Pioneering Blue Hill Avenue restaurant owners hope to do the same for troubled Newmarket Square

The Boston Licensing Board votes tomorrow on whether to grant a liquor license to Hector and Nivia Pina's proposed Cuban restaurant in the Hampton Inn on Melnea Cass Boulevard.

Some 20 years ago, the Pinas took a chance on Blue Hill Avenue with their Merengue Dominican restaurant. At a licensing-board hearing this morning, their attorney, Dennis Benzan, said their Dona Habana could prove an equally stabilizing force in Newmarket Square, which lately has emerged as a focal point of the region's opiate crisis due to programs for the homeless and drug users, who now litter the area with thousands of used needles.

The restaurant "could activate an area of Melnea Cass that has been inactive for quite some time," even as it feeds Boston's growing taste for Cuban food, Benzan said, noting the Penas had established their credentials with Dominican food at Merengue and Puerto Rican food at Vejigantes in the South End.

City Councilor Tito Jackson (Roxbury), who acknowledged having dinner at Merengue last night, could not say enough about the Pinas, whom he credited with taking a chance on Blue Hill Avenue at a time when most people were writing it off.

"It gives me great honor and pleasure to support them, and I really look forward to having my first meal (at Dona Habana) in the near future," he said.