Selectmen talk restaurants

It briefly felt like old home week at the Selectmen’s Tuesday, June 23 meeting during which three legacy restaurants in Norwood were approved for transfers of liquor licenses and/or management changes enabling them to continue to serve the Norwood community.

Liquor license transfers were made from Café Venice at 1086-1088 Washington St. to DBA Sarba Little Venice which will now serve Indian food, and a liquor license transfer from The Colonial House to what will now be called the Colonial Ale House at 33 Savin Ave., and a change of manager at The Chateau Restaurant at 404 Boston Providence Hwy. Each said they will honor the legacy of the original owners while putting their own new mark on the establishments.

Helen Abdallah Donohue, life-long Norwood resident who served for over 21 years on the Board of Selectmen returned to welcome and support the new owners as they presented their requests.

“Hello, I'm Helen Abdallah Donohue, and I'm your neighbor across the street,” said Donohue to the Café Venice new owners. “My sister Olga Abdallah and I want to wish you the best of luck, and we hope that you'll continue a wonderful tradition that we have in South Norwood … Thousands of people have loved the Venice for a very, very long time.”

Donohue also congratulated Sonia Ramos, the new manager of The Chateau, who has experience working at Jake N Joes across Providence Highway.

“I'm so happy that you're having this job change. It's such an honor to have been around when the Chateau first came … and when Jake N Joe’s was created,” she said.

To the new manager, Joe Gillepsie, of the Colonial Ale House, Donohue said, “I haven't been here for years, and this is a historical night, a lot going on. But I just wanted to say welcome to you also.” All three establishments received unanimous Selectmen approval, pending successfully completing other required steps.

Eden Floyd, the Norwood part-time energy manager whose position is shared with the towns of Medfield and Sharon, was next on the agenda providing a report on the EV public chargers available around Norwood. “In my role, some of my primary responsibilities include securing grant funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy-related projects, as well as overseeing those as well… I'm typically in Norwood on Tuesdays and Fridays. I help municipalities with achieving their net zero emission goals,” said Floyd.

She explained that the town owns 14 public EV chargers, all externally funded, and spread out around the town and are all Level 2 chargers. The chargers are provided at no cost to customers.

Tony Mazzucco, General Manager, jumped in with more detail. “They do generate some revenue to the Town, which becomes just a revenue to the general fund. Probably a couple thousand dollars a year,” he said. Mazzucco said they are just beginning to assess the data. “We're trying to do it through grant funding and just making sure that we take sort of a very balanced and stable approach for meeting the need ... creating the infrastructure that we want.”

Another update involved a sump pump issue at Hawes Pool. Over the winter the pump was discharging back into the same area, burning out the pump, leading to corrosion, rust, and damage. Luckily, the pump is under warranty, and Mazzucco believes it will be working soon so the pool can be running this weekend at no cost to the town.

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The success of the town’s recycling center is creating overcrowding issues. “We're going to look to do a few things differently over the next few weeks and over the next few months just dealing with this huge volume. Part of it's just the number of cars coming into a very small space is a lot.” Mazzucco hopes to keep the lines flowing by limiting cars to 15 minutes for unloading.

Mazzucco announced that the long-awaited Norwood Hospital Interim report is now available on the Town of Norwood website at HTTPS://GVIMES.LINK/NRWDHOSPREPORT and is being widely disseminated.

“The task force has released its interim report. We are sending that to the entire legislature. We are sending it to 100 local officials in the area. Our recommendation is that the state should take the property by eminent domain,” he said.“We know this is a regional issue and the region's important, but this is also an issue of a company that has come in and pillaged health care in Massachusetts, and the Commonwealth has to decide whether we want to live like this.”

Mazzucco and the Selectmen encouraged everyone to access the report and read it and sign the “Finish Norwood Hospital Petition” which is also linked on the website. “This is not going to go away anymore at any time soon,” said Mazzucco. “So, the battle continues.”