This decision warms my heart. It concerns a gentleman, Mr. Peter Donovan, who repeatedly applied to the City of Woburn, Massachusetts, for an alcoholic beverage license “so that could operate what he describes as a business selling corporate gift baskets containing high end wines and spirits.” The City denied his applications at every turn, each time offering another obscure concern about public safety and welfare.
The Massachusetts Court of Appeals put the kibosh on the City’s antics. “As we said in a different context,” the court held, “‘a board may not deny a permit simply by conjuring a parade of horribles, particularly when it has the power to prevent them.’” After dismantling the City’s justifications for denying Mr. Donovan’s liquor license application, the court concluded:
We are left, then, with the question of the proper remedy. Donovan has been seeking a license for ten years. There have been numerous hearings before the commission and at least four proceedings in Superior Court. As soon as a court invalidates one ground for denial or Donovan removes one commission-highlighted impediment to a license, the commission finds another. In the present proceeding, the commission has reverted, in part, to the ground for denial that was invalidated in 1997. Under these circumstances, we think that the appropriate remedy is an order requiring the commission to issue the license for which Donovan has applied. See MacGibbon v. Board of Appeals of Duxbury, 369 Mass. 512, 520 (1976); Ballarin, Inc. v. Licensing Bd. of Boston, 49 Mass.App.Ct. at 513. See also Petrucci v. Board of Appeals of Westwood, 45 Mass.App.Ct. 818, 828 (1998).
The judgment of the Superior Court is vacated. The case is remanded to the Superior Court where a judgment shall enter requiring the Woburn License Commission to grant the application of the appellant, Peter J. Donovan, filed on June 19, 2003, for an “all alcoholic beverages” license under G.L. c. 138, § 15.
Now that’s what I call delivering the goods.
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