The Boston Licensing Board next week hears 11 requests for liquor licenses - all but one from either the North End or the South Boston waterfront - for one of the ten "all alcohol" licenses freed up by the state legislature for Boston last fall.
That's on top of the four restaurants whose requests they heard this week and two last week.
The 2014 state legislation that gave Boston new liquor licenses that could only be used in certain outer neighborhoods also included 10 "unrestricted" licenses so far - with another 5 next year - that could be used anywhere in the city. But ambiguities in the 2014 meant the city didn't get to dole them out until after the legislature amended the law last fall (attorney John Connell has more details).
Unlike the neighborhood licenses, which have to be returned to the city if the holders go out of business, these unrestricted permits can be resold, subject to the board's approval. In booming Boston, that instantly makes them worth $300,000 or more - and an asset solid enough that banks will use them as collateral for loans. They do carry an annual fee that starts at $2,800, then adds $1 for each seat.
Board Chairwoman Christine Pulgini says she and the other two board members will first decide whether the applicants are even eligible for a license - for example, whether they proved a "public need" for a license. Then, assuming there are still more applicants in the pile than licenses, they will decide who gets them by looking at the time stamps on each applicant - and award licenses to the earliest filers.
Some of the license requests come for proposed restaurants. But in some cases, well established restaurants are seeking licenses:
The board this week heard a request for an all-alcohol license from Josephine Oliviero Megwa, who has run Piattini on Newbury Street for 15 years. If she gets the license, Megwa said she would return her current beer-and-wine license to the board, to award to somebody else. Last week, Ghassan Samaha made a similar request and promise for his Al-Wadi restaurant on VFW Parkway in West Roxbury.
Of the restaurants up for hearings next week, five are for Italian restaurants in the North End, five are for restaurants and a hotel in the South Boston Waterfront and Fort Point neighborhoods and one is for a restaurant at the Pru.