State bureau grants liquor license to new pizza-movie establishment> Decision overturns earlier one made by Bar Harbor Town Council

BAR HARBOR — The Bureau of Liquor Enforcement has overturned the town’s denial of a liquor permit to a new business on Kennebec Place.

In a decision delivered to the town office in recent days, John S. Martin, chief of the state agency, said Bar Harbor “was not justified in denying” a liquor license to Reel Pizza Cinerama.

Business owners Lisa Burton and Chris Vicenty had filed an appeal of the Town Council’s decision to deny their application to sell beer and wine.

The council, in denying the application, cited the Maine statute that gives municipalities the right to do so if the business is situated 300 feet or less from a parish hall or church.

Bar Harbor Code Enforcement Officer Bob Sharkey had argued that the distance between the business and the Bar Harbor Congregational Church was less than 300 feet.

He said the main entrance of the church was not its front door, a statement the church pastor affirmed. Sharkey also argued that the ordinary course of travel between the two buildings was not by the sidewalks.

In response to the appeal filed by Burton and Vicenty, the Bureau of Liquor Enforcement held a public hearing on the matter in Bar Harbor on June 28. At that hearing, Ellsworth lawyer Peter Roy, representing the business owners, said the distance between the business and the church — using the sidewalks as an ordinary course of travel between the front doors of each establishment — measured more than 300 feet.

Martin stated that his bureau agreed that the ordinary course of travel was by the sidewalks. Using that travel lane, the distance between the main entrances of the two buildings is more than 400 feet, Martin said in his letter.

Anyone wanting to appeal the bureau’s decision may file a complaint with the administrative court within 30 days.