The Committee on Ordinances met on May 27, 2026 at 12:05 PM (recorded as 16:05:49 UTC) to consider a second reading of an ordinance amendment to Chapter 14 of the Providence Board of Ordinances, which establishes licensing requirements for expanded incidental entertainment. This amendment is the companion bill to a previously passed zoning change that expanded incidental entertainment definitions. The committee voted unanimously to approve the ordinance and send it to the full council for final passage.
And then time is 1205. Mana Clerk, please call the role. Chairman Clean Espinoff. Present. Present. Consulman Mary K Harris, present. Consulman Oscar. Consulate Justin Roy has a second. We have three presents to ask and you have a form. Thank you. And today we are joined by our chief of staff June Rose and our director of policy, R and Psych Gardner. As well that City Solicitor, E.T. Schwartz. And we also joined by a policy one of our policy directors, we go yellows in a couple of interns. Welcome. This is our created and ordinance. So please be learning a lot. So thank you so much again for being here. So the uh first item on the agenda. An ordinance amendment chapter 14 of the province board of ordinances. Thank you. So we have passed expended entertainment, uh, incidental entertainment uh through zoning. We did that and we passed it for the first time last week. Uh this is the companion bill. This all this is is the licensing part of it. Uh in order for a licensing reward to be able to enforce what we already passed. Uh this was introduced last week, we'll pass it for the second time. So what we're looking for here is to get clear and say unless there's any concerns and questions, so that we can send it back to the floor through our first meeting in June. Do we have any questions from a committee members? Anyway, not this is pretty clear. I'll have to take a motion to approve. Uh there is a question. I move too fast. Apologies for that. No, I just I just need one minute. Yeah, take a time, absolutely. Yes, just for the record, could you explain? I know we've been through this already, the difference between incidental entertainment and uh temporary um entertainment. Regular containment? The regular, yeah, the two there's two there's incidental, which is uh we have you have the uh you know regular entertainment for which you need licensing and uh you know that goes from DJs uh live shows, which is full-fledged entertainment, uh, and then incidental entertainment is something that is really just uh uh is limited normal than uh three acoustic instrument, uh pretending to live entertainment, and you can not uh amplify as well as by you can have uh electronic devices played from a pre-selected um uh selected uh play uh music and um but this chapter here will be expanded, which means that you can have live entertainment and you can uh expand uh you will be able to uh be uh amplified, uh although it only allows for inside uh amplified live entertainment. Uh you could also need a license, uh a yearly license but it cost of 500 hours. Uh and which is where this body legislation comes in where since you need a license, you're gonna need a set of rules uh for a licensee for a department to be able to enforce that. Uh with that explanation, I'll turn to Mr. Policy Director Aaron Gardner, if you want to add anything to it, so by committee member is concerned. I mean, honestly, no, from what you just explained, I think from my perspective you explained like you know, it's live entertainment, how it separates itself from um incidental entertainment and incidental entertainment expanded. Um that I you know we'll just say and add is that you know during the research on this item, uh we have recognized that there was already definition in state law of incidental entertainment, uh so to make sure we didn't run up all of that. Um we added a new category, you know, within the code that clarifies things. Any other questions? Um, thank you. No, thank you.