At a previous Council meeting, the wife of a holder of a fluke special commercial harvesting permit brought to the Council’s attention that, while the generic state commercial foodfish license was transferable from one family member to another, this was not allowed for either the fluke or striped bass special commercial harvesting permits. She noted that the Council had earlier recommended that the commercial fluke permit be made transferable to immediate family members and asked the Council to press this issue with DEC. Mr. Wise read from the 23 July 1998 Council bulletin, at which the Council unanimously recommended that both the fluke and striped bass commercial harvesting permits be made transferable, one time, to an immediate family member. Gordon Colvin of DEC said that he did not believe there was a substantive reason to maintain the existing prohibition on the transferability of these special commercial harvesting permits. The Department is preparing draft changes to the marine finfish regulations (Part 40) and will consider the Council’s recommendation as these draft changes are developed. Mr. Colvin observed that the State Legislature had historically opposed open transferability of commercial fishing licenses outside of a licensee’s immediate family. It was noted that, for the commercial foodfish license, transfers were limited to a family member who met the income eligibility criteria for a new license. Mr. Colvin asked the Council to give advice to the Department on whether immediate family members receiving a license from another family member via a transfer should have to meet these income eligibility standards. One commercial fisherman suggested a policy of allowing such a transfer without imposing the income eligibility criteria at the time of the transfer but, rather, after the new license recipient had been active in the fishery for a period of time. Others cautioned that license transfers should be accompanied by restrictions on the type of gear the license transferee could fish, i.e., a son receiving a license from his father would be restricted to the gear(s) fished by his father. There was wide support for policies that served to keep commercial fishing as a family tradition in New York.