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City begins process to strip liquor license from shuttered Dorchester restaurant
By adamg on Tue, 01/05/2010 - 12:10pm
Boston Police last month cited C.F. Donovan's, 112 Savin Hill Ave., for not serving liquor, and now the Boston Licensing Board has started proceedings that could end with bar owner Arthur Donovan losing his valuable liquor license.
Donovan is already close to losing another liquor license he's held for nearly three years for a Hyde Park restaurant that has never opened. The city closed his popular Dorchester location in November for failing to make payments on $300,000 in city loans used to get the Hyde Park location open.
Donovan failed to appear at a licensing-board hearing this morning. Board members meet Thursday to consider what to do about that. Board Chairman Daniel Pokaski said the board won't strip him of the Savin Hill license then, but could set a six-month time limit for him to either sell the license or re-start the business.
Because Boston has only a set number of liquor licenses, they are valuable commodities - and license holders are required to either use them, sell them or give them up. In the time the Hyde Park restaurant has not opened, at least two operating West Roxbury restaurants have been denied licenses because the city has none left to dole out.
Boston Police Det. Kevin McGill told the licensing board this morning he drove by the Savin Hill location around 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 5 and found it closed, with paper on the inside of the windows. A follow-up location showed the restaurant remained shut and he issued a citation for failure to comply with city license regulations.
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Comments
Only in Boston...
Can you get in trouble for NOT serving alcohol. Does anyone else realize that the Puritans are gone and Boston can be a real city now? Lets get rid of this silly cap on liquor licenses and let the Liquor board decide who gets a license. It will also keep license owners from making a killing by selling their license.
There's actually a method to the madness
Given the cap on the number of licenses in the city of Boston (for which you can thank Irish-hating Yankees at the turn of the last century), it makes sense the city not let owners of what are basically very valuable franchises just sit on them in the hopes of a greater return on their investment. So "pocket licenses" are illegal - basically, if you don't use it, you lose it.
One could even ask if the licensing board is being way too lenient with such pocket license holders. Look at CF Donovan's in Hyde Park - the place has never opened, and after three years, likely never will, yet it still has a liquor license.
Wouldn't it make more sense to add more licenses, then?
These licenses have value only because the city places an arbitrarily low cap on the number available. There is no public interest reason to place an arbitrary cap on the number of licenses in the city or in a neighborhood. The decision to issue a license should be dictated solely by the qualifications of the operator and the wishes of the local community. Neighborhood committees and city councilmen kill license applications all the time, so this would not lead to Boston turning into Beer Alley and Gin Lane any more than it already is.
The value of the licenses as they are today makes them a perfect vehicle for graft and backroom dealing. Diane Wilkerson was busted taking a bribe for a liquor license, if I recall correctly. Likewise, anyone who already has a license has no incentive to speak out against the system. Just like taxicab medallions, which make a few guys rich and screw over riders and drivers, this system benefits nobody but the insiders.
Just good business
I suspect the liquor license is more valuable than the business.
I don't care to speculate on
I don't care to speculate on what may or may not have brought about the current situation with the restaurant or the intricacies involving liquor licenses and financing, in the end, Arthur Donovan is a man who made the Savin Hill community better ....from the corner of Dot Ave and East Cottage to Syndney and Savin Hill Ave.