By JOHN KOZIOL

Staff Writer

LACONIA — There will be changes in how the state Liquor Commission processes extension-of-service, or "beer tent" licenses, its enforcement chief said on Thursday. But for now, what the changes may entail is still up in the air.

The commission’s handling of the licenses created a "brew-haha" just before last year’s Bike Week that had few, if any, of the several businesses in The Weirs which wanted to operate beer tents during the event, laughing.

Those businesses — Weirs Beach Lobster Pound, JT’s Bar-B-Q and Roadhog Saloon, and the Broken Spoke Saloon, all on Endicott Street North, Educate America Inc., which was to be located at the Weirs Beach Drive-In, and Donna Jean’s Diner on Weirs Boulevard — had applied to the Liquor Commission for extension-of-service licenses and assumed they were going to receive them. However, each was rejected just days before the start of Bike Week 2002.

At the time, Liquor Commission Enforcement Chief Aidan Moore had given preliminary support to the applications but later withdrew it after then-Attorney General Philip McLaughlin urged the Liquor Commission to either deny all the applications or to limit the size of the beer tents to no more than 250 people at a time.

McLaughlin said granting the licenses "would be contrary to the public interest in that it would create a significant public safety hazard."

Eventually, however, the AG’s Office accepted a compromise under which the Lobster Pound, JT’s and the Broken Spoke each agreed to have a maximum occupancy of 1,000 people in their beer tents — well below actual capacity — and to other conditions pertaining to security and public safety. The Liquor Commission then approved those businesses’ licenses as well as that of Donna Jean’s but not Educate America.

In the months after the beer tent flap, the Liquor Commission began a review of its policies and is now close to bringing some proposed regulations forward for public review.

"The commission has proceeded into the rulemaking on the rules that affect the extension-of-service areas outside the licensed premise," Moore said on Thursday. He added that he is "certain there will be some possible impact" on how the Liquor Commission acts on future extension-of-service requests, but stressed that any changes which are enacted "would apply statewide and not focus on Bike Week" specifically.

The Liquor Commission recently voted on the draft language of the changes and their fiscal impact is now being studied, said Moore.

Upon completion of the fiscal review, the Liquor Commission will hold public hearings on the changes, copies of which will be posted on the agency’s Internet site at http://www.state.nh.us/liquor/index.html.

Asked how long the process of formulating the new regulations might take, Moore said only "it’ll move along." He declined to speculate on the suggested changes because they represent "a work-in-progress and while it’s what the commission has at least stated ‘this is the language we prefer,’ that language can certainly be changed."

To date, Moore said, the only business that has submitted an application for an extension-of-service license for this year’s Bike Week is the Weirs Beach Lobster Pound.

A business seeking such a license must first obtain local site plan approval for a beer tent.

In Laconia, Bike Week site plans are reviewed by the Motorcycle Technical Review Committee, which as of Thursday had received only one request for a beer tent from the Naswa Resort.

The MTRC has continued the Naswa’s site plan application pending a traffic study.