Select Board grapples with licensing reforms as residents demand accountability while officials warn against over-regulation

HOPKINTON – The November 4 Select Board meeting laid bare a community grappling with two competing imperatives. These are protecting residents, particularly children, from potential predators while maintaining an environment that allows businesses to thrive.

The evening began with an impassioned open forum. Here, residents voiced fury over the police department’s failure to alert the Select Board. They were upset that a business owner with a sexual assault conviction had been licensed to operate a restaurant employing teenagers for nine years. By the time the board addressed licensing reforms later that evening, the gallery had emptied. This pattern has become frustratingly familiar to town officials trying to navigate these troubled waters.

The Disconnect

They come in, complain, then leave, a member of the public observed. The room was a largely empty chamber when officials discussed the very reforms residents had demanded hours earlier.

The irony was palpable. At approximately 8:00 P.M., after most public forum speakers had departed, the Select Board engaged in a substantive discussion. They considered overhauling the town’s business licensing procedures. Adding SORI (Sex Offender Registry Information) checks to supplement existing CORI (Criminal Offender Record Information) reviews was discussed. They also examined what other communities do and wrestled with thorny questions about when background checks cross the line from prudence to overreach.

Board member Brian Herr observed that this could not be solved in one or two meetings. “We need to work with legal counsel to make sure we’re not opening ourselves up to other legal action.”

The Safety Imperative

The public forum testimony was searing. Residents wanted real answers from the Hopkinton Police Department. Why didn’t they tell the Select Board about Peter Sismanis’s 1998 sexual assault conviction? Or that he was a level-two sex offender? All the while, his business, Hillers Pizza, kept hiring teenagers. Beth Malloy didn’t hold back. “Why did it take a small group of protesters to bring this to light?” she asked. “What will you do now?”

Marie Laskowsky, organizer of the Hopkinton Coalition for Children, was even more blunt: “We are not going away. We will not get tired of advocating for the children of Hopkinton.”

Their anger makes sense. In January 2023, Sismanis faced charges for indecent assault and battery against a minor employee. Two years later, in January 2025, he was convicted of witness intimidation. Yet the town kept renewing his business license, year after year. No warning bells. No questions from the licensing board.

The Regulatory Reality Check

But then, as the meeting went on, town officials explained the legal side. The rules around business licensing are tighter than they look. Massachusetts General Law Chapter 140 doesn’t require criminal background checks for Common Victualler (CV) licenses. So, even with everything in plain sight, the system never flagged him. The Select Board had been approving renewals in accordance with state law—a process that, until recently, involved no systematic criminal history review at all.

Town Manager Elaine Lazarus presented a comparison chart showing that of 12 surveyed communities, only four conduct CORI checks for business licenses. Hopkinton is now proposing to go further by adding SORI checks, which access a national sex offender database—something no other surveyed community currently does.

But even these enhanced checks have limits. SORI identifies only level-two and level-three sex offenders, not level-one. Standard CORI reviews only capture misdemeanors within five years and felonies within ten years of the request date. More comprehensive searches would require fingerprinting, bylaw changes, and likely involve the police department—raising both cost and timeline concerns.

“We’re trying to plug holes in a system that was never designed for this level of scrutiny,” one official noted privately.

The Business Climate Concern

It was Select Board member Brian Herr who articulated what others were thinking but were hesitant to say aloud. “If we make it so difficult to open new businesses in Hopkinton, then business owners will open in the next town,” Herr warned. “Ashland and Southborough and Milford are all clamoring for the same businesses to bring tax dollars to help them balance their books.”

His point struck at a fundamental tension. Hopkinton faces a looming budget crisis. The operating budget currently shows a $1.8 million deficit for FY27. Moreover, capital needs are $32 million in FY28. The town recently completed two expensive school construction projects. It desperately needs commercial tax revenue.

“If we become the most difficult town in Massachusetts to do business in, that tax problem we were talking about earlier is only going to go up exponentially,” Herr said. “We don’t want to be one of those towns where no one will come because the regulatory burden is so heavy.”

It’s a valid concern, particularly as the town considers requiring fingerprinting, financial investigations, and background checks across multiple layers of business ownership. These measures could add thousands of dollars and months of delay to the licensing process.

A Call for Perspective

Former HopNews editor Peter Thomas, writing in a recent letter to the editor, urged the community to “put the pitchforks away.” Thomas, who broke the story of Sismanis’s 2023 arrest, argued that while Chief Joseph Bennett may be a poor manager, there’s no evidence of a conspiracy to protect predators.

“The Select Board and HPD are bound by law, not the feelings of the mob,” Thomas wrote. He noted that state statute doesn’t require criminal background checks for CV licenses. “For those who would like to add a background check to the CV licensing process, the Charter Review Committee is seeking applicants.”

His letter sparked both support and criticism. However, it highlighted an important point: meaningful reform requires understanding the legal framework, not just venting rage.

The Path Forward

So where does Hopkinton go from here? Several board members and residents offered constructive suggestions:

Immediate Actions:

• Implement SORI checks for all new and renewing business licenses (already in progress)
• Develop a transparent flowchart showing the licensing process from application through approval
• Create clear policies, in consultation with legal counsel, about when background check results can trigger license denial.
• Improve interdepartmental communication so the police, fire, building, and health departments share relevant information with licensing authorities.

Medium-Term Reforms:

• Consider a town meeting article to add fingerprinting requirements for certain license categories.
• Examine whether current state law provides sufficient tools, and if not, work with state representatives to seek legislative changes.
• Balance enhanced scrutiny with streamlined digital processes to avoid making licensing unnecessarily burdensome.
• Establish clear guidelines about who must be background-checked: just owners, or also managers, shareholders, and major financial stakeholders?

Long-Term Cultural Changes:

• Residents need to stay engaged beyond the open forum—attending full meetings to understand the complexities and constraints officials face.
• Board members need to proactively communicate about reforms in progress, not just react to crises.
• The community must wrestle honestly with the trade-offs between absolute safety and economic vitality.

Vice Chair Shahidul Mannan suggested conducting a “stress test” of any new procedures: “Are we going to be able to catch what we could not catch before? Let’s lay it out and be transparent about where we have legal constraints and where we can do better.”

That’s the right approach—rigorous self-examination followed by thoughtful reform, not pitchforks and panic.

Room for Both

Here’s a truth that both sides need to hear: Hopkinton can be both safe and welcoming to business. These aren’t mutually exclusive goals.

The town should implement robust background checks. Departments should communicate better. And there should be consequences when systems fail, and children are put at risk.

But equally valid: Hopkinton shouldn’t make it impossible for honest entrepreneurs to open a coffee shop or pizza restaurant. The town shouldn’t assume every business owner is a predator. And the community shouldn’t let one horrific case—however traumatic—drive policy to destructive extremes.

Board member Amy Ritterbusch captured this balance when discussing the enhanced checks: “I really appreciate this chart we have showing what each thing pulls. It helps us understand both what we can do and what the limitations are.”

Understanding limitations doesn’t mean accepting inadequacy—it means working intelligently within constraints to achieve maximum protection without maximum disruption.

The Emptied Chamber

As the November 4 meeting stretched toward 10 P.M., the board continued wrestling with these questions long after the public forum speakers had gone home. They discussed CORI versus SORI, state law versus local bylaw, and parental responsibility versus regulatory authority.

It was important work—precisely the kind of granular policy discussion that makes for terrible theater but good governance.

Next time there’s a public outcry, perhaps more residents will stay for the whole show. They might discover that their elected officials are taking these concerns seriously, working within genuine constraints, and seeking solutions that protect both children and the town’s economic future.

The board has scheduled continued discussion of licensing reforms for upcoming meetings. Residents who care about this issue—and that should be everyone—should attend. They should contribute constructively and recognize that sustainable reform requires patience, legal precision, and a willingness to grapple with trade-offs.

Peter Thomas was right: there’s no conspiracy here. But there is work to do. And that work requires both passion and pragmatism. Anger must be channeled into advocacy, outrage transformed into engagement that lasts longer than two minutes at a microphone.

Hopkinton is better than its worst moments. The path forward lies not in pitchforks or platitudes. Instead, it lies in the complex, collaborative work of building systems worthy of the community’s trust. These systems must keep children safe while keeping Hopkinton a place where businesses want to be.

The town will get there. But only if residents and officials meet each other halfway. They need to stay in the room for the whole conversation and commit to the long, unglamorous work of getting this right.