NEW BEDFORD — The city Licensing Board capped a stormy public hearing on Monday night by voting unanimously to ban the single-serving liquor bottles called “nips” starting in the fall.
The vote prompted booing and shouts of “shame” and “bag job” from a few in the standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 people that jammed a meeting room and spilled into the hallway on the third floor of the Public Library.
Board Chairman Edmund F. Craig, Jr. said after the meeting that city liquor stores would be given 90 days’ notice of the new ordinance that would take effect on or around Nov. 1. That’s less than a week before the election in which Mayor Jon Mitchell — who without public comment asked the board to put the item on its agenda last week — will most likely be seeking a sixth consecutive term.
Mitchell announced last week that he would run for re-election, and so far faces no formidable opponent in the preliminary election in October.
The Licensing Board voted 3-0 after remarks by Craig but without discussion. The vote came after about 45 minutes during which 12 people in the room stepped to the podium to have their say: eight against the ban, four in favor.
That tilt against the move seemed to reflect the sentiment of the crowd as a whole, which showed the most enthusiastic responses to speakers arguing against the ban as a blow to small business and scapegoating one type of street litter in a great scattering of water bottles, plastic cups, and takeout food containers.
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Supporters of the ban on the plastic and glass bottles pointed out that “nips” are different from other throwaway packages because they are not large enough to work in the equipment used in trash recycling systems. Some also said the bottles of 100 milliliters and under included in the ban encourage underage drinking and drinking while driving.
Two proponents of the ban tried to demonstrate the litter problem by stepping to the table where commissioners sat and dropping plastic bags stuffed with tiny liquor bottles that they said they had picked up in short walks around their neighborhoods.
Martin Lipman put three bags in front of Commissioner Marcelino “Sonny” G. Almeida, saying later that he filled each in about five minutes while walking his neighborhood near St. Luke’s Hospital.
“I don’t want to live in a city that’s a [expletive] city,” Lipman told the board, using a descriptor that former President Donald Trump famously applied to certain countries in the developing world.
Critics of the ban said they were angry not only about the substance of the decision, but the way it was made, suggesting that the die was cast before the meeting began. Some decried the fact that the ban was not decided by the City Council or in a wider public vote, as was the case in other Massachusetts communities that have banned “nips.”
New Bedford lawyer Armand Fernandes Jr., a retired judge of the trial and probate courts, tried to show wide opposition to a ban by presenting a stack of petitions signed by some 2,500 people, most of them city residents, he said.
New Bedford is now one of a handful of Massachusetts communities that have established bans, including Chelsea, Newton, Falmouth, Wareham, Mashpee and Brewster, according to published news accounts. The closest, Fairhaven, adopted a ban in May that will take effect in January.
Also considering bans are Boston, Quincy and Chicopee. Ware, a town about halfway between Worcester and Springfield, rejected a “nips” ban in May.
Mark Custodio of New Bedford, a sales person with a wine and spirit distribution company, said after the meeting that he would bring an ethics complaint against the board, claiming that the decision was made in discussions outside the meeting. He also said he would file a records request for all communications between board members and the mayor.
Paul Hebert, a former member of the Barnstable Town Council and community activist on Cape Cod who now lives in New Bedford, submitted a written statement opposing the ban, urging the board to postpone the decision for a year, and claiming that local liquor stores stand to lose 20% to 25% of sales.
The little bottles of spirits and liqueurs are variously estimated to account for between 10% and 30% of liquor store sales. Mark Riley, who owns Freitas Package Store in the South End and two liquor stores in Fairhaven, said the consensus among area liquor proprietors is about 15%, more than $6 million a year.
Riley said it seemed to him that the fix was in before the meeting started.
“They didn’t deliberate on this,” Riley said after the board voted.
In his remarks during the hearing, he said the tiny bottles are just part of a larger trash problem. He urged a comprehensive approach, including discussion of a “nips” price surcharge to support street-cleaning, revising the bottle deposit law to include “nips” and doubling the redemption return to 10 cents, emptying city trash containers more frequently, and stepping up arrests for public drinking.
He told board members that the mayor had put them in a “very difficult position,” saying the mayor was getting his way with a stacked board.
Two of the commissioners, Craig and Ricard Rezendes, who were nominated by Mitchell and approved by the City Council. Almeida was nominated by Mitchell’s predecessor, Scott Lang, and approved by the council.
Three of the six councilors who attended the session spoke during the hearing, all opposed to the ban.
Ryan Pereira of Ward 6 acknowledged that the tiny bottles — most commonly 50 and 100 milliliters, or 1.7 and 3.4 ounces — are a problem not unlike other forms of litter that call for a “regional approach or a state approach.” Otherwise, he said people would just buy their “nips” in nearby communities.
At-large Councilor Ian Abreu told the crowd that he “vehemently opposes” the ban, arguing that “I believe in adults being allowed to make adult decisions.”
Ward 2 Councilor Maria Giesta, encouraged a more broad and measured approach, such as an expansion of the state bottle deposit law.
“Let’s work together as a community and find a solution,” she said.
Giesta in February of 2022 introduced a council motion to support a deposit on “nips” bottles, but she said in an interview last night that she held off pressing the idea, waiting for the state Legislature to act. The measure was referred to a council committee and went no further.
In summarizing his position, Craig said ban opponents were “primarily the liquor industry,” and he pointed to complaints about litter and underage drinking. He said “we did the best that we could with the evidence before us.”
Saying after the meeting that he was “disheartened” by the outcome, Abreu said the council could consider asking the board to reconsider, or opponents could try to muster a referendum drive to revoke the ordinance.
Email Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.
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New Bedford has had a litter problem for years, everywhere you walk city beaches, city parks, schools, storefronts, and in front of your home. Before this ever went to the licensing board it should have been addressed by the Mayor’s office and the City Council. If you go to other towns and cities you will see Do Not Litter Signs and it states you will get a fine for doing so. Here in New Bedford not a one, there is no deterrent, and this is a 100% failure of our Elected Officials. It is time for change.
It’s a broken windows policy to ban nips. Today it’s nips, tomorrow it’s needles and human feces, like San Francisco. New Bedford adults apparently aren’t able to police their behavior. So it has to be done for them. I applaud the Board’s decision…