Laura Glesby Photo
Pizza recommendations abound at "Beer With The Mayor."
As punk rock played on the stereo, Justin Elicker sipped his Counter Weight Headway with a small group of New Haveners who had come with curiosity — but no complaints.
On Tuesday evening, three civilians and five city employees joined Elicker at The Cannon, a newly-opened Dwight Street bar specializing in vegan fare, for the latest “Beer with the Mayor” event.
The city officials had no agenda, and the residents who arrived had few specific concerns to bring up. That is, except for Westville resident Diane Panasci, who arrived with a question for Elicker: “Have you ever been to Bologna or Florence?”
Both of those cities have “limited traffic zones” that minimize the amount of cars allowed to drive downtown. Panasci argued that as more people move to New Haven and the city becomes more congested, downtown should become a car-free zone with a trolley system to carry pedestrians from place to place.
Elicker noted that the city had considered a similar proposal in the past; when he served as an alder in 2011, Elicker himself had championed a proposal to look into the feasibility of a streetcar system downtown.
“I’m a big fan of the trolley idea,” he told Panasci, but “in the past, not everyone has been excited about that.”
His administration is currently weighing the benefit of designated bus lanes to speed up public transit, he added.
Elicker: Trolley fan, bus lane realist.
The group members chatted — and sweated in the heat — outside at first, until the bar’s air conditioning lured them inside. They spoke for an hour and a half over drinks, touching on transportation, housing development, pizza preferences, and ice cream recommendations for the lactose-intolerant.
Surrounded by red bricks and flashes of WNBA commentary on the screens above, Elicker teased his deputy chief of staff, Kevin Alvarez, about Alvarez’ distaste for spreadsheets. Panasci described a dearth of grocery stores in Westville, leading to a conversation about various city-run and non-profit programs to help small entrepreneurs thrive. Educator and photographer Phil Counsel expressed enthusiasm for the state’s pandemic-era free bus system. And Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Rebecca Bombero pulled out her laptop to help Panasci unsubscribe from street sweeping notifications for a neighborhood in which she no longer lives.
Deputy CAO Rebecca Bombero, right, sends an email to unregister Panasci, at the far left, from street sweeping calls.
For Lesley Heffel McGuirk, a New Haven-born data analyst at Yale who came because she “really wanted an excuse to try this bar,” the city is brighter than ever. “It’s much cooler than when I was growing up,” she said.