As apartments go up around him, owner of convenience store on VFW Parkway in West Roxbury seeks to add full liquor stock to his beer and wine

Update: Request granted by the board.

The owner of Marino's Market on VFW Parkway, next to Al Wadi on VFW Parkway, finds out tomorrow if the Boston Licensing Board will let him expand his current beer and wine offerings to harder beverages.

At a hearing today, Paul Marino said he's been getting a growing number of requests from the growing number of new residents in his immediate area - which includes a new spartment complex where the IHOP used to be next to the Home Depot, for additional offerings. Still more residential development is underway on the road up to Millennium Park.

Marino added that by keeping folks on the parkway for liquor sales, he might even help reduce congestion on the sometimes clogged parkway, because nearby residents now have to drive all the way down the parkway and Spring and Centre streets to get to Blanchard's, about a mile away.

The mayor's office and the office of district City Councilor Matt O'Malley supported Marino's request to expand his license, as did the West Roxbury Neighborhood Council, at a meeting last night.

The one possible sticking point came when mayoral aide Jack Duggan aid that at the neighborhood council meeting last night, one city councilor - he did not specify which - raised the issue of trash from the sale of nips and single cans of beer and board members wondered if it might make sense to add a condition to Marino's license that he be barred from selling the tiny bottles.

Marino's lawyer said that Marino does not sell nips or singles and that he has always been mindful of trash issues. But making that a requirement of his license would be an "economic hardship" that would be unfair, especially in these pandemic times, she said.

Board Chairwoman Kathleen Joyce asked Duggan whether any members of the neighborhood council actually asked for a formal prohibition on nip sales at Marino's. Duggan said no, the councilor was just raising a general concern about nips, but that nobody from the neighborhood brought it up as something they're concerned with at Marino's.