Portsmouth council approves Sunset Cove outdoor bar, but only with permits, a 9 p.m. cutoff and a community meeting

The Portsmouth Town Council, sitting as the Board of License Commissioners, voted 5-1 on Monday, July 27, to let Sunset Cove serve alcohol at an outdoor tiki bar through Nov. 30, but attached conditions after neighbors described months of noise, marijuana smoke and traffic problems and after the business acknowledged it had been operating the bar without required permits.

The vote came on an agenda item listed as a request for temporary seasonal expansion of the service area for Sunset Cove, Inc., doing business as Sunset Cove, at 706 Park Avenue, to allow an outdoor bar to the west of the patio. A seasonal expansion is a temporary add-on to an existing liquor license; it lets a licensee serve in a defined outdoor area for part of the year, and it expires on its own. It is not a permanent change to the license.

Under the motion approved from the published meeting recording, the town clerk will not release the expanded license until the business has obtained building, electrical, plumbing and Coastal Resources Management Council permits. Outdoor service must stop at 9 p.m., an hour earlier than the 10 p.m. cutoff described for the establishment's indoor service. A community meeting with neighbors was also folded into the conditions.

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What the owner told the council

A co-owner of the business, who said he owns Sunset Cove with a business partner and also holds two other Island Park licenses, told the council the bar had been operating without the town's sign-off and asked for five more weeks of the summer season.

He said the company had submitted electrical and plumbing permit applications, that an engineer was inspecting the site that week to support a building permit, and that a CRMC application had been filed. He said the business employs about 75 people, including 20 to 25 high school and college students, and described the coming weeks as "make-or-break."

Asked directly whether the outdoor bar had been open the previous weekend without a permit, he said it had. He said the business believed a Department of Health approval received the prior week was sufficient, and said hot and cold water had been installed at the bar at significant expense to satisfy that agency.

Asked when the tiki bar itself was built, he said it was installed two and a half years ago. He said the failure to obtain permits was not deliberate: the owners believed their indoor liquor license covered service roughly 10 feet outside the building.

An engineer who joined the meeting remotely confirmed that a CRMC application for the bar had been submitted and said a state environmental scientist had indicated it would be processed as a regular assent, with no enforcement action expected. He named the state staffer at the council's request. A council member who said her own recent CRMC matter took eight months questioned the "very quickly" timeline.

What neighbors said

Four residents spoke against the request, and none spoke in favor.

A Point Road resident said he spent 27 months permitting a one-car garage, largely because of state coastal review, and said structures at Sunset Cove sit within 200 feet of the shoreline without the same paperwork. He described amplified music, screaming, people running on his seawall, children jumping off the back of the yard and marijuana smoke drifting into his property from Wednesday through Sunday. He asked the council to reject the application, arguing there should be "consequence," "accountability" and "cause and effect" for operating outside the license.

A second Point Road resident, who said she has lived in town more than 12 years and had never before addressed the council, said her home is roughly 600 feet from Sunset Cove and that amplified sound is clearly audible. She credited the business's food, its fireworks and its special events, but said she wanted the same permitting standard applied to the business that applied to her own siding and roof work.

A Hammock Avenue resident raised safety. He said he counted more than a hundred cars in an overflow lot the business's patrons use, and described watching a toddler walk out from between parked cars toward Park Avenue on a Saturday evening. He also questioned whether the business's insurance would have covered an incident at an unlicensed outdoor bar, and recommended the council deny the application and make the owners wait a year.

A fourth resident, joining remotely, said he had spoken by phone with one of the owners after the council's prior meeting and had tried to organize neighbors, but the promised meeting never took place. As a small business owner, he said, failing to pull a permit brings an immediate $500 fine. "The only thing that we have as neighbors to hold over their head is this liquor license right now," he said.

The promised meeting that did not happen

Much of the council's discussion turned on a community meeting that a council member said had been requested of the other co-owner at a meeting roughly a month earlier.

"I'm disappointed that that didn't happen, because I think there are people here tonight who are even angrier," the council member said, adding that a meeting "could have dissipated some of that anger." She told the owner the missed meeting would influence her vote and said she was "in a dilemma."

The chair repeatedly steered testimony back to the agenda item, noting that noise complaints and the separate entertainment license were not before the board, and that residents who might have wanted to speak on those subjects had no notice they would be discussed. He told residents that noise complaints should be reported to police so a report is generated. The owner said the business had called police itself and was told no complaints had been received, apart from one two years ago.

Another council member said flatly that she could not support the request. "Ignorance is not bliss," she said, adding that the onus was on the business to know the rules and that the council would not approve the bar if it were being proposed from scratch with the same open questions.

How the conditions were assembled

The motion was built in pieces on the floor. It began as approval contingent on all necessary permits, including CRMC, with an end date of Labor Day. That date was dropped in favor of Nov. 30, matching the seasonal expansion the board had approved minutes earlier for another Park Avenue establishment.

A council member then said she could not support the motion without a requirement that a community meeting be held, and the chair suggested that meeting occur before the license is released — meaning sometime between the Monday vote and the Thursday the business hoped to open. Another council member noted the difference between holding a meeting and reaching a resolution, and said she wanted resolution in place.

A separate amendment setting a 9 p.m. end to outdoor service passed 5-1. The chair noted the limitation may be partial, since drinks purchased inside can still be served through a window under the existing license.

One council member proposed postponing the whole item to the next meeting to see whether the permits and the meeting had actually happened. The chair said contingent approvals are routine and that staff would withhold the license if the permits were not complete.

A request to attach a penalty — shortening the outdoor license period as a consequence for operating without permits — was set aside. The town's attorney advised that a revocation or reissuance with a limitation would require its own agenda item.

The police chief, asked whether the department had concerns, said he would need to review the specific license classification to say whether patrons may carry drinks purchased inside to an outdoor area.

What happens next

The expansion runs through Nov. 30, 2026, and only if the permits are in hand; the town clerk withholds the license otherwise. It is temporary, and the business must apply again for any outdoor service next season or seek a permanent expansion through a separate process.

Near the close of the item, a council member noted that the vote does not preclude enforcement action by the town's planning or building departments.

The council's next meetings are scheduled for Aug. 11 and Aug. 24. This account is drawn from the Portsmouth Town Council's published meeting recording of its July 27, 2026, meeting.