Petition for a Special Law re: An Act Authorizing Additional Licenses for the Sale of Alcoholic Beverages to be Drunk on the Premises in Boston. On motion of Councilors Worrell and Louijuene, Rule 12 was invoked to include CouncilorArroyo as co-sponsor. Referred to the Committee on Government Operations.
04650465 councilors were all in Louisiana, offered the following petition for a special law relative to enact authorizing additional licenses for the sale of alcoholic beverages to be drunk on the premises in Boston. Thank you. The chair recognizes counsel. We're all counsel. We're all over the floor. I'd like to suspend and add Counselor Arroyo to the docket. Seeing and hearing. No objections. Counsel Arroyo was added as the original third co-sponsor. All right. Thank you, President Flynn, and thank you to my co-sponsors, counsel Louie Jan and Counselor Arroyo. Also want to acknowledge the work that Congresswoman Pressley has done on liquor licenses here in the city of Boston. Out of the 1448 liquor licenses in the city. Only two restaurants have liquor licenses in Mattapan and only six on Blue Hill Life. And this home will petition. We are being intentional by creating liquor licenses for those established restaurants in neighborhoods of Dorchester High Park and Mattapan, because we must do more and create equity in liquor licensing. I must admit this home rule petition is a little selfish of me because like many of our other residents, I too want to be able to eat, watch the game and enjoy it. Don Julio Reposado neat and my own neighborhood liquor license in these areas will help our small, locally owned restaurants reestablish himself after coming through a negative impact of COVID 19. This is an opportunity for us to use our powers to help create local revenue and local jobs and create a clear pathway to small business owners to recovery through the creation of capacity, size, liquor licenses. We will help the small restaurants establish financial sufficiency, generating the revenue to expand and the ability to create more jobs in our neighborhoods. This is why we must make sure we increase all liquor licenses each year. It's about the economic health of all of our neighborhoods. I'm looking forward to discussion and under discussion around what is the correct amount of liquor license needed. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. We're all. The chair recognizes counselors and counselors. And you have the floor. Thank you. Mr. President, I just want to thank Counselor Rao for introducing this home rule petition. And it's really important that we do everything we can like counsel overall. I would also like to have more restaurants in my neighborhood where I can just hang out, have a good time with my friends. And obviously in our neighborhoods like Mattapan, my parks are in Dorchester. Those are hard to come by. And we know that it has been really difficult and as as comfortable address stated. Now, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley really led the charge here and there's still a lot more work to do to get liquor licenses into our neighborhoods. Obviously, that's hard when we have to go to the state each time I'm in following on the work that we did last week trying to get restricted liquor licenses. One of my co-sponsor comes from me here in Roxbury. This is continuing part of that same dialog. And I think council we're out for his creativity on ways that we can address that offer our entrepreneurs and our startup restaurants and businesses and to think creatively about how we can automate, to automate having an increase in these license in the future. So thank you for your leadership and I look forward to working with you on this. Thank you, counselors. And the chair recognizes Counselor Arroyo. Counsel Royal. You have the floor. Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you, counsel and counsel, Louisiana, for moving this forward. As many counselors know, I don't actually drink, but I recognize the competitive disadvantage that restaurants without liquor licenses find themselves at in the city. When it comes to surviving as a as a business in the city, we know that there's also a difference in the quality of food at restaurants that have liquor licenses in terms of the ability to offer sit down services as opposed to take out services. And when they did a study at the Boston Public Health Commission on sort of the butterfly effect of things like this, what ended up being found was due to the lack of liquor licenses in some place like Mattapan. What actually that cascaded towards was a lack of sit down restaurants, and that led to a lack of food options and healthy food options for residents, which then led to health impacts on our communities. And so many of these things that may not seem to have any sort of intersectionality with other really important aspects of quality of life in our neighborhoods do. And so there's a competitive reason to do this. There's a smart small business keeping dollars local reason to do this. And there's also distinct health impacts and benefits of doing something like this in neighborhoods that have not seen the kind of liquor license access like Hyde Park, like Mattapan, like Dorchester, that other places, specifically downtown, in other places have seen. And, you know, this is something that I hope we continue to do. I hope that there's an automated way to continue to increase those numbers because, frankly, the liquor license process is a little arcane and I don't really believe beneficial to business in the city, period. Other cities that have different liquor license processes, have healthier restaurant industries, have healthier bar industries, have healthier sort of hospitality industries. And I think, you know, ultimately this is something that has been a fight for the council for a very, very, very, very long time when it comes to liquor licenses and preserving the value of people who have liquor licenses. And I do wonder in the future whether or not there's space to look at whether or not we have the ability to sort of purchase out as a city some of these liquor licenses and really move towards creating a brand new process at some point in time. But in the guidelines and in the rubrics and the ways in which we're supposed to do this now, I think this is a good start. So thank you to the councilors. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, counsel. Roya, would anyone else like to speak on this matter? Would anyone else like to add their name? Please raise your hand. Mr. Kirklees had Council of Book Council of Britain Council, City Council, Borough Council here. Councilor Murphy lays out the chair. Government Docket 0465 will be referred to the Committee on Government Operations. Mr. Kirklees re docket 04660466.