Governor Patrick proposes eliminating liquor license cap

[keithn.livejournal.com]

In what could end up being great news for Somerville, Governor Patrick has proposed eliminating the liquor license cap for towns and cities across the state. This would eliminate what has (ostensibly) been a major hurdle preventing new restaurants from opening in Somerville.

More details: http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/05/gov_deval_patrick_proposes_to.html

From the article:

"That giant sigh of relief you probably heard was Mayor Joe Curtatone,” joked Gardner Mayor Mark Hawke, referring to the Somerville mayor who was not in attendance.

Curtatone appeared with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll at a legislative hearing in August to testify in favor of legislation to eliminate the cap, arguing that restaurant owners find it difficult to locate in Somerville because of a lack of available licenses.

I'm not sure what resistance there will be to this, but current restaurant owners will have something to lose, as their liquor licenses (which are transferable) will no longer have any value.

Comments

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

presumably, many cities will continue to limit the number of licenses, they just won't have to deal with any state restrictions.

[keithn.livejournal.com]

A self imposed cap is effectively no cap at all. The city will have the full ability to make exceptions to their own rules and license whoever they want. It might add another piece of paper or meeting to the process for the exemption, but adding red tape is all it would be doing.

As an example of what I'm talking about, the Somerville licensing commission opposed Beer Works because the city had decided that the remaining licenses were only for areas in need of economic development, which isn't Davis Square. When a Korean restaurant applied for a license in a location directly across the street from the proposed Beer Works, suddenly the "economic development" restriction no longer applied.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

not at all, actually. Somerville is an exception--leafy suburbs are almost all well under their state quotas

[keithn.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you are getting at. They are well under the state quotas, but it isn't because of self imposed limit that they are strictly enforcing. They just haven't had to use all their licenses.