Standing in front of the justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, the bar owner’s lawyer argued that the semicolon in the law “was meant to be and should be construed, as a matter of fact, of being a comma”; and because the bar was situated inside a hotel, the Innholder exception should therefore apply, because if the semicolon were construed as a comma, then the clause excepting Innholders would negate all the rules stated in the statute.
