Pepperell Board Licenses New Restaurant, Advances Plastic Bag Bylaw at Monday Meeting

PEPPERELL -- August 26, 2019, Pepperell selectmen approve licenses for a new farm-to-table restaurant and advance a plastic bag ban to special town meeting. The Board of Selectmen unanimously granted both a common victualer's license and an all-alcohol beverages license to the Lazy Bubble LLC, a new dinner restaurant proposed for 112 Main Street by chef Christopher Finn and co-owner Anne-Marie Muse, who told the board, "We are a restaurant that is serving alcohol, we have absolutely no intention of being a bar that serves food." The board also voted unanimously to place a single-use plastic bag restriction bylaw on the October 21 special town meeting warrant after a presentation by Duncan Primus, a Pepperell sophomore at Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua, who noted Pepperell would join 122 other Massachusetts communities with such restrictions; a public hearing is planned for mid-September. Town Administrator Andrew Scarsdale reported that a citizens forum on the proposed 161 Nashua Road soil reclamation project drew more than 150 attendees and that New Hampshire officials are seeking to form a multistate task force with Pepperell to oppose the project. The board also adopted MGL Chapter 41, Section 56, designating Chairwoman Lisa Feralito as sole signatory for bill and payroll warrants to resolve conflict-of-interest complications, passing 2-0 with Feralito abstaining.