The Boston Licensing Board tackles the question Thursday when it decides what to do about neighborhood complaints about the bar at 5 North Square.

The restaurant claims it's only a "service" bar, for which it has a license so that it can serve drinks to customers as they eat dinner. But under questioning from board members at a hearing today, restaurant attorney Carolyn Conway acknowledged customers are allowed to wait in the room for a table, that there are a few chairs at the actual bar and that they can get drinks there. But, she said, only while waiting for a table in the rest of the restaurant.

"It's not operating as a bar," she said, adding numerous other restaurants in the North End work that way as well.

Board Chairman Daniel Pokaski seemed to have trouble accepting the difference, especially after hearing there were seats at the bar: "That's not a service bar," he said, adding he would not vote to simply let the bar be a bar, as Conway requested.

Board member Suzanne Ianella, who lives in the North End, however, said the restaurant only has five to ten seats in the bar room and that's hardly enough to cause a problem, not "when you have bars all over the North End without serving food." She said she would vote to lift the "service" restriction from the bar.

The restaurant gave the board a DVD of surveillance video stemming from one neighborhood complaint about people congregating in the bar that Conway said was actually only restaurant employees counting cash in the room at the end of the night.