibition on instrumental music being amplified.
However, there is still a prohibition against sound permeating beyond the premises, and
And there are also limitations, there are new proposed limitations on live performance
that it would have to cease by 9 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on weekends.
There currently is a prohibition against a cover charge that would remain.
There's currently a prohibition against lasers and strobe lights and flashing lights that would remain.
There's currently a prohibition against dancing.
That would not, that would be lifted so that if someone were so moved to dance based on the music that would be performed,
they'd be allowed to do that,
there wouldn't be a zoning violation.
So in our opinion, these are common sense changes,
things that are frankly happening already
without causing any problems.
So that's a change.
And then we also are proposing a change
to what is currently called temporary outdoor entertainment.
There was a category that was created so that you could have temporary outdoor entertainment,
which might mean music at a block party, music at a wedding that might be in somebody's house,
or in a place where entertainment is not typically allowed, like in a commercial zone.
The issue is that while we had a process to allow for temporary outdoor entertainment,
there was no real process in these same areas to allow for temporary indoor entertainment.
So this is kind of a cleanup that clarifies that temporary entertainment would be allowed
in a number of different places, but under strict rules.
No more than nine events per calendar year
with a minimum of 30 days between events.
Temporary structures have to be removed
within five days of the conclusion of an event.
And also the entertainment would be,
have to be located on a piece of property
as opposed to the public right of way
unless an encroachment permit would be allowed
by the Department of Public Works.
And then finally, temporary entertainment would be,
would have to get a license by the Board of Licenses.
We had previously allowed the zoning official
to issue temporary use permits.
We're proposing that to be changed
so that you'd have to get a license.
So in many ways, this clarifies, rationalizes, and tightens up the current regulations.
In my opinion and the opinion of the City Plan Commission, these are common sense rules that will still allow for robust enforcement of our quality of life ordinances.
And therefore the City Plan Commission recommended approval of this ordinance.
Thank you Bob. So regardless whether the entertainment would happen inside or outside,
you would still be required to get a license by the Board of Licenses?
Yes, for temporary entertainment and also for what we call live entertainment, ancillary use.
And that requirement also applies to night clubs, which are not the subject of this ordinance,
but that already exists.
The only type of entertainment that doesn't require a license from the Board of Licenses
is what we call incidental entertainment, otherwise known as background music.
Which now could be live music?
It has always been allowed to be live, but live musicians can have a certain degree
of amplification, but no more than, the amplification will have to be contained to the premises.
Because the noise ordinance is still being enforced.
The noise ordinance is absolutely in effect regardless, even for night clubs, even for, you know, ticketed events and such.
And you're not allowing for extra lighting or anything like that that will make it like into a bar?
No, we're not, we're proposing to keep those same regulations in place for incidental entertainment.
Thank you.
Mr. Aza, Councilor Peterson,
Councilor Maroyas.
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Aza, I just had a, could you briefly run down the difference, the different levels
of scrutiny between the, what's in the power and toolkit of a zoning board versus board
of licenses? Should, in the scope of, should there be infractions? What is in the power
of both bodies?
Yeah, that's a good question. So the zoning board and the board of licenses have different
authorities, they both regulate aspects of what can happen on a piece of property.
The zoning board, for things that relate to the way a business performs or sort of ongoing,
if there are conditions of getting an approval, that's usually what we call a special use
use permit. Violations of a special use permit get enforced by the Department of Inspection
and Standards. So they have their own inspectors that would go to a facility and if they see
a violation, a violation would be issued. And you would have to, there's a process
that's where you end up going to housing court
or ultimately superior court depending
on how the city decides to prosecute the violation.
But that has to, those have to be regulations
that are specifically written into the zoning ordinance
that pertain to that type of use.
The Board of Licenses issues licenses
licenses for things like liquor licenses and entertainment and they actually have police
officers who will go out to the facilities and inspect. I'm a little bit out on a limb
here and I'm going to, if I get something wrong, I hope my colleague will correct me
that I think they, more so than inspection and standards
have the ability to or commonly do inspections after hours.
So for things like nightclubs or entertainment facilities,
I would argue that it's much more appropriate
for the Board of Licenses to be doing the enforcement
than inspection and standards.
And they also inspect for different things.
they're inspecting for conditions of the license and you know you know if there's
unruly behavior or things like that they can they can bring it to the attention
of the Board of Licenses and the Board of Licenses could actually take some action
with respect to the license itself.
Absolutely, go ahead Councilman. Thank
Thank you. Just so I understand clearly. Kate, can you hear me?
Thank you. Let me move this up closer.
Currently right now, so is it a zoning board that is approving permits for sort of temporary,
you know, entertainment events outside and indoors?
Is that what they're currently doing?
Actually, no, it's not the zoning board, it's the zoning official, which is an individual
who sits within the Department of Inspection and Standards.
There aren't really significant
criteria for the issuance of these things. So the fact that temporary entertainment
now has to go to the licensing board, I think it's actually going to be a little
stricter and a little bit more transparent of a process, it will be more of a public process
than it is today.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir.
You mentioned the 9 p.m. on weekdays, right, and 11 p.m. on weekends.
What about the holidays?
It's a good question. Well, I would say that if a holiday falls on a weeknight, it would be 9 p.m.
And if it falls on a weekend, it would be 11 p.m.
Because we usually have Mondays as a holiday.
Yep.
Does it's going to be a specific Monday? Can they play into 11?
Not according to...
This thing shuts off every two minutes.
What's that?
Oh, I see.
I'm sure you can make the best of them, Mr. Azar.
Yeah, doing the best I can. It looks like number eight keeps coming on. I don't know. Jim Taylor, the ghost of Jim Taylor.
Yeah.
So...
Here's a ghost.
So, yeah, this does not differentiate between holidays and non-holidays. I mean, that's
something that, you know, if it were your desire, you could certainly make an amendment there.
I don't know how you'd do it. Would you say the night before a holiday or would you say
the night of a holiday, I don't know. Because when we say weekend we start, can I? Sure.
When we say weekend we start Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, right? That's a weekend.
You know,
I don't know that I would interpret it that way,
but that's a fair point. According
According to the amendment, it's from Monday through Friday, it closes at 9 p.m.
I would agree with that, 9 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on weekends.
So that does allow up to 11 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Maybe if the intention, if there is an intention to include Friday in the 11 o'clock curfew,
then we'd have to tweak the language a bit.
And also the holiday.
It's at the council's discretion, certainly.
My understanding is that holidays,
when they fall during the week, they're considered part of the weekend,
they get treated as holidays, as weekends.
This is where...
From past practices.
Yeah, what I would suggest is that if you intend to allow for holidays to be included
or if you intend to allow for Fridays to be included, when it comes to zoning language
you should be as specific as you possibly can.
And I'd be more than willing to help with that language.
If you were just a question to you, if you were to want to allow holiday nights to go until 11,
would it be the actual day of the holiday or the day before the holiday?
It's the actually day of the holiday.
The day of the holiday.
Because holiday always falls on Monday.
Unless it's the 4th of July or Christmas.
Thank
you very much. Deputy Director, I have a quick question for you with regards to what
was removed or stricken from under temporary use standards, numbers three and four, where
it says outdoor entertainment shall not interfere with any pedestrian access or parking spaces
pieces and then the one above it. Can I ask why those particular pieces were removed?
Okay, so number three was removed because this proposal has temporary entertainment now requiring
a license as opposed to a temporary use permit.
So three is no longer pertinent because it refers
to the standards under which a temporary use permit
is issued.
So because it would require a license,
it would be the criteria that the licensing board uses
to grant it.
And then number four where it says outdoor entertainment shall not interfere with any
pedestrian access or parking spaces and aisles.
This is, again, this would generalize temporary entertainment not to be just temporary outdoor
entertainment but temporary entertainment of all types.
and this item number four is kind of,
so it would only apply to outdoor entertainment
and it's saying something that's already a rule
that's covered by other rules.
You can't, so outdoor
entertainment
shall not interfere with any pedestrian access or parking spaces and aisles.
There are other regulations that would govern blocking pedestrian access or parking spaces.
When it comes to parking spaces, there may be outdoor entertainment that is in a parking
lot and if there is enough parking and it's not needed for the business, there could
be entertainment outside in a parking lot. So I think that's proposed to be stricken
because it's either something that's regulated elsewhere or it's something that's not necessary
to be regulated.
Go right ahead. Thank you. This question, and I'm not sure it might
not actually be for you, Deputy Director, it might actually be for Director Juicy.
A couple of the points of feedback that I got from the businesses in my neighborhood
was understanding under the parameters of incidental entertainment the things that could be utilized.
One of the feedback notes was you can have a live performer, you can have a mic and
a speaker, but you actually can't have trivia or karaoke.
And in my neighborhood, we don't have a lot of large nightclubs.
We have more smaller bars and restaurant establishments.
And one of the pieces or one of the kind of feedback notes was,
well, why can't we do some of those things to garner people to get people to come into the neighborhood establishments?
So I kind of wanted to understand if we allow that, if we do not allow that, why do we not allow that?
And if we don't allow that, can we allow that?
Understandable?
Yeah, that's a fair point.
So I would say karaoke certainly would fall
into live music performance.
It's actually an interesting point about trivia nights
lights, or other sorts of, or comedy, things that are, that are live, that are amplified,
but are not necessarily music. So I don't think that, that what you're talking about,
as long as there's no flashing lights, there's no, the volume isn't too high, that there's
no cover charge. I don't see why those couldn't fit. This is really a performance standard
in the sense that as long as you keep it contained within the building and you're not charging
for it and it's incidental to the main thing that's happening, like a restaurant or a bar,
but it's just somewhat of an enhancement.
I don't see why those things couldn't be permissible.
It sounds to me that the two feature,
Councilwoman, that you described fall under the DJ,
which usually do the karaoke,
usually they do the trivia.
Absolutely.
Director Juicy, I would love your input on this
and it might be this,
but I'm wondering if there's a way around that
because this isn't something to me
that is high levels of volume in any way?
Yeah, absolutely.
Good evening, Chairman and members of the committee.
So basically on the first page,
you see the use matrix.
The use matrix, it's intended for live entertainment.
So if you look at the first row,
you can see where the recommended changes are in red
and where it already is permitted,
where you see a P and where you see an S
is by special use permit.
So I'm no zoning professional,
but I do work with zoning collectively
and collaboratively on a day-to-day basis.
So if you give me a scenario, I can tell you.
For example, a C2 zone, which is right next to the C3,
what you're standing as far as karaoke and trivia
would not be permitted.
And that's not included as part of the amendment here.
if that answers the question.
And that would be because karaoke and trivia,
you don't consider that to be entertainment?
It's just not considered incidental entertainment.
It's considered live entertainment.
So an incidental would, even though the amendment is including
the changes to be able to allow for it,
it's not across every zone.
So where it's not specified,
It's incidental, so no application would need to be applied for with our office and where
you see a P or an S, that's where it would come through our office.
And it would require approval from the board.
Thank you.
Councilwoman?
Yelsa?
Thank you.
If I could just, I would advocate, well, I guess I would have to research exactly where
the areas in my particular neighborhood are respective with regards to the zoning but
I would advocate that these would be considered incidental and these are just opportunities
for businesses to be able to bring in more patrons and these are not things that, again,
create loud diversions of noise where you would have local residential neighborhoods
that are abutting being bothered by it.
So that's my only feedback point.
But thank you, I appreciate the understanding.
Councilor Marroyas.
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Azar, just in terms of the,
I have one clarifying question and just a comment.
The first question is regarding the outdoor
more entertainment events.
This amendment increases it, I think, from 3 to 9, and then each event
lasting 3 days. Is that, am I right on that?
Yeah, so 3 to 9 per year, and then each lasting 3 days.
Yeah, the way this would be phrased if this passes is temporary entertainment events are
limited to nine events per calendar year and a maximum duration of three days per event
with a minimum of 30 days between events.
So, did we think about, so could there be a scenario where, let's say there's five parcels
or five businesses sort of in a row, and they all happen to have an event on the same like
weekend.
Is that like under this ordinance, is that a possible scenario?
Yes, I think it would be because they're different, if they're all different businesses.
Yeah, but they happen to be adjacent to one another.
Yes, I think that's true.
I guess just a comment after that is I'm concerned about sort of the event clustering
and how that might affect residents nearby if it becomes like a pseudo entertainment district
for multiple businesses lasting for three days.
I think that's a lot on a neighborhood.
Went out, okay, sorry about that.
The other comment I had was in regard to,
I voiced this to other colleagues today,
but I would advocate for some type of spatial limitation clause for indoor events.
I do support a level of dancing indoors. I don't want to be into fun police,
but when I think about crafting legislation,
Think about the bad actors, and if incidental entertainment is sort of the, if the dining experience
is still primary, and when it comes to incidental entertainment, the music is secondary. My biggest
fear is that how I read it is under the current amendments, restaurants could essentially rearrange
their physical layout and open the floor for just everyone dancing and I think it
it can turn into sort of this like concert like setup so I would love to
like regulate that further but in court still allow a dancing to some degree but
not just allow the physical layout to turn into like a nightclub that's like
the worst-case scenario?
I certainly understand what you're talking about.
Keep in mind that, again,
they wouldn't
be able to charge a cover.
They wouldn't be able to have flashing lights.
The volume would have to be relatively low.
And it would have to have a curfew.
What we commonly see with a lot of restaurants
that become what you're talking about,
and that's actually a fairly common experience,
is that that tends to happen after dinner.
Usually it starts at something like nine o'clock.
But I'm not saying it couldn't happen,
but I think it might be a little unlikely
to maintain the true nature
incidental entertainment at that point. Yeah, I mean I concede the point that it's
probably unlikely but potentially possible. Can I just share one more?
Councilman Royer, keep in mind that we have about 40 people that signed up to
speak and we need to get to them. I'll stop my comments. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Azar. And briefly, Mr. Joe Wilson from the Department of Arts and
Culture who have something to add to this. And then we're going to go straight to the people.
Okay. Mr. Barga, I will call upon you. Thank you.
Good evening, Joe.
Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I am so honored to be with you here today in this beautiful chamber.
as your director of the Department of Art, Culture and Tourism for the Great
City of Providence. I am here on behalf of the administration. I am here on behalf
of my great department and I'm also here on behalf of our Life at Night task force
that consists of artists, creatives, business owners, producers, members of
tourism sector, and our city staff members.
And many of our task force members are here tonight, and if you are, could you please raise
your hand and let yourself be noticed.
As you know, Providence's food, beverage, music, and hospitality scenes have evolved
dramatically, and our city has become one of the most dynamic and vibrant communities
in this country. This has led to the fact that our laws have not kept in track or
kept up pace, which has unfortunately led to confusion for business owners and
indeed frustration for residents. For example, under our current regulations a
restaurant can be penalized for hosting a Sunday morning jazz brunch and after
two mimosas and a short stack of pancakes, if you are feeling the music, you can get
up and shake your hips. The proposed updates bring our zoning and entertainment laws in
line with how entertainment actually works in Providence, ensuring transparent and fair
rules for everybody, for businesses, residents, and the city itself. These amendments clarify
and expand the definition of incidental entertainment.
Lifting outdated restrictions on dancing, amplified music,
and the number of performers. What does that mean?
Incidental entertainment refers to music or performance that isn't the main event.
What does that mean? That means we are not selling tickets.
That means there is no cover charge being collected. That means there are no promoters.
Y'all, this is about ambiance. This is not about headline acts.
The changes in the definition of incidental entertainment put these everyday activities into compliance
and create a straightforward way to manage them with firm end times for indoor music.
9 p.m. on weekends 11 p.m. on 9 p.m. on weeknights 11 p.m. on weekends and
outdoor music music is off by 9 p.m. every night and please remember these
times apply just to our new and expanded definition of incidental
entertainment these updates add structure they add clarity they add
predictability for everybody supporting our local artists and
establishments while maintaining a calm and quiet community at a reasonable
hour. Let's not forget all of this city's noise ordinance will remain in full
effect. Music must not be heard beyond the walls of an establishment or at
excessive levels. Accountability in the city of Providence still exists with
clear penalties and violations. Now what else does this ordinance clean up do? It introduces
a clear process for temporary entertainment events. Now when we say temporary entertainment
events we mean musical acts. In my world we mean plays. We mean DJs, comedy, and events
that are indeed charging a cover charge.
Events such as these will require a temporary entertainment license from the board of licenses
rather than a temporary use permit from the Department of Inspections and Standards.
This makes this process more transparent and this makes this process more consistent.
And, again, each license holder is limited to nine temporary events per year, with a 30-day
buffer between each event ensuring opportunities for artists and businesses while maintaining
neighborhood quality of life.
We all know this.
Providence is home to some of the most incredible local talent—musicians, cultural stewards,
and artists who make our city known far and wide beyond the boundaries of this
state. These updates provide artists, restaurants, and residents with a stable
and reasonable framework to rely upon while keeping, and I say this again,
while keeping noise protections in place. The changes help level the
playing field for smaller venues, streamline the application process,
and these changes will support a vibrant, diverse art scene.
And further, this is why this is so important.
What we know as a result of my department's life at night
in the Creative Capital Economic Impact Assessment
is that this sector that operates between 5 p.m. and 9 a.m.
is a $990 million sector.
sector. The businesses and the gig economy workers, many of whom are artists within this
sector, should be supported and celebrated, not vilified and stigmatized.
What we know as expressed in our city's second 10-year cultural plan is that our arts and
cultural stakeholders have asked us to increase investment in our creative workforce, to
to foster opportunities for our creative economy to thrive and to be an advocate and raise public
awareness as it relates to the importance of art and culture in this city and state's
economic future.
And I have to say it again, the businesses and artists in this city who continue to
rebuild post-COVID that will directly benefit from these amendments are central and essential
to this city's economic well-being.
And as we all work every single day to ensure that Providence is indeed the best-run city
in America, and this includes removing barriers to individuals and businesses on their quest
not to just survive, but we owe it to them to create policy that allows them to thrive
in this great city.
These amendments are a balance to solution.
They support Providence's creative economy, provide more access to live music, and create
opportunities for us to connect with one another, while respecting residents living alongside
these commercial corridors.
I must say it loud and say it proud.
We are indeed the creative capital.
Our hospitality and nightlife sector and our creatives should have a chance to flourish
by giving businesses the necessary tools they need to succeed.
And I am confident that these amendments to the entertainment ordinance
will support performing artists and enhance the quality of life
for everybody in this beloved capital city.
God bless Providence.
That was very passionate. Thank you, Joe.
Hello. City Sergeant, can I get the list of everyone that has signed up to speak on item
number one? Pretending to entertainment.
I have Councilman Vargas as we wait for this.
Got a question for ASR.
Mr. Bob Asa, will you entertain a question
for Mr. Councilman Vargas? Come up quickly, please.
Thank you you
were saying that there's no there's no way I can follow that I'm sorry
there's no one expected to it we say there's no cell recharge those the
musician can have a basket for tips you
know these are the kinds of questions
that that we always ponder when we're going through writing ordinances like
this, there's a lot of nuance.
You know, if someone puts out a hat,
I don't know that
they would get a zoning violation. The ordinance says no cover charge. To me, that means someone
standing at the door, who is charging people to walk into the building, you know, if someone
puts out a hat, I would consider that to be more like the way you might tip a server.
So I'm not the zoning enforcement officer, but in my opinion that would not rise to
the level of cover charge.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you Ms. Day.
So we have close to 100 people that signed up. Maybe some of the people
that signed up already left, but that's what we have. If we do two minutes each, we could
be here for over two hours. So can we please keep it to one minute?
I don't have a problem
staying here till tomorrow. So I just made an offer, so come up, but I will not give
you any more in two minutes. So that's cool. The first person up is Chris Spatini. Chris,
good evening. I'm the owner-operator of Maria's Cucina on Broadway in Providence. I am definitely
for our outside entertainment for many reasons. We are the ocean state and unfortunately in
the summertime we all tend to go to the beach. No one wants to stay in Providence
restaurants and have dinner and when they can be down in Narragansett at the Coast Guard
House or some of the other beautiful restaurants. I'm a small business. It's very difficult
for me to do business from June to mid-September, the end of September. This outside entertainment
certainly helps. It's a draw for people to come to the restaurant, enjoy the outside.
I rent from the Italian American Club. Several years ago during COVID they took out the
grass in front of the building and they were they put in a beautiful patio so we
have a porch and patio we had entertainment for a short period of time
outside it was taken away and while we had it it helped business
Which also helps my employees. I have anywhere from 15 to 20 employees that rely on our business.
For them, some of them, most of them are married with children. It takes away from them when we don't
do business as well selfishly as it takes away from myself. So I am certainly for this outside
entertainment within the guidelines that the council puts in front of us. I have no problem
following all the directives. It just really helps business not only for myself
but for all the other restaurants in the city of Providence that fall into the
same category as myself. So thank you very much for your time. We look forward
to outside entertainment. Thank you Chris.
The next person that I have I can't
really make up the name but it is George LAZZ from 477 Broadway.
Good evening
Good evening, Council Speaker. Good evening, Judge.
How are you? Good, thank you.
Being the Superintendent of Police and Fire for Maintenance Division in Providence for 35 years, I'm still currently employed.
I'm also the President of the Hitler American Club 477 Broadway.
I know a lot of you have visited there. It's a very beautiful Victorian house.
it's labeled significant other because the owners built the outlet downtown so it
carries a lot of and it's a more of an upscale restaurant and we had put out a
beautiful patio so we're not even on the sidewalk which is huge the patio is
huge itself and we have we occupied a club we rent to Maria Cachinas but we do
open that in the summer. We had Frank Sinatra, singer Neil Diamond. There's no
rock band. That restaurant doesn't warrant that. They're not going to go and sit
their way. And he had one speaker singing into the building, in towards the
wraparound porch. And it was beautiful. I don't think there was anybody under 40.
I don't believe. And they were eating as well as dining. They're not going to be
screaming music like that and the key here I think the key is noise on this so
if somebody has an issue you're gonna call the police they're gonna come and
say the noise on this is too high you gotta shut it down I think that not
given the affordable right for all for all I mean it's six to nine we're not
playing Metallica I don't think anybody else is gonna do that you
You wouldn't go there for that.
You wouldn't, you know, but I'm also a five-time world powerlifting champion, I've been all
over the world.
And New Orleans is known for what?
The music, they're, they play jazz outside.
There are people that live there.
It's not like it's not in a neighborhood, there are people that live there.
Now I get, being a resident next door to that, you don't want blasting music, but
if it's a beautiful restaurant, if it's a beautiful place and people are just coming,
We get all the people from PC, the parents, Brown University, when they have the NCA titles
out on their PC, they all frequent that club.
And we also, our Reach Out program, we were number one for Toys for Tots.
We are not only an It Low American Club, we are all non-denominational.
I've been the longest running term president, and we've been founded since 1896, where
the oldest founded Hitler American club in the country. So we don't want problems, we
just want, that means so much to the restaurant to see the people on Broadway come there and
sit and listen to a little soft music. Like I said, the key here is what you said, a noise
on this like that's the that's the whole cake noise on this and so I think put
restrictions in there and let at least try it and like this gentleman said here
and I agree with him the director here that that's what provinces about and I've
been here 35 years and I can tell you used to just have entertainment on that
was avenue there was an even really I was born and raised it it wasn't no
entertainment there. When they started bringing that in, that got busy up there, you know,
and of course you have to regulate everything, you know, and so I'm in support of it, you
know, and I think that it's good for the city, I think it's good for, and like this
gentleman said, putting us on the map. That's what we're, well, our culture here is music
and love and families and and friends. I mean I get that you don't want to
disco place if it's right next to your house. I understand that. I wouldn't want
it either. But six to nine you know and Frank Sinatra I mean I don't know but
me out for a sleep more than I would dance but that's all I have to say so
Thank you, George.
Thank you.
Robert Velucci.
Good evening.
I'm Robert Velucci, the Treasurer of the Low American Club.
I will be very brief because I think George and Chris said it all.
We are in support of the outdoor entertainment.
I think it's very important for the restaurant establishments to keep the employees
engaged during the summer so they have working opportunities. We are all in
favor of what's being proposed to the City Council with respect to the
time times and the entertainment being very you know low-key if you will. So
thank you very much and thank you. Thank you for the testimony. Linda
Linda Perry.
Good evening Linda. Hello, thank you. My name is Linda Perry and I live in
Washington Park. Forty-year resident of Washington Park and I have been pretty much terrorized
by the noise on Broad Street. Sorry to say for the people here that are going to testify
by in favor, not all zoning laws, our good zoning laws,
not there isn't one size fits all for laws as we know
because what the gentleman just said,
he wants to listen to Frank Sinatra,
other people want other things that we are affected by,
adversely affected by. So without going into detail you all know what goes on in
other neighborhoods. Not everybody follows the rules so I say we cannot do this
right now because you can't say you can do it and you can't. You have been a
player, and you have not.
So, like I said, not all people follow the rules. And if we
are the watchdogs, which this Ordinance Committee is, and this Council is, then we have to
preserve the constituents' right to their health, safety, and welfare of their domain.
And the radius for noise goes far.
And I feel for the people who live in a three-family house next to an establishment that can't sleep at night.
I've been to the license board many times over 10 years, and we have fought and fought and fought.
I've been to the zoning board and fought and fought and fought, not all ideas are good
ideas and I think this falls right smack in the middle.
Sorry.
Thank you, Linda.
Cynthia Pagliano.
Cynthia.
Please bear with me.
Good evening.
Hello.
My name is Cynthia Pagliano.
My husband, Mike, and I live at 466 Broadway, and we also own 478 Broadway next door.
The ordinance that you are proposing is troubling because we've had noise problems in the past.
When I moved here in 2007, the area was drug-infested, loud, and dirty.
Mike and I, along with a few of our neighbors, put money into improving our properties.
And the next thing we knew, the back street we had so much trouble with, began to improve
and the neighborhood is what it is today.
Our next hurdle a few years later came when Maria Cachina's restaurant moved across the
street to the Ethel American Club.
They wanted a disco outside three nights a week.
It was so loud we could hear it in our house.
It was completely disrupting, and it would go sometimes past nine o'clock, but the noise
was what got us.
It took us four years, a lot of challenging work, not only from us, but from our neighbors,
the licensing board that explained all the laws to us and our elected officials to get
the loud music stopped.
This is our Broadway story, and from what I hear, our play is common to many other Providence
neighborhoods.
So you might say, if you have a problem, call the police.
And I agree with you, but our police are not the noise police.
The licensing board has three offices to enforce the code.
will three officers be able to manage the complaints if this new ordinance passes?
We've worked hard to preserve our neighborhood.
It's one of the many charms that makes Providence a city for families to live in
and for people from other states to explore.
If this ordinance passes, yes, it will increase revenue, but at what cost?
us. We pay huge property taxes for the privilege of living here. We are not absentee landlords.
We believe in and love this city. Help us keep the tranquility and the charm that we
work so hard to create. Please do your part by voting against this ordinance. The future
future of our city, our future is in your hands.
Thank you.
And that's all I have to say.
Thank you.
Dylan Peacock.
Good evening.
Hi, Councillors.
My name is Dylan Peacock.
I live in Elmwood directly behind Monte Cristo, a business that operated for years as
an illegal nightclub.
For more than a decade, my family and tenants endured pounding bass, shaking our
walls, often until 2 a.m.
It took 10 years, over 100 police calls, dozens of licensing hearings, and four license revocations
to restore peace to our home.
My experience is a case study and enforcement failure, and that's why I oppose these changes
as written.
This proposal grants sweeping new entertainment privileges without adding necessary safeguards
for residents.
It makes entertainment the norm, not the exception, in a city where enforcement
already broken. In 2022, residents made 5,500 noise complaints, yet only 19 citations were
issued. Expanding buy-right entertainment with accountability doubles down on that failure.
I've seen how the system fails in real time. You complain to officials that they say call
the police. You call the police, they say talk to your counselor. When you call the
police, you wait an hour. By the time they arrive, the business might have closed.
Our experience with outdoor dining proved enforcement is non-existent. In August and September 2020
we documented violations on 40 nights and called police 26 times.
There were no fines, no board action, no relief, and this is what we endured.
Are you playing the song?
Please
stop because of the zoning issue with parking, not because of this noise.
Enforcement of indoor incidental entertainment was just as bad.
The night after night, pounding base went on check for a decade.
Hundreds of violations a year, at least 75 police calls between 2017 and 2020,
and not a single fine citation or consequence.
Reports were rarely forwarded to licensing, and when they were,
they were incomplete or lacked sufficient detail for the board to act.
Officers routinely...
Many lacked training and consistency. Even when they stood beside us and heard the noise,
it wasn't written up. Many didn't know the law, assume that business had an entertainment
license, or didn't understand that reports must be properly documented for the board
to act. Some didn't treat chronic noise as an issue at all. And I'm going to wrap
it up very shortly. Entertainment failures don't stop with police, they're systemic.
The board of licenses quasi-judicial process favors businesses with legal representation,
and the evidentiary threshold makes enforcement nearly impossible. Even with police laws
video evidence and testimony, it took eight years to even begin to see action.
Hearing states' monks to schedule are repeatedly continued and force residents
to miswork again and again just to be heard. And even when the board finally
acts, DBR routinely overturns their decisions three times in my case.
Expanding privileges without enforcement is reckless. You can only achieve your
goals responsibly by pairing new privileges with equally strong
accountability to residents. We deserve a transparent process that
Fios lived experience as much as lobbying by business interests, and the council has
a duty to ask, how could this harm my constituents and to work with residents?
To close up, please convene a working group of residents that have been affected by noise
and responsible restaurant owners to identify enforcement gaps and design a framework that
straightens both community protections and cultural vitality without stripping away
oversight or accountability.
You need to preserve the city's enforcement authority.
Thank you.
And also I just have some proposed changes to Azra N.
Thank you.
Bring them up.
Thank you.
Miran Kisi,
good evening.
Good evening.
My name is Miki Kitsch and I live in Ward 9.
Our current system encourages impunity and not compliance.
And this ordinance would make that worse.
Fewer defenses for neighbors, less public oversight,
shifting enforcement burdens onto residents
and more uncontrolled noise pollution.
Residents have begged for enforcement reform for years and gotten nowhere.
Yet when restaurant lobbyists ask for deregulation, the law is promptly rewritten in their favor.
That isn't economic development. It's a giveaway.
There's no evidence Providence is at a competitive disadvantage.
Boston, for example, categorically prohibits incidental music with outdoor dining.
The issue isn't live music.
It's the city's failure to build a system that protects residents while allowing it
responsibly.
This proposal expands privilege while stripping oversight.
Other cities support the arts and protect residents through case-by-case review, clear
guardrails, and credible enforcement to keep neighborhoods livable, the basic ingredients
of any livable city.
Until enforcement is fixed, this isn't support for restaurants or the arts.
its deregulation without accountability.
Cities like LA and Toronto get this right.
They strengthened enforcement and maintain conditional reviews
before expanding entertainment rights.
They achieved balance, protecting residents,
supporting artists, and holding businesses accountable.
Providence skips these steps entirely.
No guardrails, no input, and no enforcement capacity.
It's an abdication of responsibility.
And the impact won't fall evenly.
C2 corridors run through Elmwood and other minority working class neighborhoods, placing
restaurants and bars directly besides home.
Wealthier white areas shielded by zoning that limits commercial activity will remain undisturbed.
Loosening these roles, magnifies inequality, stripping away protections from communities
already overexposed to noise and underprotected by enforcement.
This is an equity issue.
Providence cannot claim to support both residents and businesses while expanding
entertainment by right in a system where enforcement has collapsed. If police
can't control noise and the Board of Licenses can't provide timely relief
without placing an unreasonable burden on residents, the city isn't regulating
or balancing. It's walking away. Protecting residents from persistent
noise isn't anti-business. It's the foundation of a livable city.
True
protecting residents, supporting artists, and holding businesses accountable.
Start with enforcement that works, an oversight that fits the site.
Pair any new privileges with stronger accountability.
Until then, reject the ordinance and do the basic work first.
Fix enforcement, restore public trust, and then build a framework where arts and restaurants
thrive without sacrificing the people who live beside them.
Thank you.
Paula Donovan.
Hi.
thank you for the opportunity to speak. I also am a resident of war nine and I've
lived in Providence for over 40 years. I've been very active in my
neighborhood trying to make it a better place to live for everybody and I feel
that these proposed changes to this ordinance undermine those efforts. I am
opposed to these proposed changes. This ordinance was introduced on the behalf
of business owners in one particular area, but yet it's going to affect all
neighborhoods across the city. As my neighbors have pointed out, enforcement is
not applied equitably across the city. The elimination of the sections three
and four relative to evaluating the impact on the local area is a slap in
the face to residents. It sends the wrong message that the city will not hold
entertainment businesses accountable for any adverse effects on neighbors. The
safety of pedestrians is not a priority. Has this committee done any due
diligence regarding noise complaints across the city over the past year?
Have you gotten data from PVD-301 or the police department? As pointed out,
there have been a lot of complaints, but very few citations.
I believe it is the responsibility, it is your responsibility to investigate the current
state of affairs across the city to mitigate problems rather than exacerbating them.
The proposed changes in the ordinance purport to support the life at night initiative, however
these changes tell me that the life at night initiative will expand the entertainment
industry at my and my neighbor's expense, this should not be allowed to happen.
Trust and accountability are important elements in all aspects of government,
including the licensing and oversight of businesses.
Therefore, I respectfully ask that this committee not approve the proposed changes.
I also have some written testimony that I want to submit.
Thank you, Paula.
Cheryl Peacock,
good evening.
Good evening. And thank you for the opportunity to speak. So I would first like to say that I personally love music.
What I don't appreciate is music being forced upon me in my home and daily life from surrounding businesses.
This has severely diminished my right to quality of life on a daily basis.
I have had to call the police myself on the abuse of the noise ordinance issue in my neighborhood over 100 times in five years.
It isn't about music. It's about the city's ability or inability to enforce the laws.
It is extremely unfair to expect anyone to live under these conditions.
Would anyone here today think a business's consistent noise pollution would be acceptable to hear in your homes on a daily basis?
So, I have a clip to play and this is what the city's currently allows as incidental
entertainment where today the laws are clearly not being enforced.
It's going to come, hold on one sec.
All right, I pretty much very loud music.
It's similar to what he played and that's the-
I get it, we get it.
The sound I hear in my home
This is what I hear in my house
That's how loud I hear it in my house. It's inside your house inside my home. Yes
So thank you for listening. Thank you for your testimony
Okay, Jose Dominguez.
I would not know who to call. I mean I have Jose Dominguez Antonio Castillo
So, coming up,
on behalf of all the business owners,
okay,
I'm just not going to know from
the list.
All right, I'll say.
Hello,
everyone.
Anthony Santuri.
I'm a local club owner, a business owner.
I also have a unique position where I'm on the board of several neighborhood associations.
I've been in this city for well over 25 years.
Jesus Titan is a friend.
He's also a business owner, he has brought other business owners, he has brought a group
of people that work for him, employees.
What he asked me to say out of respect for everyone's time today was he wanted us to
know that he wanted to let you all know that he supports fully what Director Joe Wilson
Jr. presented in the manner that he presented and the spirit he presented.
He didn't want to have each of his members come up here and continually say the same
thing over and over.
In addition to that, I would just like to say for myself, I wasn't even going to speak today.
I speak at every single thing, but I felt today I'd give everybody else a chance.
First, this is one of the rare times that I have seen and heard from the members here,
the council, a real balance in their questioning.
I really have heard today the business side being addressed and the quality of life being addressed,
the public safety issue being addressed, but the needs of the economic challenges being addressed.
So I thank you for that.
The work that has been done in this is good work.
I understand too the noise issues.
I've operated the Coliseum Nightclub over 17 years with 220 apartments in my backyard.
We've found a way to make it work.
There are business owners who can find it a way to make it work.
This is what we should focus on.
And I know the frustrations of these residents who say we call law enforcement, we call enforcement.
I don't feel it's fair to blame it all on them.
They are limited in their resources, where I'd like to start with trying to have these
types of things which are necessary and needed for the growth of a capital city, a world
class, a destination city, which is what we are and want to be in addition to
the creative city.
When you go before a licensing board, a lot of times you don't understand what's really
expected of you.
It's said, but this clearly outlines it.
I'd like to see us in combination with having enforcement, giving the tool and the knowledge
for success to the venue stakeholder.
That person is how this works.
The person handling the incidental and or temporary or permanent entertainment must
by in and believe that they need to follow this word for word that has been
written out. The work that has been done and put into this was done with a lot of
thought and reason for the greater good of everyone. And I will say to everyone
behind me who's a resident, if that happens you won't have as many residents
having this issue because I have been there for 17 years. I have gone to
neighborhood associations. I have called building owners and property managers
after the weekend and said how was my music and sometimes in the beginning when
we were trying to do that wasn't so good. So you work with the DJs who need to
understand that they can't. You put limiters on. We can do this. I do feel we
have to get more buy-in because there are and I don't like the term bad actor
but there are a few that ruin it for the many.
You have many, many hardworking business owners who we need
and they shouldn't also be punished or penalized
because of a handful that we can't seem to figure out won't do it.
So thank you for your time and I appreciate the work that everyone's doing.
Thank you, Anthony.
Thank you.
Okay, so how do we do this?
I'm gonna call your name
If you felt that Anthony already spoke on your behalf, you don't need to come up, but just raise your hand and let me know that he spoke for you.
Yo voy a llamar el nombre de usted, pero si usted siente que ya él habló por usted, solamente levánteme la mano para yo saber que usted está aquí o que se fue.
Thank you.
Entonces, José Domínguez.
Ok, gracias José.
Antonia Castillo.
Sujani.
Familia.
Algo.
Ángel Baez.
Stephanie
Armanza.
Es nada.
15 Snow Street.
Randy.
Si.
Tengo que decirle el nombre.
Dano Aspenio.
No, es también 15, no es la calle.
Ok. Sharon Steele.
Yo sé que ella está aquí.
Yo
te veo todos de nuevo.
Sí.
Chairman Espanol, miembros del comité.
Aquí vamos.
Go. A copy of an email authored by director Wilson on October 14, 2025 at 11.35 AM appeared
in my email at 6.14 PM.
It was sent to 30 people, 25 of them proponents of these changes,
5 miembros de la staff de la ciudad.
La gente...
Cheryl, perdóname un segundo.
Voy a darles más tiempo.
Quiero que la gente aquí se sienta
que no podamos hacer una decisión sobre este item
para que, si habéis hablado,
estuviérete alrededor.
No vamos a votar en este item.
Concluiremos el publico
y votaremos en un
muy pronto, como antes de la siguiente semana, no más de un par de semanas, hasta el mes de noviembre.
Así que, si ya habéis hablado y queréis irme, y viste aquí por este objeto,
es bien, no estamos hablando de eso.
Hemos justificado los testimonios públicos.
Cheryl, por favor, disculpame.
No, muchas gracias por compartir eso con todos nosotros.
Eso es importante.
que no recibió esa e-mail, no una líder de la neighborsía, sino que hizo José Giusti,
que es directora de licenciamiento.
Fast forward, October 19, Go Local published an article quoting Senator Sam Bell about the
proposed changes to the entertainment ordinance.
That was three days, literally, before the hearing tonight.
These proposed changes have had zero input from any neighborhood leaders nor any of the
people they represent.
¿Tienes todos estos cambios?
¿No hay absolutamente nada para proteger las ciudades?
¿Has escuchado algo de eso individualmente
de las personas que vivieron en la próxima puerta a estos restaurantes?
¿Habemos entretenido un estudio comprensivo
de la entidad extrema y de la entidad extrema?
Algunas de las personas que realmente hablaban
lo que estamos hablando de la entidad de la caída de la edad,
cuando esto habla de la entidad de la caída de la edad.
Así que tenemos que entender lo que el orden dices en el primer lugar.
A pesar de las preguntas que todos han preguntado
y que han sido fabulosas,
desde que no eres experto en este área,
el director Azar no podía responder.
de ellos. Es porque la ordenada propuesta no cubre
la mitad de las cosas que necesita cubrir. Me he ido a las escuelas de licenciamiento
por 15 años. Es algo complicado, pero al menos la ordenada tiene que
adrecer a la compañera de lionas de las cuestiones que raised
esta noche. Councilman Royas ha traído varias cosas.
Yo estoy seguro de que hay muchas, muchas más.
Estas cosas necesitan ser parte y parciales en esta orden.
¿Es la cualidad de la vida en nuestras habitaciones?
¿Literalmente estará permitida a, de nuevo,
sufrir, porque no han tenido input en esto?
Porque vamos a verlo cuando los restaurantes
empiezan a operar como clubes de noche,
clubes, que es precisamente lo que va a suceder.
No hay un easy fix to this, this is complicated stuff, but it has to be balanced.
That's why I asked for this hearing to literally be rescheduled.
The hearing should have been rescheduled.
Did I hear from anybody?
No.
I'd like to share a story about a restaurant, a restaurant in one of the neighborhoods.
y esto es un ejemplo perfecto de lo que puede suceder y puede muy bien suceder.
Este restaurante fue licenciado para ser un restaurante, pero decidieron operar como un club de noche.
club, there was a Melee, there were lots of problems. There was going on in the establishment, under
age drinking, bottle service, literally music that went well beyond the boundaries, brick
como se puede decir,
literalmente lleno de glas,
fue la próxima de apartments
que se cumplían los doctores
en el programado de 8-Ear,
que literalmente no pudieron dormir.
¿Qué sucedió?
Hace un año.
No puedo decirle a ti
cuántos viajes al Board de Licencias,
cuántos policías,
algunos de ellos,
si alguien tiene un licenciamiento,
no es fácil, es un trabajo completo para hacer lo que necesita ser hecho en una manera falsa,
para literalmente aportar a todos los violaciones que han sucedido ahí.
Así que aquí estamos, y voy a venir a ustedes con esta pregunta.
A los miembros del Comité de Ordenance,
Estamos todos en todos los habitantes, literalmente, que viven y trabajan muy cerca de estos establecimientos.
Restaurantes son cosas maravillosas, así son los clubes de la noche.
Los clubes de la noche tienen que viajar a un número increíble.
número de coches.
Ellos pagan extraordinaria insurrencia.
Ellos tienen que tener detalles de policía.
Ellos tienen que presentar 30 días de
entretenimiento.
Ellos son literalmente, literalmente,
llevados bajo un microscópio.
No tenemos suficiente policía para
enforcar restaurantes que están literalmente
operando bajo las reglas que
que los clubes de la noche necesitan operar.
Y no hemos hablado de la orden de la rueda,
cuando no podemos recordar niveles de decibel
para la base, el tipo de base
que literalmente pones en tu cuerpo.
Eso es lo que es lo que es.
Así que me pregunto, por favor,
por la razón de crear un balance, un balance revisado,
ordenamiento de la entertainación,
por favor engañen a todos nosotros.
Tu has preguntado muchas preguntas,
las respuestas de esas preguntas necesitan ser
literalmente en los detalles de esta ordenación.
I beg of you, don't vote on it. Take the time that's necessary to get it right.
I thank you.
Thank you, Sharon.
Priscila León,
Leni Baez,
Aleni Cuesta,
Yosemi Castillo,
Derek Sacco,
Gureisi Mendez,
Kisi
Cornier,
Alta Gracia, J.P.
Next page.
Solani Rodi,
Madeline Arias,
Cynthia Zapata,
Ana Maria
María Gruyón,
Margarita Jerez,
Onari Batista,
Lendri Mati,
Lista Mills,
Giori Maleni,
Rafael
Bernardes,
Carlos Fernandez,
Luis Aguilar,
María Estrella,
Jacen Sheridan, Jason Armanza,
I'm Jason Almira.
A lot of people in the city know me under my stage name of Where's Nasty iDJ.
I'm a Providence resident born and raised on the east side off of Camstreet.
I got my start in nightlife at the age of 16 when I was a student at classical high school.
Soy el co-founder de State Silent, una compañía creativa y plataforma basada en Providence que
refiere a producir eventos, diseñar contentes editoriales.
Soy también el co-owner de Crib en la Lounge 1070 en la ciudad de Norte de Providence.
Es un club en la venta de danza.
También es el mismo espacio en el que me he puesto a las partidas donde era Tantric.
En 2024, programamos más de 80 eventos, entre nuestros eventos de signatures, incluyendo
nuestro festival de diáteros, y eventos que hacemos en nuestro escrituario, y también
con eventos de partner que hacemos con los producentes de eventos.
Estoy aquí hoy para advocatear para los cambios.
Las reglas currentes están muy outdated, y nuestra cultura es relevante para los
necesarios de los patrones de muchos de los negocios que han servido los patrones
en la ciudad de Providence, en la comunidad larga.
Y también creo que está fuera de línea con la moneda que Providence ha estado
pasando durante dos décadas, la capital creativa.
Los DJs necesitan ser tratados como artistas, músicos, y una amenaza
que un negocio puede elegir.
Estamos en un negocio y cultural globalmente,
donde muchos de los lounge de escuchar, las barras pequeñas,
barras de café y otras vínculos nonconventionales
ofrecen la entertainación de DJ,
como los patrónes están despejando de gran capacidad de danza de clubes,
pero aún quieren escuchar música y tener espacios juntos.
DJ ha sido una de las más accesibles formas de engañar con música,
también es una de las más costas efectivas formas
para un negocio que le da a la experiencia de música en su establecimiento.
O incluso en el punto en el que los servicios de streaming
están ahora arreglando la actividad de DJ
Dejando a sus suscribiros para mezclar y arreglar canciones por BPM y Key.
Puedes hacer esto en Spotify, te da la fortaleza a DJ sin necesidad de equipamiento.
And I'm going to wrap this up by saying that Providence is at a crucial point where it can
fully embrace being the creative capital and stop treating deejaying and music as noise
and a nuisance and fully embrace it as part of the arts and unnecessary amenity for businesses.
We need to decide if we're going to keep calling music noise or is it going to be
art in the creative capital. And I think this is a question that whenever we're talking
about music. We have to remember that music is a large part of the arts. It's a thing
that connects so many of us culturally. It brings so many different people together.
It breaks borders. It's intergenerational. So I think when we speak about these things,
and while I do agree that there does have to be rules and regulations around these things,
I think some of these things that are being presented is a start. I think there's a lot
more that that we can do but I think these proposed amendments are things that
are very necessary for the current landscape that we have as business
owners and also culturally as people are seeking experiences in the city. Thank
you. Thank you Jason.
Brian Rivas,
Alba Baez,
Bricelli Riva,
Christopher Riva,
You know,
what I have is signatures, instead of printing names, so it's a little bit difficult
to make it out, so I apologize if I butcher your name here.
Alexis Carrington,
Alex Tomaso Good
evening, Chairman, Council President.
Thank you for giving me also the opportunity to share my thoughts and my experiences in
Providence, being in the hospitality nightclub bar and business since 1992, where I opened
up on Troop Alley.
First let me also thank the gentleman that spoke first, Councilman Taylor, and one
of the key elements in the last two hours that I took at least is the phrase common sense.
So thank you, common sense.
I'm going to continue. And also, Alex, that's actually Mr. Bob
Hazer from the Department of Planning. I'm reading the name. Okay. In no such case,
my respect, and again, common sense. That's acceptable. Great, great point. Absolutely.
I also would like to say that I am also, and have been for many years, but recently also,
very recently, 10 months old, a club owner, actually right next door to my friend at the
Coliseum and yes, he does a great job.
So that being said, I think in my opinion
that the reason that I was coming here tonight
was to address the ordinance before us.
I listened to all of the speakers
give their opinions and thoughts
and I respect their opinions and thoughts.
but this has to do with things that happened in the past, issues that have been in the past.
Tonight I'm coming here under the understanding to talk about the ordinance that is focused on the future.
We're not here to create new entertainment licenses.
We're not here to certainly create new nightclubs.
That's not why I think I'm here.
I think we're here to talk about almost like a pilot program, again, if I'm correct.
This is on trial for one year.
This ain't permanent.
So in other words, in 12 months, if this doesn't work,
it's gone.
But if it does work, like Joe Wilson said, this can be a great opportunity for the city of
Providence, which is long, long overdue.
And I speak with a ton of experience, those that know me, know me.
I also own the George for the last five years, we're in our sixth year, extremely
successful restaurant that does live music. We have an entertainment license.
What we're here talking about is not a full-blown entertainment license
because there are very, very much restrictive in control in place and I
think that's a good thing. So what I mean is 9 p.m. it stops.
On weekends 11
That's
not a nightclub. I've done over 10 nightclubs in the city of Providence.
So I speak with a little bit of knowledge. We, or I am here because I'm speaking on what I do know.
I have three businesses on Atwell's Avenue.
Little Italy, one of the focal point neighborhoods of Providence.
just got done celebrating the Columbus feast for three days.
So I can speak on
what I do know. I don't know the entire city, but I do know Washington Street
where the George is and how it's helped with the entertainment at the George
without limitations, successfully for six years. So again, Atwells Avenue,
we have
five six new restaurants coming in and that's great I think everybody would
agree with that but for those five or six restaurants that are coming in they
didn't create new buildings that means five or six restaurants went out of
business they went out of business so
the point that I'm here for is to
fully fully 100% endorsed and give us an opportunity in these restaurants because
there's one nightclub that I love on Atwell's Avenue and that's the 1221.
There are no nightclubs. There's no we can't even apply for an entertainment
license and that's why I'm grateful to be here to have the opportunity to
have
a possibility of having some type of entertainment.
So I'm asking that you support this. I'm asking
that it gets approved as quick as possible because that makes a major difference for restaurants.
The entertainment complements the fine dining.
The restaurants that are charging 40 to
$60 a dinner, we're a restaurant and I understand your concern. It could happen
where a restaurant would move the tables, but then it would have to stop at 9 o'clock at night.
The limitations are so strict, and I think that's a good thing. It's a good test.
Nightclubs, and I've been doing this for years, we don't get busy till 11, 11, 30 if we even get
busy.
So because it was so thought out and so crafted so well,
the limitations of 9 and 11
PM on weekends, and if I may give an opinion on weekends, this is a Friday and Saturday
night state. Not a Friday and Saturday night city. If we don't, if we're not busy on a Friday
and Saturday night, that place will be locking its doors. It ain't like Florida where I just
came from and visited. They do business five, six nights a week. This is a Friday
and Saturday night state.
Providence being the gem of the state.
We rely having
that entertainment where someone like a Ron Giorgio, Steve Anthony, and I can go
on and on just go on my website at the George has successfully enhanced that
ability to stay open. It will do the same thing.
Again I speak to what I
of Annapolis Avenue. Right now we don't have that opportunity except for maybe one
or two. I also owned a restaurant in the plaza called Viola's. We were blessed
and fortunate that we were the exception. We were the only area to have
live entertainment. Long as it stopped by midnight and it's been like that for
30 years. We're asking that the other restaurants and cafes have at least an opportunity, A,
to hire these musicians or DJs,
which that's how most of them make a living, and it definitely
would make a difference to the business owners. And I know that for a fact.
So again, Friday
Friday and Saturday would be weekends.
If it's a Sunday, just like the regular entertainment licenses, Friday and Saturday, not that this
is what we're talking about here, but as an example, we get to close it too.
If it's a Sunday holiday, we get to close it too, not on the Monday.
So perhaps the idea to solve that question would be 11 p.m. on a Friday and Saturday,
then it's no more entertainment. Sunday perhaps also 11 p.m. I think there's
seven Sundays in the year that that would apply so
okay thank you for your
time Mr. Tomaso thank you. I hope you were considerate and again thank you.
All right
I cannot make out these things but I'll call the address which
45 Waverly Street no
35 Laura Street I
got a phone number
21 Anthony Avenue
Francisco Mende I
got another phone number in the name that I cannot make out
phone number
Felix Garcia
Eddie Peña
John Martinez
John make sure that I can read his name. All right
Good evening, John.
You're welcome.
Good evening, everyone. My name is John Martinez.
I'm the owner of Area Restaurant and Lounge.
I'm 319 Pecasset Avenue.
I found out about this amendment late last night,
but I'm happy to be here.
I think it's a great opportunity for our business.
I cringe when I hear the residents say what they say about our business
and the way some some characters choose to run their businesses. My sincere
apologies to everyone. That's not who we are and it's very unfortunate to have to
stand up here and defend my business but I'm happy to do so because I think
that we need true leaders in the city as it pertains to nightlife and I
I recognize the challenges culturally that we have, trying to temper down our customers
and help them understand that there are rules and laws.
Not everything is a nightclub. Not everything should be a nightclub.
I think the difference here is the time. The difference here is the prohibitions put in place to control what we're doing.
I think people should take that seriously. I have a different experience with my business.
I've been enforced. I do get visits from the city. We are accountable to the rules and regulations that are here for providence.
but we also want to survive and we also want to allow our residents within our communities
to have a place to go and have a good meal and maybe have some entertainment. We want
to provide a great service to the people in our community. We want people to go somewhere
safe. We do want to share our Latin Infuse menu with everyone who wants to try some
really great food, have a great cocktail in a safe environment and if having entertainment
and makes that experience a bit more impactful for them
and makes it want to come back.
And that's money in my employees' pockets,
that's money in the city's pockets,
and it's a great experience.
And it does add to the vitality
and the essence of our city of Providence, right?
I left for 20 years and I came back home with a dream
to kind of build something in my own neighborhood.
And it's tough, right?
We have a lot of regulations,
We have a lot of economic challenges right now.
So these are just opportunities that we really, really appreciate,
and we really want to follow to the tee,
so that we enhance our business.
And it's not going to be about music.
It's always food first.
It's how can we add some value within that parameter
so that our customers can come in and enjoy a better experience.
And that's, you know, I endorse it.
We need it.
We're trying to survive.
Not everyone is the same.
and you know while it's easy to say we shouldn't pay for the penalties of the
field I mean I think that we should be accountable to our peer group but we do
really need the opportunity and there are some really good actors to give for
an opportunity to show the city that we can we can follow the rules and
provide something a little bit different and better to our community thank you
John thank you councilor
Roya chair just want to quickly comment on that
testimony. I think it was John, right? John, that was just well said. I appreciate your
presentation. Very rational. And thank you for staying the accountability piece. And so
I'm really fortunate to have business owners in this city like you. Thank you for your
testimony. Thank you, Councilman.
John, you have no idea how much that means to
So here, Councilman Roy, speak like that.
Thank you, Councilman.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Jose Mendez, not here.
Media.
Jonathan from 86 Summer Street,
85 Gallatin Street,
Garcia from 86 Rail Something Street.
No?
OK, next page.
Uh,
Willie from 27 Ruffian Street?
Nope.
Desi Diaz,
Bernardo da Salas, 91 Sumter Street.
Uh, then I got another phone number, so...
Kimberly from 16 Summer Street,
716 Central Avenue,
Cashly Reyes,
Yenely Contreras,
Malcolm Taylor,
Janelle Taylor,
Suheri Montero,
Suherita Rosa,
825 Pony of Calf,
Martín López, Giovanni Nunes,
Claire Estel,
Elizabeth López,
Rachel
Sompin,
Fabio Munoz.
All right, so is there anyone here that has not spoken that would like to speak?
I just went through the list.
Okay.
So City
Sergeant, did we have any, that was the only list for item number one, right?
Okay.
I did ask that if there's anyone, even if you didn't sign up and you'd like to speak,
come on up.
No.
Alright.
So time to close up all the hearing.
Alright, so Madam Clerk being that no one else has signed up to speak.
Mr. Oscar Vargas, Councilor Vargas, you were going to say something.
Yes, I want to say thank you to everyone who came today and testified, taking the time.
But at the same time, I would like to make some motion to amend the Friday night.
Do you want to add an amendment?
Do you want to add an amendment to this audience, the Friday night between 11 p.m.
and any holiday
to stay tonight p.m.
Because according to the audience says weekdays to 9 p.m.
but
doesn't mention anything about holidays.
It's a holiday, it's a Monday, and we have
Sundays. Sunday is 11 p.m. according to the ordinance.
The idea is to have Friday to
11 p.m.
as a weekend. According to all these people who testified, they keep
saying the Friday the weakness is starting Friday, Friday night, all the
to Sunday.
So you want to incorporate Fridays into the weekend scheduling? Correct. And
holidays should be considered? Weekday. Until 11pm on holidays? Is that what you're saying?
Holiday is this, because usually we have all holidays on Mondays except for July, Thanksgiving.
even?
Those holidays, they don't fall into Mondays.
Mr. Ayes, are you
getting it?
Yeah, it sounds like Kansai Mabaga wants to add Fridays to
weekends and also holidays to 11 p.m. Yeah, so just to be clear then,
where it
says
it shall cease by 9 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on weekends. If we can be more specific
and say it shall cease by 9 p.m. on Monday through Thursday and 11 p.m. on Friday through
Sunday.
We want to say 9 p.m. on Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. on Friday and
Saturday.
Not on Sundays because when we have holidays on Monday they want
to extend to 11. Do you want to do you want to say the extend to 11 on the
day before a holiday. Now we can work that out. Okay I'm just I'm just trying to I'm
not expressing an opinion I'm just trying to make sure that we get this
accurately so it sounds like what you're saying is that the incidental
entertainment shall cease at 9 p.m. on Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. on
Friday, Saturday, and the night before a city holiday, a city-recognized holiday?
So you basically, what it sounds like, what Councilman Wang is proposing is to switch Sundays for Fridays.
so Fridays will be to 11 along with Saturday and then Sunday it's instead of
being 11 p.m. on Sundays it'll be 9 p.m. so we're looking at Sunday through
Thursday 9 p.m. except for a holiday yes the other part to that is that on
holidays it'll be 11.
A night before holiday will be to 11.
I think I hear
what the councilman is saying is that Friday and Saturday and the night before
a holiday would be 11 o'clock. Correct.
That's what I understand.
That was just
Thanksgiving holidays.
That doesn't fall into Monday.
The holiday doesn't fall on Mondays.
Thank you, Aaron. That makes sense.
Councilman Royas.
Sorry. I just want to make sure that Mr. Azar knew what Aaron had just said.
No, I did not hear it.
I
agree with that.
Are you clear with these two amendments?
Because then I'm going to go to Councilwoman Peterson.
Okay, so what I heard was...
If incidental, I'm reading the way that it is proposed by Councilman Vargas.
If incidental entertainment is provided as a live music performance, it shall cease at 9 o'clock p.m.
Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. on Friday comma Saturday and the night before a city
recognized holiday.
Correct.
All right, so Councilwoman Peterson. If I could
request that we deliberate on one more potential amendment it would be to
include these the understanding of karaoke and trivia as designated
opportunities for incidental which I think would go a long way especially in
neighborhoods like mine that don't necessarily have larger venues with
large music opportunities or anything like small restaurants and small bars so
that would be the only thing I do need. I believe that there might be a little bit
more research that needs to be done around that one but nevertheless I would
propose and advocate for that.
As soon as Rian Bob and also for Aram can that
amendment also be incorporated? The way I would do that is in the definition
of incidental entertainment, it would say, incidental entertainment is background music
limited to the following formats, A, live music performance, B, prerecorded music played
from a preselected playlist over a permanently installed sound system, or C, trivia and
karaoke so
being that I think that that is it right there motion I will be
entertaining emotion to amend and our last Mr. A's are to read the first
amendment pertaining to the change in the days in the hour you got it yet
right I'm getting practice all right so the first so the first change would
be in the definition of incidental entertainment, the sentence is, I think it's the second
or last sentence would be revised to say if incidental entertainment is provided as a
at 9 o'clock p.m. on Sunday through Thursday and 11 o'clock p.m. on Friday, Saturday, and
the night before a city recognized holiday.
So move.
Motion is made by Councilor Vargas, second by Councilwoman Peterson, all in favor.
Aye.
Opposed?
The ayes have it.
Second motion is to ayes or please.
Okay,
this would be a change to the first sentence of the definition of incidental entertainment.
It would now read, incidental entertainment is background music limited to the following
formats, A, live music performance, B, pre-recorded music played from a pre-selected playlist
over the permanently installed sound system, or C, trivia and karaoke.
So move.
motion is made by Councilman Vargas, second by Councilwoman Peterson, all in favor, aye.
Opposed? The ayes have it. Thank you.
This concludes this item, so I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing.
Made by Councilwoman Royas, and second by Councilwoman Peterson, all in favor, aye.
Opposed? The Ayes have it. And now I will entertain a motion to continue this item.
So moved.
May the Councilor Ma'am Varga, second by Councilwoman Peterson, all in favor, aye.
Opposed? The Ayes have it. Thank you.
Okay, we still, we have a long night, but we still have one more item, which is item number three pertaining to cannabis.
Mr. Azar, are you ready?
Item number three is an ordinance in amendment of Chapter 27 of the Code of Ordinances of
the City of Providence entitled, The City of Providence Owning Ordinance Approved November
24, 2014 as amended to change certain regulations regarding cannabis establishment.
Thank you. I want to turn a motion to enter into the record exhibit D, which is the letter
from the CPC. Seconded by Councilwoman Peterson, seconded by Councilman Vargas, and in favor
aye. Opposed, the ayes have it. Thank you. Mr. Esso, please.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This amendment is in response to recent changes in state law.
The way that our regulations have been since they were originally adopted,
they require that,
apologize,
get to bear with me just for a second, they currently require, our local regulations
applications currently require any establishments that sell or cultivate cannabis to obtain
state approvals before applying for municipal approvals.
But the new rules, I think I misspoke, I don't think it's new laws.
I think it's the new rules that were adopted by the Cannabis Commission now require applicants
against to obtain approval from the municipality
before they apply for state approval.
So it's the opposite of the process that we have in place.
So this merely changes the sequencing of the process
so that it's consistent with state law.
The same rules will apply, the same separation distances,
the same requirements for square footage and so forth.
All of that is exactly the same.
the same zones where these facilities are allowed, those are all the same.
So it's just, again, to be consistent with the state regulations.
There's one change that I might ask you to consider,
and it's simply in the use table, wherever we have one of these uses, if we could label them
cannabis, dash, and then the specific use, because right now we have our use table in alphabetical
order and all of these uses are in different places. Some are under C, one of them is under
S for social equity workers cooperative. So if we could, if you would just allow us in
the use table to preface each of these uses with cannabis so that they're all together,
all it does is rearrange them so it's clearer for those who are using the ordinance. It's
nothing more than a clerical change. But in any event, the City Plan Commission did
recommend approval of this and I know there has been some urgency from the
Cannabis Commission because there are some applications that are kind of caught
in a bit of limbo because there's a chicken or the egg problem the way that
our rules are written today. Thank you Bob. I understand this could be pretty
complex but basically we just continue to align our local laws with the
and understanding that at some point, like now, there are minor adjustments that we need to make.
That's right.
So that's basically it. Does the committee have any objection to the amendment that Mr. Azar suggested?
Chair, I just want to let Mr. Azar know that I'm really on the fence about this clerical change.
I'm not sure if I can support that right now.
All right,
so Mr.
Azar prepared to make the amendment,
so I will get ready to entertain that amendment.
Yeah, so the amendment would be...
All right, so I'll go right ahead.
Yeah, so the amendment would be that for each of the uses as they appear,
each of the cannabis-related uses as they appear in the use table,
that they would be prefaced with the word cannabis
so that they're all properly in alphabetical order.
And the way I would do that,
I could make this a little bit clearer.
So here let's do this.
The use hybrid cannabis retailer
slash cannabis cultivator would have the word cannabis in front of it with a
dash and then social equity slash workers cooperative licensed cannabis
retailer would also have cannabis cannabis dash in front of it. Those are
the two changes that would appear in the use tape. Thank you and this motion
is made by
Councilwoman Peterson, and it's second by Councilman Royers, all in favor
aye, opposed the ayes have it. Thank you.
Any further questions for Mr. Azar?
Yes.
Hearing none.
Do you have a question, Councilwoman Vargas?
Yes.
Go right ahead.
I got a question.
So, like you were saying, like now we switch that we had to approve
them first for them to go to the state, what about we don't approve them?
I guess they won't go to the state.
If they're not approved locally then they're not eligible for a state license.
And so we have the authority to say no and yes.
It all depends what location they're looking for, right?
The city has the authority but only to the extent that the zoning ordinance allows for
it.
So there are, for each of the different uses, either the use is allowed by needing a special
use permit from the zoning board, or it's allowed without a special use permit,
but in either case there are what we call use standards, and use standards are
things like you have to take measures to contain noise and odors, you have to
have a security plan, you have to have staffing and so forth, so there are
all these standards. If in the opinion of either the zoning board or the zoning enforcement
office or the application doesn't meet those standards, then the application locally would
be rejected.
One more question.
How many licenses do the city of province have to approve? According
according to the five.
So, I don't have this number off the top of my head,
but the way that the state law is structured,
they broke up the state into several different zones
and each zone gets a certain number of licenses.
It's not a large number.
We're in the same zone as several five licenses.
Yeah, I think, yeah, I wish I had the law in front of me, but we're in the same zone
with several other communities, and there can only be a certain number of, it's definitely
less than 10 licenses within a given zone, I see.
We have our policy expert, thank you Miguel.
The cannabis expert, awesome.
Don't smoke it.
Yeah.
So, just to kind of go back, I think we talked about this months ago, there were 24 total
licenses, six regions, four per region.
We share a region with Johnston, Lincoln, Cumberland, stuff like that.
So, there's a finite number in this.
Thank you, Miguel.
Yeah, so worst case scenario, we get four, but we're obviously not the only community in
the same zone. Yeah, thank you. So each community has the same opportunity, nothing to guarantee
to any particular community. Thank you. All right, so item number three, pretending to
cannabis. The end of this no further question. I would like to take a motion to close the
public hearing on item number three, made by Councilman Varga, second by Councilman Royer,
all in favor aye. Aye. Opposed the ayes have it. And I will also entertain a motion to
continue this item. Made by Councilman Peterson, second by Councilman Varga, all in favor
aye. Aye. Opposed the ayes have it. This item number three is continued being that
And there is no further business in the calendar on this in a motion to adjourn.
So moved.
Made by Councilwoman Peterson and by Councilman Vargas.
And I know it's second by Councilman Royes.
All in favor, aye.
Opposed?
The ayes have it.
This meeting is adjourned.
Thank you.