Wareham appeared a giant step closer to getting eight new, long-sought, year-round liquor licenses following a Monday visit by a key legislative leader and town officials' apparent decision to abandon their insistence that licenses be earmarked for "economic development zones" rather than specific locations.

State Representative Theodore Speliotis (D-Danvers), the House Chairman of the Joint Committee on Consumer Protection & Professional Licensure, came to town to tour restaurants seeking year-round licenses and to visit sites, such as the A.D. Makepeace Rosebrook property, for which restaurants are planned.

"It's rare that we issue so many licenses to one community, and we're careful about that," Speliotis said. "We don't do eight [additional] licenses very often so I just wanted to be able to get my own perception of what was going on."

Rep. Susan Williams Gifford (R-Wareham), who filed the legislation to obtain the additional licenses, calls it the "Wareham Jobs Bill" because of the impact additional licenses could have on economic development and job creation. The lack of additional licenses has been a sore point in the Wareham and Onset business community - particularly for those restaurants that cannot serve alcohol from November 30 to April 1, but also for those who see the lack of licenses as stifling the establishment of new restaurants.

The number of liquor licenses issued to a town is based on its population. The town must request any licenses above the quota through legislation.

The Wareham bill, filed by Gifford at the request of local officials in 2007, originally sought 15 above-quota liquor licenses for "economic development zones," with a certain number of liquor licenses allocated for businesses in each "zone" -- West Wareham, Wareham Village, and Onset Village. After negotiations with the Joint Committee regarding the number of additional licenses sought, Town Meeting voted in April 2008 to try to obtain just eight licenses.

But the concept of assigning new licenses to zones rather than to specific businesses quickly became the subject of contention between the town and the legislative committee. With regular (within quota) licenses, Selectmen have the ability to assign any license that becomes available to the business that they judge to be best qualified. Speliotis and his committee were - and are - adamant that above-quota liquor licenses be assigned to specific addresses and businesses. Such licenses, once issued, cannot be transferred from those specific locations.

With town officials and Gifford insisting that a new license be confined only to a broader economic development zone, the situation appeared to be at a stalemate. The stalemate appeared to have been broken when, following Speliotis' visit, Town Administrator Mark Andrews spoke enthusiastically of providing Speliotis with specific locations for new licenses so that new, specific-location licenses could be speedily moved through the Legislature.

"We're just trying to pass a bill that would be consistent with how the Committee operates on liquor licenses," Speliotis said. "We're not trying to hold up anything."

Rep. Speliotis "seemed to be very enthusiastic about not only the site visit but the follow-up legislation," Andrews said.

Andrews said the town will provide the required documentation to get the bill out of committee, including addresses of businesses or sites that would be applying for the licenses. He said he could not release the names of the potential applicants because he needs to make certain that owners are still interested and that they are current on tax payments to the town. He said he will work with Gifford and Senator Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton), who was also on the tour, to take the necessary next steps.

Gifford said that some of the stops were Merchants Way On The Bay, Rice Bowl, and Ella's Wood Burning Oven Restaurant. Onset will be included on the list for potential liquor licenses, but the group did not have time to visit the village.

Selectman Brenda Eckstrom said that, while obtaining the site-specific licenses will be a step in the right direction for the town, the use of "economic development zones" would be better. She pointed out that licenses still will not be available for business owners who would like to open at locations not previously identified as sites where a liquor license would be used. But, she said,"it's great that we can get anything in town."

If the additional licenses are issued, the individual businesses would still have to go through the process of applying for the specific license and the Board of Selectmen would still have to approve it, Andrews said.