Hyde Park restaurant gets permission for expanded liquor license to help fend off competition in Milton, Dorchester

The Boston Licensing Board yesterday gave Townsend's on Fairmount Avenue permission to add hard liquor and mixed drinks to its existing beer and wine menu.

At a hearing on Wednesday, the restaurants and supporters - who included city councilors and Hyde Park residents Rob Consalvo and Steve Murphy - said the restaurant was losing business to restaurants with full-service liquor licenses in Milton and Dorchester Lower Mills. And that, supporters said, was just not fair for a restaurant that has done so much to revive a once fairly desolate stretch of Fairmount Avenue.

At one point during the board's hearing, Consalvo left the room. When he returned, he said he'd had to leave to take a call from his father, in Florida, who demanded he do everything he could to let him drink a martini at Townsend's.

Michael Tallon, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Rosaleen, said he currently spends a fair amount of time trying to explain to customers why he can't serve them anything harder than wine - people do not understand the city's opaque liquor-license regulations. He said he even had one customer simply walk out when told he couldn't get a drink.