The Boston Licensing Board yesterday gave Townsend's on Fairmount Avenue permission to add hard liquor and mixed drinks to its existing beer and wine menu.
At a hearing on Wednesday, the restaurants and supporters - who included city councilors and Hyde Park residents Rob Consalvo and Steve Murphy - said the restaurant was losing business to restaurants with full-service liquor licenses in Milton and Dorchester Lower Mills. And that, supporters said, was just not fair for a restaurant that has done so much to revive a once fairly desolate stretch of Fairmount Avenue.
At one point during the board's hearing, Consalvo left the room. When he returned, he said he'd had to leave to take a call from his father, in Florida, who demanded he do everything he could to let him drink a martini at Townsend's.
Michael Tallon, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Rosaleen, said he currently spends a fair amount of time trying to explain to customers why he can't serve them anything harder than wine - people do not understand the city's opaque liquor-license regulations. He said he even had one customer simply walk out when told he couldn't get a drink.
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