Proposed Long Wharf restaurant gets 60-day reprieve

The Boston Licensing Board voted today to give restaurateur Michael Conlon at least two more months to actually start using the liquor license he was granted in 2007 for a restaurant at the end of Long Wharf that has yet to open.

Conlon wants to turn the public shelter into a seafood restaurant called Doc's. The BRA approved the idea in 2006 and the licensing board granted him a liquor license the following year, but the project has been held up in bureaucratic and court wrangling ever since. After the state Department of Environmental Protection gave permission, a group of North End residents sued, claiming the city could not simply privatize a public facility. The BRA argues a restaurant up the dock from Legal Seafood and the Chart House would revitalize the waterfront like nobody's business.

Today's vote means Conlon has to return to the board in 60 days to explain whether he's made any progress - which in his case means gaining a favorable ruling from the Superior Court judge who finished hearing testimony last fall but who has yet to issue a ruling.

At that point, the board could either decide to rescind the license for non-use - as it did in March with an equally non-existent restaurant at 45 Province St. - or give him more time.