The Boston Licensing Board today rolled back the legal closing time of Canton Eatery, 339 Meridian St. for selling and delivering food after it was legally required to be closed.

For the next six months, the restaurant has to shut at 1 a.m., the board ruled, adding the restaurant can reapply for a 2 a.m. closing time after that.

The board voted to roll back the hours after Lt. Christopher Hamilton said at a Tuesday hearing that the restaurant continued to serve people coming out of bars after they closed, which meant lots of noise and urinating in an alley near the eatery. He read from a letter by A-7 Captain Frank Mancini that restaurant owner Guang Hung had refused repeated requests from both himself and beat cops to stop staying open until 3 a.m. and that he had proven he had "no intention to be a responsible member of the business community of East Boston."

Restaurant attorney Stephen Miller acknowledged Canton Eatery had been staying open later than it should last year - the result, he said, of employees who just wanted to help out Hung by making him some more money. He said Hung has since re-programmed his cash register so that it shuts down promptly at 1:30 a.m. and that the restaurant has had no problems with police since December.

And as he presented the board with petitions signed by hundreds of people, including Merdian Street residents, in favor of the restaurant, he charged that all of the complaints come from just a single resident with a grudge against Canton Eatery, who blames every last problem in the area on his client.

"Allegations that we're delivering at 3 in the morning are absolutely false," he said.

Board Chairwoman Nicole Murati Ferrer, however, noted the restaurant had had its license suspended twice last year for serving after 2 a.m. and said that it really didn't matter if it was just one person or 55 people complaining about the problem - after hours is after hours.

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.

Boston Police report arresting a couple for having sex in full view of commuters at Mass. Ave. and Shirley Street in the South End this morning.

Police report the couple, whom they modestly declined to name, were going at it full bore around 8:30 a.m. in the Clifford Playground when officers arrived in response to "numerous" 911 calls:

According to witnesses, the couple was making no effort to hide or conceal their activities from the view of rush hour traffic.

On arrival, officers did, in fact, locate two partially clothed individuals who looked to be engaged in some level of sexual activity.

Upon seeing the approaching officers, both participants stopped doing what they were doing and proceeded to pull up and zip up.

The allegedly amorous duo was then arrested and charged with open and gross lewdness.

The Globe reports the New England Aquarium is closed today because of a crack near the top of the main tank.