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Burrito battle: How a downtown restaurant was almost shut down over donated food for a city event

It began, John Pepper says, with a phone call Wednesday from City Hall: Could one of his Boloco restaurants supply burritos for a major announcement the mayor wold be making in front of City Hall on Thursday?

In an interview with Universal Hub, Pepper, founder and CEO of the Boston-based burrito chain, said he didn't have to think twice about saying yes, in part because the company has long worked with the city to promote bicycling - it's one of two corporate sponsors of the annual Hub on Wheels citywide bike ride.

Pepper agreed to have the Federal Street Boloco provided 200 burritos - even though he knew it would mean some extra work, because the 1:30 announcement time came right on the heels of the Financial District restaurant's busiest period - lunch.

But neither the mayor's office nor Pepper counted on the dogged inspectors of ISD. Pepper said that Thursday morning, the manager at another Boloco got a call from an inspector at Inspectional Services: Did Boloco have a permit to serve up the burritos at the announcement? Pepper said the manager told him it wasn't his restaurant that was involved, but that he didn't think so. According to Pepper, the inspector gruffly replied the outlet better get one or he'd go down there and shut the place down.

Boloco started in Boston and most of its outlets are still here, but Pepper said he never realized he needed a permit to donate food to a city event. Rather than risk having one of his stores shut down, he said, he sent a worker down to ISD at 1010 Mass. Ave. to "pay $30 to donate food to the city."

Pepper said he couldn't believe a city inspector had just threatened to shut down one of his restaurants for trying to do something good for the city, and said the whole thing began to gnaw at him.

"I was stewing for about five hours," he said. He said he got into bed and couldn't get to sleep. As his wife asked him what he was doing, he reached for his iPhone and composed a series of tweets, including, "How a city can thank businesses for supporting its civic efforts with rudeness, threats, and disrespect has us reeling today."

Pepper said he believes Menino is serious about trying to make it easier for small businesses to operated in Boston, but he added he's amazed that two city departments couldn't communicate on something as simple as donated burritos - or that one of his managers would be threatened with a shutdown over them.

The mayor's office did not respond to a Universal Hub call for comment today.

This is not the first time this month that restaurants have run afoul of ISD. On April 6, the Boston Licensing Board ordered two restaurants to shut down because they had been operating without food-serving licenses. Owners of both restaurants said ISD workers had told them they only needed to get health and fire inspections and never told them they also needed permits from the licensing board.

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Comments

and one just opened for us on Boylston Street - this makes me want to go there more often - thanks for running a great operation and for what you do for the city John!

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right hand is not talking to the left hand in this instance. Better communication among city depts might help solve this embarrassing situation.

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Wow. WTF.

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Menino may have told him they needed a permit. Just sounded like incoherent mumbling though.

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Hooray for ISD. The rules probably said that Boloco needed a permit, and ISD didn't let the fact that Boloco was helping out Menino get in the way. Someone at ISD is going to get yelled at, though.

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One is to politely tell the company they need a permit and tell them they need to send somebody down to Mass. Ave.

The other is to immediately threaten to shut the place down because they don't have a permit.

I don't think Boloco was trying to get away with something here or to save the cost of a permit (all of $30). They just didn't know.

Maybe it's frustrating to be a city inspector. Maybe the job turns you into a sadist. I don't know. Whatever, we now have a pissed off company for absolutely no good reason - a company that is exactly the sort of community-centered, entrepreneurial enterprise the mayor himself keeps saying we need more of. That is not a good thing.

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should have mentioned that they would need a permit when he was requesting a donation. But then again, he's only senior staff, making $170k a year or something- he can't be expected to know anything about municipal ordinances.

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Everyone knows the city 'asking for donations' is really a threat - if you don't donate, THEN city hall comes down hard on you. They can't even get extortion right. :)

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Maybe he did but then mistakenly deleted the email...
http://www.universalhub.com/node/27916

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According to Pepper, the inspector gruffly replied the outlet better get one or he'd go down there and shut the place down.

If the codey in question had instead just said okay and called his boss or someone at city hall and gotten confirmation that it was from the Mayor than everything would've been all good. Instead this buffoon had to have an attitude. Why? For what purpose? He could easily get fired over this. Why do you put your job in jeopardy just for the sake of being a dick? #priorities

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The general tone in Boston is one of nastiness--it's the default rather than the exception in most business interactions. This little inspector or whatever is too stupid to know that it's even possible he that could have behaved strategically when participating in a shakedown because it just isn't something he has ever even considered. He is probably vile and rude to everyone at all times--why would this have been a situation in which some other behavior was called for?

Whit

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If this isn't the Administration that specializes in NOT knowing how the City works, than I shudder to think what one would look like. How inconsiderate after all these years of imposing on business this way

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The mayoral race of 2013 has already started?

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I wonder if it really is that easy for two disparate city departments to communicate about this sort of thing. I'm not sure what their procedures are, but if you're the Boston Bikes program - which I think maybe has 1 or 2 people in it besides Nicole Freedman - and you're doing an event on short notice in addition to all your usual duties, who are all the different folks you need to call in such a large organization? Police detail, whoever gives you the microphones etc, the mayor's office obviously, the offices of any other officials there, whoever handles scheduling city hall plaza, the press, the mayor's press office, and probably some other permitting stuff I don't know about it. My point is - if I'm in that situation - I don't know if I'd think to call the health inspector to make sure they don't try to fine one of my vendors without going through me.

To be clear, John is completely right to be ticked off, and it's possible I'm giving too much slack because I don't actually know their procedures. But I'd guess the solution is not increasing the number of people you need to contact if you're a city department hosting an event - better to have an easy way to handle permits up front, or communicating more clearly to your vendors. Sounds like all this was a bit last minute.

Anyways, a quick apology or something for Boloco surely would not go amiss.

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Hub's burrito brouhaha. Already online and presumably will appear in Saturday morning's paper edition.

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Try opening a cab company without running afoul of Menino`s merry band of miscreant "inspectors".

The funny thing is you don't even get to see the inspectors to you find a building that meets requirements from 1933 that doesn't exist in any neighborhood in the city and grease all the local community groups.

Anyone who does business in Boston gets what they deserve.

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In Boston, all politics is 'Loco

(subhead: "A simple city event wound up pitting mayoral pique against a burrito maker’s overheated tweet")

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According to the reports, an employee when to the proper office with 30 bucks and got a permit.

What did this permit do for the public? It doesn't sound like anything was inspected. The food wasn't made any safer by the issuing of this permit. It doesn't sound like anyone from inspection services went to the restaurant to oversee the making of the burritos...

This was simply a city shake-down, wasn't it?

And it sounds like Mumbles, rather than apologizing, was nasty to Pepper.

Unbelievable.

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For example, anyone who does business in the city (supposedly if you even just rent out a parking space) has to file a business permit with the city for $50 - just to "let them know you're here".

My experience with these kinds of events is that yes - the restaurants need permits for the events if you serve food off premises - but a lot of the restaurants don't know that. Organizers do know these things and they run around and make sure that the paperwork is all filled out and then bring it to the restaurant to sign off on. The restaurants are doing the organizer a favor by coming to the event - and this is the least the organizer can do. The city was probably technically right - but practically wrong.

Hopefully the close of the article in the Globe is the start of the city reaching out to small biz and seeing how we can make this stuff more efficient.

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Could be worse. In Philadelphia IIRC, or maybe it was Pittsburgh, they wanted to charge the business license fee to bloggers who received ad revenue even though some of them only get little more than pocket change.

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What did this permit do for the public?

+1. Like. RT.

Print it.

Frame it.

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I was furious about the city's treatment of Boloco when I read todays paper. This is another example of the City's red tape hampering business I thought, then I read Bolocos CEO's tweets disparaging Boston's Union Workers and I couldn't believe it. Whenever I'm at at a Boloco I always see a crowd of other Union Workers enjoying a burrito or waiting in line for one during their lunch break. That Boloco would use this opportunity to take a swing at the workers of boston just makes my blood boil! What do we have to do with a dispute with the City Permit Department? It's infuriating to hear yet another Fat-Cat millionaire placing every one of his problems at the feet of the working man. I will never step foot in a Boloco again and would urge every Union Member or person concerned with workers rights to stay out of any Boloco location. I have never been moved to write a letter to a corporation or an op-ed page but I am so sick of Union workers being blamed for everything from the deficit to (now) burrito shops having a hard time securing a permit that I am contacting my union and will copy and past Bolocos anti union comments on our website and can only hope it will inspire workers to stay out of this anti worker millionaire's establishment.

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What are you, a union rep or something?

The union shakedowns are just as bad as the city inspectors.

Thanks for the laugh.

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as they had nothing to do with this issue. I hope he'll retract that part of his statement.

From everything I've ever heard, Boloco is a good employer, so union organizers are not likely to succeed in recruiting their employees.

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...and after I posted something less-than-flattering about a chicken sandwich I had at the B.Good in Brookline (now gone) on Chowhound, he sent me a rather nasty email claiming that I was out to hurt his business and how he suspected I had never even eaten there. This happened less than 20 minutes later.

I haven't set foot in either a Boloco or a B.Good since. The food is passable at best, but someone this thin-skinned shouldn't be running a company that serves the public.

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b.good and Boloco are separate companies with separate owners.

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...as explained right here:

http://boloco.com/story/our-story/

and right here:

http://www.bgood.com/ourhistory.php

Although going back, I realize that the thin-skinned jerk who sent me the nasty email was the another co-founder of b.good with a similar first name. So I apologize to Pepper for that, but it's kind of a moot point: the food sucks at either place, so they could be run by the nicest guys in the world and I wouldn't set foot in either one again.

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Boloco loco cheap bastard wants a political favor and gets his cheapass slapped down by someone who is doing there job.

Pissed over $30 - what an ass.

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Did you even read the article?

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this was not about a $30 fee

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This is in line with the tone Menino sets. Shakedowns all the time, and you have to kiss ass for the "privilege" of doing business in Boston.

Incompetent, nasty, oppressive, and corrupt. Not quite like Ceauchescu's Romania, but only because the Feds wouldn't permit it.

2013 can't come soon enough, although Menino really plans to be Mayor for Life. Since city voters are mostly city employees and "activists" of the poverty-pimp type, he might win again.

Well, Mubarak was deposed, so there's hope.

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....Chief Inspector Mike Mackan. Biggest layabout blowhard in the city. 1010 Mass Ave "business" practices can be summed up by this hack alone.

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Hi Everyone

An apology is due by a general reference I made on twitter to "union rackets" without further explanation.

Needless to say, labor has been instrumental in so much of what makes this country and city great and its middle class strong. For Boloco, union members are not only our valued customers, but have literally helped build our business as we've expanded across Boston, using predominantly union labor.

Sadly, a couple of labor organizations have taken to protesting our and other Boston retail businesses over a particular disagreement for a number of years--often with signs and statements that are inflammatory, untrue, and have nothing to do with their complaint itself. And yes, their actions have been very harmful to our and other small businesses in Boston.

My reference to "union rackets" in my tweet was to that situation in particular, and I in no way meant to criticize the labor movement or "unions" generally, or union members, who are such an important part of our community.

I should have chosen my words more carefully. Unions had nothing to do with the incident reported in the Globe. While damage has been done (we will respond to each and everyone of you who have voiced concern and more) I sincerely do apologize for this.

John Pepper
CEO and Co-Founder

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Last week I was in NYC and saw the big blow up rat unions sometimes put out in front of a business they have a beef with so I was expecting to see protesters outside handing out leaflets to explain their situation. Instead there were big orange signs up in front of a hotel that read "This hotel has bed bugs", or something to that effect. Then back in Boston on Monday the same thing--in front of a restaurant on Boylston the same blow up rat and this time signs saying that the place was dirty and roach infested. This doesn't really seem like protesting unfair labor practices, this sounds like a nasty form of blackmail. I have never seen this before and it will only give unions a worse name than they already have amongst some. I wonder if something similar happened to Boloco?
Whit

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exactly what happened to boloco and many others.

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I will be making a point to give my business to any bar or restaurant victimized in this way. I looked it up after I posted and it is an abuse of the past victories of organized labor and does nothing but weaken the bargaining power of working people in what looks to be a pretty dismal future for anyone who, you know, works.

Whit

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You may be telling the truth, but when you can't even be bothered to register or log in, most people here are will probably consider your post to just be a troll.

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Because we all know who Jeff F is.

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OK Jeff. I want you to be happy so I will register under my own name which happens to be Whit. You fucking happy now?

Whit

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Once you are using a regular login, members of the forum community can distinguish what you post from all the other (clearly less worthy) anons out there. You build a rep. Also, people can't pretend to be you and post derogatory, insulting or ridiculous follow-ups in order to discredit your original post.

Take NotWhitey for example. I know just how much attention and respect to give to what he writes because I've read his other posts over the years.

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