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Culture shift: Boston considering opening some streets to open drinking

GBH uncorks the news that City Hall is considering several "open container districts" where people could buy something adult at a local restaurant and then just walk around sipping like we're a common New Orleans or Las Vegas.

Among the areas being considered: Kenmore Square, the Seaport, the North End, Downtown and, of course, Allston/Brighton, where maybe Tavern in the Square closed too soon.

Boston currently bans alcohol consumption in public, or at least away from licensed patios.

Restaurants downtown and in the Seaport are forever being hauled before the licensing board after being cited by police when one of their guest from away - like from across the pond or west of Worcester, doesn't realize just how buttoned down Boston is and walks outside, drink in hand. The restaurants typically then get off with just a warning, after agreeing to post prominent signs on every available wall and door, warning patrons to leave their drinks inside.

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Comments

Here we go!

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Voting closed 38

Good one!

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Voting closed 21

Open air cannabis use zones. SPARK 'EM UP!

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Voting closed 42

Get your pot fix smoke free.

Same with nicotine.

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Voting closed 33

nah nah
nahnahnahnah
nahnahnahnah
Hey Jude!

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Voting closed 19

I thought we'd had those for years. No, not seriously, but I can see how a person might get that idea. How about let's get some Amsterdam-style coffeeshops, though, where you can have a smoke and a cup of coffee and socialize outside of the house all at the same time.

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Voting closed 31

Voters approved it almost a decade ago but the legislature has blocked implementation.

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Allston is a terrible idea .

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Voting closed 47

when I visited New Orleans. But only a little.

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Voting closed 32

There is some merit in this, but I think being careful in which zones are given the green light is important. I would say that letting every "pre-gamer" going to a Sox game walk around with a PBR pounder is not a good idea.

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Voting closed 37

When in Rome!!!!

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Voting closed 17

Little sandwiches and wine by the glass (in glass wine glasses!), served from some ancient hole in a wall.

Venizia and Firenze spoiled me! Now when I go to Casa Razdora, I half expect there to be a wine list.

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Voting closed 25

In Saint Louis there used to be (may still be, but it's been a while since I lived there and parked far away) beer vendors a few blocks away from Busch Stadium and from the dome where you'd buy one for your walk in. It's also not uncommon to just bring some from home to drink between the car and the stadium. They just make sure to have trash and recycling bins at all the entrances.

No open containers was certainly a surprise for me when I moved to Boston 6 years ago after living in Saint Louis my whole life. Got called out for drinking a can of beer while watching sunset from the harbor walk. Whoops.

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Driving with open containers is also legal in Missouri (just have to have fewer cups than total people in the car to prove the driver isn't partaking). So St. Louis is going to have different rules than Boston for sure.

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This is how civilized countries do it. There are vending machines with beer in Japan. As long as you aren’t messy there go nuts, no one cares.

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but why do you think it would work for us?

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North End is included just to tease them, right?

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Voting closed 63

You can’t walk around with an open container in the vast, vast majority of US cities. Boston is hardly an exception. If that makes us “buttoned up” than so is just about everywhere else except for New Orleans, Vegas, Savannah, a handful of other places driven mostly by tourism.

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Voting closed 46

It's becoming more common.

https://www.planetizen.com/news/2023/11/126249-revitalize-downtowns-citi...

In some cases, states such as North Carolina and Ohio are relaxing regulations to let cities create these zones, explains Kevin Hardy in Stateline. “They aim to revitalize downtown cores hollowed out by the changing nature of retail and the post-pandemic loss of office workers.”

“Aside from bringing foot traffic to shops and restaurants, officials say the success of the new districts reveals the need to update antiquated liquor laws that long banned public consumption in most places to try to reduce public intoxication and drunken driving.”

Hardy describes efforts in several cities and states, noting that, in most cases, the districts face little local opposition. Meanwhile, business owners report seeing increased activity.

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This has quietly been a non-deal for a very long time, with the exception of a few cities.

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We can tell you don’t have a passport.

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Voting closed 22

… you’ve never been. Places outside your comfort zone.

Travel snobs are generally bores.

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Voting closed 30

They may have visited Saudi Arabia or Malaysia.

The only countries with more restrictive drinking laws than the US are pretty much all Islamic states.

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New Orleans, Vegas, Savannah... Wooster Ohio. You know...tourist magnets, dens of iniquity all of them. We with the likes of them.

https://www.mainstreetwooster.org/dora

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Don’t forget Erie, Pennsylvania!

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State-enforced mandatory twerking zones.

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I know I'm not the only one, but here goes, what could possibly go wrong?

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Voting closed 34

I'm not sure the point of doing something like this every day. Most people aren't just wandering around drinking (aside from legalities).

Block parties and parades and things, I could absolutely see time-and-place type designations for this. Outdoor markets like Faneuil Hall with multiple stalls/buildings, I could see this.

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Voting closed 29

Regardless of whether this is a good idea or not, why is this even being discussed when Boston can't even get approval for the neighborhood liquor licenses the mayor fought for? If we can't even get Beacon Hill to agree to allow more INDOOR drinking, when the heck are we ever going to approve outdoor drinking?

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Voting closed 63

I had the same though with regards to the neighborhood licenses. People can't even open up places for people to spend money on cocktails in the hood, but we're wanting to give white neighborhoods zones where people can buy a spiked Capri Sun and walk around?

However, if this encourages people looking to drink for drinking's sake out of the residential neighborhoods and sticking to staggering around hooting and hollering in the downtown and Allston restaurant districts, I could be all for it.

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Voting closed 22

I think the ban on outdoor drinking might be a city ordinance, (albeit one widely replicated across the state) not state law. I don't see a state law searching online (and there's a map in a different thread asserting as much) for it although that's not a reliable proof of anything. The limit on liquor licenses on the other hand was result of the state legislature very specifically going out of its way to restrict the city of Boston.

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The limit on licenses has nothing to do with Beacon Hill's actual feelings on drinking and who or where drinking should happen, and has everything to do with existing license holders, including megacorporations that own 30+ restaurants and therefore have literal millions in loans tied up to have bought those licenses, giving "campaign donations" to lawmakers from western MA who don't give a shit about Boston either way.

Licenses now are like Taxi Medallions, pre-uber. A limited item that has been allowed to be traded on the open market and therefore vastly, vastly overvalued simply because it is a limited item that is required for successful operation. And the people who currently own them know, just like uber, if more licenses are granted, their "investment" loses value.

It's fucked up.

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Voting closed 10

So long as the business establishments don’t take over more sidewalk space and the breweries give us back our park space the city handed over to them.

This will be happening on my neighborhood. Not so glad about that but I’m willing to give it a try. If it means they will make some streets more park like and pedestrian only, that would be fantastic.

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Mass and Cass?

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Amherst allowed open container up until the 1980's.

During the 1996 olympics in Atlanta, most of the areas around Olympic events and the village, etc., seemed to allow it considering there were street vendors selling 16 ouncers....

I'm not sure if that was special rules for the Olympics or in specific places, or just the usual in the city.

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When you rent a public space for an event, there is a 5 dollar up-charge on the permit if you are going to have a keg of beer. Just Normal.

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Most western states permit walking around with a drink ... as in enjoying a beer on a hike or at the beach, when camping in state parks or even walking around a town.

They leave it to municipalities to set more restrictive laws. And since their entire area isn't covered in cities and towns, most places are cool with it.

States shown in blue, here, have no statewide ban (somehow Massachusetts appears to be mischaracterized? - or does just every city and town have a ban?):
IMAGE(https://assets3.thrillist.com/v1/image/1909891/1584x1054/crop;webp=auto;jpeg_quality=60.jpg)

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Voting closed 15

Last time I was in Atlanta, there were licensed vendors selling beer and wine from carts in Piedmont Park.

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Growing up in Dorchester we had a work around to the public drinking law. Dunkin’ Donut cups. The styrofoam ones were great. They kept your beverage of choice cold or hot if you were having a coffee with a little something extra.

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Voting closed 32

I'd love to sip a cold beer while walking the dog after work.

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Voting closed 29

Toss it in a koozie and you'll be just fine.

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I drink in parks often and have never been hassled. Just don’t cause a scene.

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I drink in parks often and have never been hassled. Just don’t cause a scene.

IMAGE( https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Betty_White_1988_Emmy_Awards_%28cropped_2%29.jpg)

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do that.

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I have a koozie that looks from the outside like a regular water bottle. Inside, it conceals a bottle of beer. I used to bring it to the kids' baseball games, it would work just as well for walking a dog.

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Near South Station on my home. Get some beer, occasionally whiskey, wine. Sometimes I just get a tall can IPA in a paper bad. Judging by the looks from a lot of people, especially for some reason young white women, you'd think I was a some kind of alcoholic deviant. And yes, I don't look like a homelessal alcoholic. If you don't count my facial hair.

Many Americans do still have an uptight attitude regarding alcohol. All generations.

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Commuter trains should have this. It works In Europe

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MetroNorth between New Haven, CT and Grand Central Station had dedicated bar cars until they were phased out in 2014 by new trains. There was a plan to bring back the bar cars in 2022, but the MTA never acted on it.

I suppose if the MBTA/Keolis operated bar cars, it would likely be on the long-distance lines like the Providence/Wickford Junction, Worcester, Fitchburg/Wachusett, and Newburyport/Gloucester/Rockport lines.

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There is a bar car on the Cape Flyer, probably could work on some commuter rail lines. In Los Angeles, they let you buy a beer in Union Station to take on the trains, and the commute home is much more lively!

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MBTA ferries at least used to in the early 2000s. Coworkers from the south shore would tell me they could buy and drink on board. Seems like a class thing, like how Menino was against any alcohol sales in Boston Parks with the exception of golf courses in public parks. Luckily our current mayor is a little less conservative in that respect.

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I was on one last night.

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Part of the fun of riding the Cape Flyer is getting to the cape with a beer in your hand.

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Paging Ed Flynn to his soapbox. Impending public safety crisis. Repeating, Ed Flynn to soapbox. This is not a drill.

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I've been drinking in public and saving thousands of dollars. Get it from the liquor store, pour it in an empty can of soda, and sit inside the poor underserved food establishments who don"t know anyone to help them cut through the red tape of bullshit to get a liquor license in thus city. Damn this meatloaf, mashed and Mac and cheese is THE BEST!!!!

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especially the crowd who frequent places like Union Street and East Broadway. There won't be any problems whatsoever.

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Oh the lies we tell ourselves.

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So, how young’sa street-tippler, gotta look to get carded by the police walking down the street? Sure, you need an ID to buy, but after the obtain? Will these EtOH zones, be age-restricted?

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I say lower the drinking age.

Then raise the age to get a driver’s license. For good measure, make all the open drinking streets pedestrian only and T accessible. Near emergency rooms too. Add to T station staffing and work with cabbies and ride share drivers to get compensation for drunken messes in their vehicles. At the same time be rigorous about keeping predators out of rideshare driver seats.
Tax Big Alcohol more. If it’s anything like Big Tobacco, they can afford it.
I don’t think drinking will get any more out of hand than it is. But it can become safer. With a good propaganda, it could become just as shameful to become a drunken public nuisance as it is in other cultures.
Lastly, help with reducing or managing alcohol addiction needs more public funds and more research.

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Voting closed 15