Since I’m on the subject of blue laws, let me bring up another yet somehow related ongoing gripe of mine: the tight restraints on liquor licensing in this town. A little insight from the August Boston magainze summarizes the problem best (sorry, no online version):
Another problem [for restaurant culture] is the limited availability of liquor licenses, which the city has capped at 650. A year ago there were more licenses than buyers, says restaurant broker Charlie Perkins, and licenses to sell beer, wine and liquor went for between $80,000 and $100,000 apiece. Today the going rate is closer to $225,000 in most parts of Boston and between $300,000 and $325,000 in the Back Bay - an untenable cost for chefs using personal loans and credit card to get their businesses off the ground.
The standard version of liquor laws here blames everything on New England’s Puritanism, but the Puritans aren’t in power. Instead, you see an unholy alliance between city pols who want to give monopoly power to politically connected friends and obstructionist neighborhood associations that mistakenly think that bars and liquor-dispensing restaurants are an unsavory addition to their area. In fact, it’s hard to find anyone, politicians especially, who will even countenance either increasing the number of licenses or changing the way they’re assigned (from what I gather, the cost passes from owner to owner, and not to the city). But the difficulty and cost in attaining a license drains the city of its nightlife, cultural vitality and restaurant variety. Not the biggest problem facing the city, but a problem nonetheless, particularly for those of us who don’t want to see Boston continue its slide into museum piece.
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