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From the files of the City that Always Sleeps: Market offers to give up 24-hour operation in exchange for liquor license
By adamg on Wed, 06/22/2011 - 12:17pm
Quality Mart on Mass. Ave in the Back Bay was back before the Boston Licensing Board today, once again seeking permission to sell alcohol with its convenience foods.
The board rejected the store's bid for a liquor license in December. This time around, however, owner Aymen Rajeh said that not only would he agree to formal bans on the sale of nips, pints, half-pints and kegs, he would agree to cut back his hours, from around the clock to 6 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Wednesday and until 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday.
Rajeh said he agreed to reduced hours because of concerns from the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay (NABB). NABB, however, said tough luck, it's made the determination that that corner of the Back Bay doesn't need more than one liquor store and that's that.
Rajeh said his customers have been asking him for years why they can't buy a bottle of wine or something stronger to take home with their evening meals. "These people are adults that can make decisions for themselves and they've told me they want to be able to purchase alcohol at this location."
Both Mayor Tom Menino and City Councilor Mike Ross supported Rajeh's request, saying Rajeh had made extraordinary efforts to deal with neighborhood concerns. So did neighbor Martin Samuels, who said competition would force Marlboro Market to improve its own liquor offerings and maybe do something about the customers he said now routinely urinate in his walkway.
But James Hill, chairman of NABB's licensing committee, said members remained concerned about noise even with the reduced hours and that, even more important, had developed a "position of principle," that "there is insufficient need to put a liquor store in a block away from a liquor store."
Also, he raised the spectre of hordes of college students descending on the store to stock up on booze; he did not explain why that is not an issue with Marlboro Market a block away.
Rajeh noted the area is densely populated, used to have three liquor stores, that Emerson dorms long ago moved to the other side of the Common and that the one BU dorm nearby is largely populated by graduate students old enough to legally buy liquor.
Board member Michael Connolly noted Rajeh had sold a Brighton store after obtaining a liquor license and said he was concerned Rajeh was just seeking a license so he could sell off the store at the higher profit that would come with a liquor license.
Rajeh said he hadn't even thought of that until Connolly raised the issue. He said he sold his Brighton store - and another market downtown - because he'd gotten to the point where he needed to spend more time with his family. He said he's owned his Back Bay location for 20 years and has no intention of selling.
Hill said 11 nearby residents submitted letters to NABB opposing the liquor license. Rajeh submitted signatures of 300 customers in favor.
The licensing board votes tomorrow on Rajeh's application.
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Comments
If...
If they don't give this guy a liquor license AND leave his hours alone, then the
TerroristsPuritans will have won.NABB
Does NABB honestly think that there are people who want to buy alcohol but are simply not buying it at all because they can't buy it at Quality Mart? They are simply buying it somewhere else instead. And who is NABB to say what the demand for alcohol is in Back Bay. How would they have any idea? If the business owner is responsible and there aren't any documented problems, he should be able to sell alcohol. If problems come up, then the business owner should be fined, etc.
I'm getting really tired of these neighborhood groups saying no to everything because they are afraid of change. When it's not the "hoards of drunk college students", it's fear of shadows or of traffic congestion or parking problems or something being "too tall". Don't these people have anything better to do than to be a thorn in peoples' side?
Which is why, in these cases,
the burden of proof needs to be on people like NABB (NIMBYs Against Boston Businesses??) to prove their claims beyond a reasonable doubt, and not on the business seeking "mother may I" permission to disprove said claims.
Why?
Neighborhood groups have no legal power - they act only in an advisory/liaison role to the city's boards and agencies which, with the exception of the BRA, are keenly and rightly interested in the community's input.
I believe in this case the licensing board does have a specific legal obligation to determine that there is a "need" for a new supplier in the neighborhood which is hard to argue given that there are at least 4 full liquor stores within a half mile of this store and two wine/beer stores (and that's just east - there are probably more as you head west to the Landmark or south on Mass Ave but I don't shop for my liquor there).
For the record - I don't agree with the law as long as he is a responsible licensee. But the law's the law. I wish him luck if he gets the license - the only thing he can probably do is cannibalize share of liquor sales from another establishment - there's not exactly a boom in demand in that area which may be why the board ultimately turns him down.
No burden of proof on NABB
The NABB is not under any obligation to prove anything to anybody. They are not the government; they have no regulatory power.
To the extent that they have a track record of reliably, level-headedlly and fairly representing the position of citizens, the opinions of neighborhood associations are taken seriously, but at the end of the day their opinions are just that -- opinions, and they are weighed along with the opinions of everyone else who writes in support or opposition to the issuing of a license.
Problem is transferrable licenses
Under the state licensing laws, the licensing boards are required to solicit community input prior to issuing a license; organizations like NABB are a way of providing that input.
Don't like it? Change the law; don't yell at the people who are exercising their rights under the existing law.
If there were meaningful non-transferable liquor licenses, then it would be easy to say, "Joe is a good guy, he runs a clean operation, he's been a responsible neighbor for the past 5 years, sure, he should have a license." But since licenses are transferable, it's completely irrelevant how good a guy Joe is or what kind of operation he runs... he can sell the license, or go bankrupt and his creditors can sell the license, or die and his heirs can sell the license... at which point the community has pretty much lost all say in the story. Unfortunately, the licensing laws do not give the neighbors a right to say "Yes to Joe, but no to an unknown successor," so they're stuck saying "no."
Antiquated licensing scheme
The problem really stems from the lack of flexible licenses. Effectively, once a store has a license, they can do what they want. If the store really became a problem. Or let's go extreme and say the convenience store stopped selling sundries and sold only liquor, there's not much the neighborhood could do about it. It's hard if not impossible for the license to get reviewed never mind taken away should things go south.
This is why Associations have to err on the side of caution. If things go wrong, we're stuck.
We need a licensing process lets NAs provide conditions on businesses, and provides for reviews of licenses if need be.
This is a pretty common
This is a pretty common complaint it seems.
My question is: so what? What are you stuck with? A liquor store? Why is that so horrible? If there is a demand for sundries, surely someone will fill it, if allowed to open a business.
Now, I'm not completely unsympathetic to your argument. Clearly, land is a limited resource in a neighborhood, and there are some severely undesirable outcomes that could result from certain decisions.
However, you need to make a proper argument that consists of something more than a generalized fear of change. You need to answer the questions above more specifically. As an example, an argument which could work in a hypothetical case where there are many liquor stores in one place:
Obviously this is not currently the problem in this instance, so this argument wouldn't apply.
Also, I think that the whole idea of liquor licenses is fundamentally flawed. Why create an artificial scarcity? The costs to the public created by the presence of liquor stores and bars can and should be recovered via taxation -- not artificial barriers to entry. And problems like I mentioned above, where one type of business may drive others out, can only be addressed with very specific attention -- not a blanket heavyweight mechanism such as state or city-wide liquor licenses.
NIMBY's and Bad Government
Actually the NIMBYs (whatever there current name) and the City have really no reason to interfere with the business.
The City should begin by clearly defining what constitutes mixed use or residential, industrial, institutional, etc.
Then the City -- possibly with neighborhood / public input should lay out on a map what major streets can have on them, corners of two major streets ,etc.
Beyond that it is up to the marketplace -- the only caveat is that the use has to be compliant with the definition of the use
Thus if it is light commercial then it is perfectly ok to have a Drugstore, Liquor store, eye glasses shop, and it can keep whatever hours are permitted for a light commercial property
the NIMBYs and the City's busybodies should stand down and find something productive to do
What do you mean "possibly."?
Why do you say "possibly with public input?" Wouldn't zoning be exactly the sort of place where we most want our government to listen to our point of view when deciding what to do with our streets and sidewalks?
In general I'm pretty hard over toward the free market end of the political spectrum, but places with effective urban planning and smart zoning tend to be an awful lot nicer places to live than the sort of strip-mall exurban paradise that inevitably springs up wherever zoning is lax.
Other way around
Suburban and exurban gray areas are usually nightmares created by zoning, not by lack of zoning.
Zoning rules are often what turns vital city neighborhoods into carefully segmented and completely boring planned developments.
Yuk ...
Does the 'hood really need another place that sells alcohol? There's at least 3 places closeby.
I really don't care if they get a liquor license or not, unless it means a bit of price competition with MM and the other liquor stores.
However, if the liquor license means no more 24-hours, then I'm opposed to it. The only reason anyone would want to deal with their unfriendly (except it seems to the cute girls) service, and surly attitude, and high prices, is because they're the only place open.