At the top of the newscast, we told you about City Hall's still unresolved beef with the BTB and central government; turns out that's not the only war The Hall is fighting with Belmopan. This one is with the Liquor Licensing Board. Yesterday that board met at the conference room of the Northern Fishermen's Cooperative. But things didn't go quite as they were planned. We've been following this battle since yesterday and tonight we take a look at the issue from both sides of the story.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
Yesterday when the board met at the Northern Fishermen=s Cooperative conference room there were two matters that the Belize City Council wanted to be dealt with. The first was installing the city administrator Sharole Saldivar as the clerk of the board.
Sharole Saldivar, City Administrator
"I was never formally appointed as the clerk to the board."
Danny Madrid, Liquor Licensing Chairman
"Believing that the city administrator is an important person, we thought that we should not use that person to be a clerk/secretary to the board so we used to use an employee. But she told me that she is the clerk and she wanted to record the minutes and I had no problem with that, no problem at all."
Having settled that matter next up was the issue of the licenses. The City Council is contending that in the past only the Chairman of the board has been signing the document. But amendments made to the law in July of last year mandate that both the local authority, in this case the City Council, and the Chairman of the board are to sign.
Sharole Saldivar,
"The law is specific as it relates to the issuance of licenses. The Chairman and the local authority should sign the licenses as mandated by the law. The licenses that she gave me had only signature for the Chairman. You see it has been the practice for the Chairman to sign licenses which is not provided for in the law. The board does not sign the licenses, it is the Chairman of the board and the local authority which is the City Council. They are the ones who sign the licenses. The practice has been that the board signs the licenses and they are not authorized by the law to do so."
Danny Madrid,
"The law requests that you do two certificates but we on our own good judgment, we decided that let's put only one document, agreed upon by the council and the board, and that the chairman should sign that certificate, that has been done for many years. So the chairman must now sign on two documents, one document that the local authority signs which is the certificate and the license which the board gives, which is supposed to be signed by the chairman and all board members. The Belize City Council decided that they want everything to go the way the law specifies so I said I have no problem."
In fact licenses printed to be signed at the meeting reflect the old practice: with space for only one signature for the local authority, which is the City Council. In last year licenses that was signed by Madrid - a former city councilor.
Sharole Saldivar,
"It brings to question whether or not those licenses are valid because all those licenses that are oat there were signed by the chairman. we will get our house in order, we will deal with the matter that has to be deal with at the court and we will see where we go from there."
Wherever they go from there, it will mean that those who will be applying for licenses will have to hope that the standoff between the City Council and the Liquor Licensing Board is settled sooner rather than later.
Madrid has told us that he has rescheduled the licensing meetings for the 29, 30th and 31st of this month. The Belize City Council says that they are hoping to resolve all matters with the board before the issuance of new licenses.
