Jamaica Plain loses another liquor license to the Seaport, for a cineplex, but one JP pub helps secure its future by buying its building

The Boston Licensing Board last week approved plans by Alamo Drafthouse Cinema to purchase the liquor license of the closed Canary Square in Jamaica Plain for the ten-screen movie complex it wants to open at 60 Seaport Blvd. - the fourth time in four years that a Seaport chain has taken a liquor license out of JP.

The board also voted to approve the financing plan that let the owners of the Jeannie Johnston pub on South Street in Jamaica Plain buy their building last year.

Canary Square, at South Huntington Avenue and Centre Street, closed in November. At the hearing last week on the proposed license sale, board Chairwoman Kathleen said Canary Square held an unrestricted license, which meant it could be sold anywhere in the city, rather than a neighborhood license, which would have had to be given back to the board after the restaurant closed.

The Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse movie chain would take over the cineplex left vacant when Showcase Cinema closed the location early in the pandemic.

If approved by the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission, the liquor license would be the fourth to leave Jamaica Plain for the Seaport since 2018, when the owners of the Drinking Fountain, which closed the year before, sold their license to a Seaport taco place.

In 2019, the owner of Doyle's sold his license to Davio's Northern Italian Steakhouse on Fan Pier Boulevard.

In 2020, the owner of Bella Luna sold her license to a new hotel in the Raymond Flynn Marine Park (Bella Luna has since re-opened as the Haven, but that meant the closing of the original Haven on Perkins Street).

In a holdover from the days of anti-Irish animus in the legislature following the repeal of Prohibition, the number of liquor licenses in Boston remains set by the state legislature.

This has meant rapidly escalating prices on the open market for unrestricted licenses over the past couple of decades - now upwards of $400,000 for an all-alcohol license - because in recent years, the legislature has mostly ignored requests from the city to let it issue more licenses. The legislature did agree last month to let Boston issue five more licenses - but only for the Strand Theatre in Uphams Corner and the Bolling Building in Nubian Square.

Separately, the licensing board approved a financing agreement that let Jeanie Johnston owners Hank Kirchner and Eric Rubin buy the South Street building it's in, with financing from Berkshire Bank - with the pub's liquor license as collateral.

Joyce, who "enthusiastically" moved to approve the financing arrangement, said this shows how the unrestricted licensing system can work to help owners use their licenses to help secure their future - in this case, what she called "a great institution in this neighborhood."

Canary Square/Alamo hearing: