AMHERST — Longstanding tobacco regulations in Amherst mandate that once a business fails to renew its permit allowing sales of cigarettes and other tobacco products, the license is forever removed from circulation.
The Board of Health’s support for keeping a limit on tobacco permits, currently capped at 18 but likely to drop over time, has been clear, Chairwoman Nancy Gilbert said at the board’s meeting last week.
“We want to decrease the number of places that sell tobacco products in town,” Gilbert said, noting that the board has consulted with Cheryl Sbarra, the executive director and senior staff attorney for the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards, and D.J. Wilson, tobacco control director/public health liaison for the Massachusetts Municipal Association, including when it made the most recent revisions to the regulations in August 2020.
“When a license is gone, it is gone,” Gilbert said.
But a Northampton attorney, representing the owner of a package store that expects to open at 6 University Drive, disagrees that the regulations are that cut and dry, contending that there is sufficient ambiguity in how the regulations are written that would allow his client to, by right, sell both alcohol and tobacco at the site where a previous business, University Liquors, operated through last summer.
Dick Evans told the Board of Health that Akshar “Oscar” Patel wants to sell both products, and wants guidance about the rights and opportunity to have tobacco alongside alcohol.
Evans argues that the business already only caters to those 21 and over. “To be honest, I can’t see where the regs require a tobacco license for package stores,” Evans said. “The question is, where can tobacco be sold? Is tobacco prohibited from sale from adult-only alcohol stores?”
Other rules will be followed by the new business, including no exterior advertising for tobacco, no e-cigarettes and no flavored tobacco.
“He fully anticipates and has pledged to observe the spirit of the regulations,” Evans said.
Health Director Jennifer Brown said she informed Evans that her interpretation of the regulations is that the previous license for 6 University Drive had not been renewed, and thus the permit was to be permanently sun-setted.
The regulations state that if a permit is not renewed within 30 days of expiration, an applicant “will need to come before the Amherst Board of Health for a hearing to determine whether the lapsed Tobacco Product Sales Permit shall be renewed” and “any permit not renewed either because a retailer no longer sells tobacco products or because a retailer closes the retail business, shall be returned to the Amherst Board of Health and shall be permanently retired by the Board of Health.”
But there is also a stipulation that “a new owner of an establishment that sells tobacco products, as defined herein, must apply for a new permit.”
Licensing Coordinator Steve McCarthy said the regulations may be ambiguous, and there is confusion about whether the new establishment is a continuation of the previous one, due to it being located in the same spot.
The Board of Health expects to have legal consultation present for its May meeting, and then may hold a hearing on the license application in June.
Gilbert expressed frustration that the board’s understanding of the regulations are being questioned.
“I feel like I’m being blindsided a bit here,” Gilbert said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
