OXFORD – Race fans will be able to purchase beer at Oxford Plains Speedway again this summer, but it may be harder to do so.
Oxford selectmen approved a license to sell beer and wine for the Boston Culinary Group Inc, which sells concessions and alcohol at the speedway, with seven restrictions recommended by interim Oxford Police Chief Jonathan Tibbetts.
Tibbetts told selectmen that in the past, beer sales at the speedway have been limited to the “beer garden,” except during the weekend of the Oxford Plains 250, when sales are extended to the grandstand and skybox.
“The whole weekend is a drunk-fest,” he said. “It used to be a free-for-all,” but with increased enforcement in recent years it has become a “semi-controlled free-for-all.”
In a written letter to selectmen dated June 13, Tibbetts recommended that if the board renewed the liquor license, it should do so with the following restrictions:
• sales be limited to the beer garden;
• signs be placed at beer garden entrances stating that no one under the age of 21 will be admitted;
• no alcohol can leave the area; and
• Boston Concessions be required to check IDs of anyone entering the beer garden.
In addition, Boston Concessions will reimburse the town the cost of posting a police officer at the gate of the beer garden.
Boston Concessions will be asked to agree that if any of these conditions are violated, they will close the beer garden at the request of the police officer on duty.
Resident Adrien Giroux, reading from a letter he wrote to Town Manager Michael Chammings last month, said he saw people selling beer out of coolers in the stands at the Oxford 250 last year. He questioned whether the sellers and buyers in the stands were of legal drinking age. Giroux, calling the race a family event, asked that selectmen not renew the liquor license.
Tibbetts said police officers cannot legally force anyone going into the stands to open a cooler for inspection.
Selectman Caldwell Jackson pointed out that beer brought by individuals into the grandstands is not under the control of Boston Concessions.
The motion to approve the liquor license with the restrictions recommended by Tibbetts was approved with only Selectman Dennis Sanborn voting against.
No representative of Boston Concessions was present at the meeting.
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