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Landlady opposes later hours at restaurant in her Maverick Square building

Workers getting off the last train at Maverick could have a place to get some tacos if the Boston Licensing Board approves a 2 a.m. closing time for Taqueria Cancun, 192 1/2 Sumner St.

But if the board votes Thursday to extend the restaurant's closing time from the current 11:30 p.m., owner Jose Torres will have issues with landlady Maria Salgado, who attended the board's hearing this morning with a lawyer to voice her opposition because of the potential impact on the residential tenants in the two floors above the restaurant. Salgado ran the restaurant until four years ago, when she sold it - and its liquor license - to Torres.

Torres's lawyer, Jared Chrislip, expressed surprise at Salgado's stance, saying he didn't know she was opposed until he saw her and her lawyer walk into the hearing room. He said nobody opposed the later hours at a recent meeting with abutters. "We hadn't heard of any opposition at all," he said. Salgado said she was never notified of that meeting; when Chrislip pointed out a signature on the receipt for the registered letter sent to her address, Salgado said that was neither her name nor her signature.

Chrislip said there was a public need for the later hours: The restaurant is near the Maverick T stop and "there is a considerable population who work late and return to East Boston rather late and are looking to be able to get a meal before heading home."

The mayor's office and City Councilor Sal LaMattina both supported the proposal. When one man rose from the audience to side with Salgado - the later hours "would really upset the ability of tenants to enjoy where they live," he said - Chrislip asked the board to insist the man say what his relationship was to Salgado, because he believed he was her boyfriend. Board Chairwoman Christine Pulgini, however, declined, saying his romantic status "isn't relevant."

There were no similar issues later in the morning, when the board heard a request from Deneir Rosa, owner of Oliveira's Steak House in East Boston's Central Square for a beer, wine and liqueur license.

Rosa opened the Brazilian restaurant a year ago. His attorney presented a letter of support from the Eagle Hill Civic Association and said the drinks would all be served with meals - the restaurant does not have a bar.

As with the taqueria, the board will vote on Thursday on the restaurant's license request.

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Comments

If the restaurant's lease requires an 11:30 pm closing, I don't think the licensing board can overrule that. If it doesn't, the landlady may be out of luck here.

The board might want to consider requiring that any music or TVs be turned off after 11:30 pm, if sound is likely to bleed into the apartments upstairs.

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When in doubt, read the actual contract.

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because of the potential impact

Here's a radical thoguth. Let's give the restaurant their extended hours on a trial basis, and see if anything actually happens. If the doom and gloom, cats living with dogs, etc. that ms special snowflake landlady is convicned will occur actually do happen,t hen you can recind the approval.

It's called progressive government, and is exactly the type of ruling the Licenisng Board should make in dealing with such matters.

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Ms. special snowflake landlady? What? She owns the damn building and can do with it as she pleases, especially if in the lease it stipulates an 11:30pm closing. Sounds like the "special snowflake" is the owner of the business trying to convince the licensing board to change things just for him, along with potentially trying to get around the contract he signed with the owner of his space.

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The Boston Police, all community groups, and our City Councilor, objected to extended hours for Canton Eatery on Meridian Street in Boston. The owner has not been a good neighbour and had numerous violations, despite claiming at a community meeting that they had never been cited for code violations. The Licensing Board approved anyway. Seems like the Licensing Board just does what it wants, regardless of community input.

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I thought that was the Licensing Board's purview (as in the case Adam describes here)

What sort of problems has Canton Eatery caused? (Do they even have a liquor license?)

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It was the licensing board. Canton Eatery has been fined numerous times for staying open past closing hours.

http://www.cityofboston.gov/cityclerk/docs/SKMBT_42014052822260-764a32.pdf

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Did the restaurant generate noise for its upstairs or adjoining residential neighbors? If so, could that be addressed by requiring them to turn off TVs and music, rather than by imposing a closing time? It does not look to me like this place serves alcohol.

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this restaurant is in a residential, not commerical, neighborhood. Drunks would urinate in the alley between the resturant and home next door, trash all over the place. The restaurant had to be involuntarily closed at least once for these violations, and then stuff would happen all over again. They were very disengenous when attending a community meeting and stated that they had never received violations.

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Oooh, I love Taqueria Cancun! We used to sneak over there for lunch some days from downtown. Took forever, but totally worth it.

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It's okay, I guess, but I have no idea why they'd need to be open until 2AM. They're not going to be taking away business from La Hacienda and Cafe Gigu without a liquor license. I can see it making sense at Cactus Grill which is largely takeout, or Taco Mex, which has a liquor license, but Cancun is a sitdown restaurant without booze.

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So unless it has modern sound remediation, it's cheek by jowl. Given rent costs here, some consideration is owed tenants.

https://goo.gl/maps/fQgda

What's interesting is that there already is a place next door that is open til 2am. and it offers subs at a mid range price. http://dparmarestaurant.com/#about

The rest of the nocturnal forage options in that immediate vicinity vary. Dunkies packs it in at 10 p. Not much confidence in night eaters there. The nearly adjacent Burger King hangs in til midnight.

The Chinese restaurant closes at 10 and a place called Taco Mex, (great looking menu), calls it quits at 11.

And then there's the Tedeschis. So is Taqueria Cancun likely to be inundated with famished night owls? How many of the last ride people just go home where a whole fridge waits?

Ordinarily if it were a discrete location without residential tenants in the mix, I'd be fine with it.

But given that the only late night joint around is next door, the landlady may have some experience with late lout noise.

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If by "the Chinese restaurant" you mean Hong Kong Harbor, then you're wrong about it closing at 10PM. It closes at 2AM on weekends and 1AM on weeknights; I have no idea why D'Parma stays open that late, and it's a bit of a shock. And that's another sitdown place. No one is swinging by to grab a sub.

Tedeschi's closes at midnight.

HKH is the place to go in the immediate area when you want a quick bite.

No, a place with sitdown service won't replace HKH, which is why it's kind of puzzling that they're requesting this.

And no offense is meant, but you don't really seem to know the area, so I'm not sure why you'd need to be "fine with it". I just don't think it makes a ton of sense logistically.

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So I'm only as good as Google Maps which lists Hong Kong Harbor with a 10p closing time.

I couldn't find a closing time for Tedeschis.

I was in Maverick Square last year after making video content for the East Boston Greenway. God, it's a bit down at the heels.

I was there much more often in the 70s when few of these things existed. Do you remember the Cardinals Nest or Nicky Femia?

I need to go back soon as I want to make video of the Harborwalk parks from LoPresti to that coast strip abutting the airport. I may even wrap it up this weekend.

As to the rest, if some restaurant owner wants to roll the dice and do some hare brained experiment, that is their choice, save in instances where it encroaches on people's right to sleep at night.

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"God, it's a bit down at the heels."

Based on your comment about the Cardinal's Nest, I'm guessing you have a preconceived notion about the area, and have barely spent any time there in nearly 40 years. No, I wasn't alive then, but I lived two blocks over from the former Nest (at Maverick and Frankfort, I believe). If you're basing the feel of the neighborhood, and Jeffries Point in particular (where the Cardinal's Nest was), based on seeing certain areas of Maverick, that's like saying Cambridgeport is a shit hole because you saw swaths of homeless people in Central Square.

Simply put, it's allegedly "up and coming", but what is already here is a much safer area than anywhere else in the city facing gentrification. Go the other direction from Maverick (away from Lopresti), walk along Marginal to Piers Park, and up to Webster Street. I've lived in various areas around Boston and across the river, and I've never felt safer in that area. God forbid if I owned a car when I lived in the Fenway. The area was perpetually littered with broken glass from smash and grabs.

The back side of Eagle Hill? Sure, you have an argument there. However, it's still an area that has a fraction of the violent crime that big chunks of Dorchester have west of Dorchester Avenue. As someone looking to buy in the near future I'm glad the reputation is there as it drives prices down, but the opinion almost always comes from people who have spent little or no time in the area, or moved years ago.

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I like Eastie. I'm aware that it has changed. It's just a subway ride away. It isn't like a trek to Tibet.

Here's a friend of mine from there who moved to Jersey. https://youtu.be/K5-1r0pIwxQ

I'm not going to plug the video stuff I did there cause I don't really care for the audience here. There are too many grouches in a rush to play gotcha games, instead of adding value to the place.

But I made material on Belle Isle Marsh, Constitution Beach and the East Boston Greenway. Just do a search query on you tube and you'll find the whole pile.

I've made video of the rest of Harborwalk from Charlestown to the Neponset mouth.

All I need to cover now is that East Boston waterfront area that faces the rest of Boston. The whole point of the stuff I do for free is to make it easier for people to discover and enjoy the area.

I'll probably head over soon as I want to finish that project. I'm thinking early Sunday morning will be perfect.

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some consideration is owed tenants

Among other things, the landlord should have negotiated operating hours in the lease, at which point this would not have come up.

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But as with so many legal issues, it is also socially toxic. So yes,, the proprietor may have the right to impose his pipe dream on tenants, but it's hardly laudable and that lease will eventually have to be renewed.

Then we have a good summation of the actual food scene at that time from Steeve, who uses it regularly. This supports the pipe dream hypothesis. He didn't indicate any late night food throngs, just a sleepy little scene, where a night owl can grab some pork fried rice or whatever.

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Seriously? Wanting to exert some control over what goes on under your own roof, wanting to choose who you're going to have as a tenant, and what kind of business you want operating in what kind of manner in your building, is a "pipe dream?"

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It has a landlady.I'm on her side and that of the people upstairs who want to sleep at 2 am. So I was in agreement all along if that is your centerpiece assertion.

And yes, thinking you'll corner the late night food market in Maverick Square with a Taco shop when the place has several options that aren't that busy, would fit my sense of a pipe dream.

Restaurants are the riskiest kind of small businesses as Bourdain noted years ago.

But if the landlady failed to anticipate that dumb move with a clause in the lease, she's technically hosed. And all this for something that'll probably go tits up.

My god, you are trying so hard to argue, your reading comprehension went on vacation while your antagonism worked overtime.

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