Business

Mark Levy analyzes a Globe story that purports to find a growing "backlash" against tech development in the city, based largely on the fact that the Forest City project got defeated:

"The backlash has caught the notice of biotechnology leaders, who are asking whether the industry is still welcome in Cambridge," Robert Weisman wrote on Saturday.

This would indeed be an interesting story - if there were any examples in this story of biotechnology leaders asking that. There aren't.

Microsoft Line 1.0. Cognoscenti know to wait for Microsoft Line 3.0.

Wes Teasdale photographed the line outside the grand opening of the Microsoft Store at the Pru at 7 a.m. today. No doubt, most people were eagerly awaiting their shot at the latest Windows Phones, rather than the 1,000 Lenny Kravitz tickets Microsoft was giving away.

Cambridge Day reports Microsoft this weekend turned on a large plasma-screen sign, in a city where not everybody is enamored of such advertising.

"Terry Ragon was right when he said if we don't watch out our city will look like Las Vegas. It has begun," [Mark] Jaquith said, referring to the plasma display as "a monstrosity."

Ragon was the guy who spent several hundred thousand dollars of his own money fighting a proposal to let companies put their names atop their office buildings.

Walgreens goes before the Boston Licensing Board on Wednesday for permission to sell booze in the old Downtown Crossing Borders it's currently turning into a mega-drugstore.

The chain has applied for an "all alcohol" license which, if granted, would let it sell everything from beer and wine to gin and vodka. Walgreens has proposed turning 1,500 square feet of the store's mezzanine into a "liquor sale area."

Earlier this year, the chain announced plans for an upscale "emporium" in the former Borders that would include everything from a sushi bar to a hair salon.

If Walgreens does win a license, it would not be the first Boston drugstore to sell liquor. Melvin Pharmacy on Comm. Ave. in Brighton has sold liquor since Prohibition, when it won a license to sell liquor for medicinal purposes.

The Washington Post reports a state agency has upheld a Cambridge citation against Uber because there are no state regulations allowing the use of GPS devices as replacements for taxi meters.

The ruling could spell trouble for the company, which acts as a sort of broker for local drivers, across the river, where Boston Police also require cabs to be equipped with meters.

Back Bay Patch reports on the impending arrival of Pret a Manger on Boylston Street.

WBUR reports on law signed by Gov. Patrick last week that requires businesses with at least three employees to let people with doctor's notes use their restrooms. Among the law's backers: Tom Menino, who has Crohn's disease.

Genzyme, which makes a drug to treat a rare genetic disease, yesterday filed a federal lawsuit against a competitor that issued a press release saying its analogous drug is superior.

In the lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Boston, Genzyme charged that Shire, an Irish company with an office in Lexington, misrepresented Shire's own clinical studies and that nobody has yet proven that its drug works any better than Genzyme's for treating type-1 Gaucher disease. People with the disease are unable to dissolve certain types of fats, which can build up in various organs and cause a variety of problems.

Genzyme said the press release was particularly troubling because it targeted not just medical professionals - who presumably would know how to look up the data - but patients, whom it said could be misled into seeking a change of drugs from Genzyme's Ceridase to Shire's Vpriv.

Genzyme wants a judge to order Shire to issue a "corrective" press release, give it all the "ill-gotten" profits it made as a result of the press release and pay damages and lawyers' fees.

In East Boston, that is.

The Boston Business Journal reports the chain has signed a lease for the development going in where the Herald used to be.

Jason Schwartz says:

The South End getting a Whole Foods is sort of like its own version of achieving manifest destiny.

The Atlantic reports the Boston area has a bigger economy than Greece - and we're not threatening to pull down the entire European economy.

Boston's Economic Development and Industrial Corp. has gone to court to recover what it says is nearly $570,000 in back rent on a floor in a building in the Boston Marine Industrial Park used to make semiconductor wafers.

EDIC, which runs the industrial park, filed a lawsuit in US District Court in Boston yesterday against the US subsidiary of Umicore, a Belgian company, for back rent owed by Semiconductor Processing Co., to which Umicore has subleased the seventh floor at 12 Channel St. since 2007.

EDIC says Semiconductor Processing stopped paying its rent in June 2009 and that it went after Umicore because that company agreed to be ultimately responsible for rent payments.

In its suit, EDIC asks for the back rent, penalties and lawyers' fees.

No Swedish meatballs in Assembly Square, the Herald reports.

The Boston Business Journal reports on a BRA hearing on the proposed $175-million One Canal project on a piece of land now owned by the state.

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The owner of Camilo Liquors II, 735 Dudley St., had to explain to the Boston Licensing Board today why he was violating the terms of his license by continuing to sell liquor past his legal 11 p.m. closing time on May 29 - a police citation said an officer saw a clerk selling liquor to one person, with four or five additional people lined up at the counter at 11:03 p.m.

But Francisco Camilo said the clock inside his store read 10:58 p.m. - and his phone said it was 10:59 - so he felt he wasn't doing anything wrong. He added he already had two of the store's three front metal grates down.

Still, when police order you to shut, you shut, so he took the liquor away from the woman he was waiting on and told the other women in line there'd be no sales for them.

Camilo's lawyer asked for leniency given the time discrepancy. If the violation had been at 11:30, he said, the citation would make sense.

A nearby resident asked for permission to explain the woes a liquor store staying open even until 11 p.m. is causing the neighborhood, but board Chairwoman Nicole Murati Ferrer turned her down because she was not on scene that particular night and the hearing was just about that specific incident.

The board rules Thursday on what action, if any, to take.

BosGuy reports Posh, the high-end gift shop on Tremont Street, is being replaced by a bank.

A trade association of contractors who install home security systems charges the two telecommunications companies are violating state law and possibly putting residents' lives in danger by letting unlicensed technicians install their own burglar alarms and smoke detectors.

In a lawsuit originally filed last month in state court but transferred this week to US District Court in Boston, the Massachusetts Systems Contractors Association charges:

The performance of Security Systems Work by Comcast and Verizon has caused and will continue to cause irreparable harm to MSCA member and to the public due to the life safety and security concerns associated with the work. The legislature has enacted multiple licensure requirement to ensure that those performing this work are educated, competent and trustworthy. In bypassing all these legislative requirements, Comcast and Verizon are causing substantial and irreparable harm.

The association is asking for a judge to order the two companies to knock it off immediately.

• Complete complaint (7M PDF file).

Looks like the old Payless Show store is going to become a convenience store (there's a Marino's on the VFW Parkway, next to Al Wadi). It'll join the 7-Eleven near the police station in serving the neighborhood's convenience needs.

Via Allston Rat City.

More specifically, the Logan Square area down Fairmount. Mike Ball surveys the grooming scene, marvels at all the different salons and barber shops for all kinds of hair in the two-block district:

Perhaps symbolic of the vitality of this genre was that Qadosh (oriented toward black women) just took over TC's Coffee. It had been next to one of those odd little churches. TC's space is airy, has big windows and benefits from the rehab the restaurant owners had performed on what used to be the preeminent hotel on the Neponset River before it decayed. After a month with not even a hand-written sign of the salon name, Qadosh has painted its door and taken the old TC's Coffee sign out of its frame, surely in preparation for its own lighted one.

The Boston Business Journal reports some entrepreneurs are now setting up shop in Downtown Crossing rather than pay rents that have jumped dramatically along the waterfront.

The company now building its headquarters on the South Boston waterfront today announced a science-education program at Boston Green Academy and Excel High School in South Boston, the mayor's office reports:

[The] programs will aim to increase student participation and achievement in advanced placement (AP) courses and prepare teachers for the national “Next Generation Science Standards” being implemented next year. Vertex also today announced the dedication of a new 3,000 square foot learning laboratory being constructed at its future headquarters in the Innovation District. The learning laboratory will be available for use by BPS and other community groups, allowing students and teachers to conduct scientific projects alongside Vertex scientists.

Up to 20 students at the schools will be selected as summer interns at the company once it moves from Cambridge; the company will also award two scholarships a year and create a research fellowship program for science teachers at the schools.

CentralSquare.com reports the Harvest Coop on Mass. Ave. will be replaced with an H Mart, which specializes in Asian foods. Renovations will take about six months.

The Harvest is moving into smaller quarters across the street.