Competitive axe throwing could come to Boston, but only if owner can be assured a cheap liquor license

There are a few around, Norwood has one. I remember one in Dedham, on Rt 1 near Pep Boys, but not sure if it's still there.

https://www.yellowpages.com/dedham-ma/archery-ranges

...to darts?

Ya, it's possible to get hurt playing 'darts' but it's also possible to get hurt playing 'ax'. Or 'axe'.

http://grammarist.com/spelling/ax-axe/

Hey, I was curious. I just had another thought...do they mean 'ax' or 'hatchet'? 'Cause throwing an ax seems, um, a little problematic versus throwing a hatchet.

Just read the Herald link. They throw hatchets, not axes. While they're drinking.

So hey, no problem.

Go to any DBag sports bar - way too much booze, way too much AXE body spray thrown around, too!

You can just smell the bad judgement.

/snark

Go to DC or Philly and you'll find lots of good small owner operated restaurants. It's ridiculously pale here in comparison. In those cities I've been in great, new small neighborhood restaurants (a bar that holds about fifteen people and fewer than 10 tables). A restaurant like that is not going to happen here if people need to shell out $300,000+ just for a liquor license. A novel place owned by a two or three people in their early 30s who have worked in the industry for 10 years and have a desire to open their own restaurant isn't likely to happen because a group like that is unlikely to secure the financing needed because the revenue won't be high enough relative to the money needed to open. Yet those same people can achieve that dream in those cities.

I've also seen a single small restaurant jump-start an entire neighborhood. U Street NW in DC was desolate (an area that had been torched in the MLK riots) but someone opened a small bar/restaurant there figuring that there were enough people who lived nearby who could use a place like that. People scoffed at the couple that opened it saying that it would never make it. Well, after more than a year when they were doing very well several others started opening places there too and while it's a different scene now it's probably just as popular a destination as when it was when those blocks were a jazz mecca in the decades before the riots.

In Boston I think all licenses should be controlled by the city and if a restaurant is closing they should not be able to sell it to the highest bidder. Now I know that those who hold them now are going to throw a fit about that so they should get some protection (some are banking on that as a retirement fund). Let's say that it is determined that someone needs to put up $75,000 to the city to get a full license (and that will be returned to them if they close the restaurant). So now we need to "take care" of the restaurateur who paid $300,000. The way I think it should work is that current license owners would have that loss pro-rated over twenty years. So if the restaurant that just paid $300k closes after 20 years they'll only get back the $75k but if they close in the first year they'll get what they paid for it. Each subsequent year the difference between what they paid and the $75k would be reduced by 1/20th which would be a relatively small loss coming out of the revenue that their license is creating.

In the end this garbage would be done. If people (rather than the chains and VC backed celebrity chef places that dominate here) want to open a restaurant they would only need to plunk down a fair cost for the license which they would get back if they close the license. You could sell the restaurant and transfer the license but those folks would know that they are only getting back the set cost of the license. If the restaurant closes the license goes back to the city and anyone could petition to get a license that becomes available.

/rant