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Restaurants push to continue cocktails to go - and limits on how much DoorDash and GrubHub can charge
By adamg on Tue, 05/18/2021 - 2:37pm
NBC Boston reports the Massachusetts Restaurant Association has started lobbying to let restaurants keep offering take-out drinks even after the Covid-19 regulation that let them do so expires on June 15. The association does not note, but others might, that the earth continued to revolve about its axis and dogs and cats did not start sleeping together when the state eased its normal prohibition against the practice last spring.
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Comments
Pandemic Modifications
A majority of the pandemic rules where just doing things they should have always been doing. Outdoor dining in parking spaces, Zoom based government hearings, to-go booze, etc.
They are going to have to work really hard to come up with BS reasons why these things can't continue but I have faith in MA elected officials to persevere.
Nice things
"This is why we can't have nice things"
As you were saying..
As you were saying BostonDog
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/18/metro/with-end-covid-19-emergency...
I agree with the other
I agree with the other comments that say let's try a summer in Boston where open containers are allowed between, say noon-10pm everyday. They can be purchased from a restaurant, liquor/beer store or just brought from home. If the concern is college kids, let's have the trial period only run through Labor Day. My guess is that it will really open up quality of life walking around the streets and the parks of Boston. It will also help restaurants & local businesses get back on their feet, since people can pick-up a beer while walking around town.
If Savannah can handle open containers, this shouldn't be a problem for Boston!
Are take-out drinks open containers?
I'd love to hear that I'm wrong, but I thought that take-out drinks were still not ok to consume in public - the idea is that you take them home.
Yeah, they put some kind of seal usually
That said, I think the commenter above is saying that they should expand this - why not let someone take their cocktail to go, and enjoy it as they walk around?
Hey, I'm a fan
I've never been to New Orleans, but I want to go some day just to hear a bartender say, "You want it in a go cup?"
Ok now do
Happy hour and the restaurant industries push to keep it banned.
Now look...
* Outdoor dining = keep. In fact, expand.
* Zoom: thank god it was there for us, but it really does tire one down after a while.
* Take-out cocktails: how good could that thing be by the time you get it home and it's room temperature? If you're not going to drink it out, you're far better off building a home bar supply.
Zoom meetings
Yes, a day of Zoom is very tiring, but virtual public meetings greatly increase the number of people who can attend them, either by passively watching or by actively participating. I'd like to see them survive in some form.
I agree with Ron. I believe
I agree with Ron. I believe we should continue to offer hybrid public meetings where a remote citizen can *attend* the meeting, not just view it live.
Yes
Yes I've attended several meetings I would not be able to attend due to time constraints. Especially MassDOT ones which are often held during the day. Its easy to schedule some time in my calendar for an hour or so listen in at my desk.
Even the night meetings.. I will turn on a meeting on my laptop and go into the kitchen and cook. I'll listen in while I cook.
So much of a time saver.. I can be there & give input while still eating dinner at a normal time.
Third this
It's really distressing how many "public" meetings on important topics, topics that have a significant impact on members of the public, are held during the hours when most people are unable to attend, particularly when they must travel to get to them. I'd like to see a remote option for these as a standard practice.
The travel is what stops me
I have permission to go during the day to meetings (work knows I am active in Transit stuff and love it so they support it). But to be missing for 4+ hours for a meeting isn't too cool. (4hours being 1 hour each way to commute, and 1-2 hours for a meeting).
Even at night, a few meetings **start** at 5pm. So I have to leave work early to get there.
Local Chelsea meetings are easy but still its a block of time I have to carve out to go (the walk is less than 5 minutes to city hall). It just pushes other things later, like dinner or chores.
It's often done fairly intentionally
Often times measures are being discussed that mostly or disproportionally affect poorer, working, parenting, etc. folks. So it's easy to pass these if the meeting is only effectively open to people who can get downtown in the middle of a weekday.
I would like to see this
I would like to see this allowed for the rest of the year on a probationary period. Last year was not a good trial run because so many people were terrified to leave their homes. This year will be a much more open summer and the concern would be how this translates to outdoor drunken behavior.
It is possible it should remain in place but only be allowed to operate the same hours as liquor stores. Which is 11pm I believe. I do not think we want last call to consist of people ordering five drinks to go that are drunk in the back alley.
Maybe the focus...
Maybe the focus should be on the problem behavior rather than trying to eliminate every possible cause. Teach people that outdoor drunken behavior is unacceptable, show them consequences, and I think you'll see it reduced. Try to eliminate it through a series of technicalities to deny alcohol and people and the outdoors existing in the same space and time, and people will simply find ways around it.
Give an inch
Restaurant association takes a mile. What about package stores and bars?
How much is that parking space in the window?
Can the city get a % of parking spot dining revenue from such a giveaway that is denied other businesses?
Denied?
Any business should be able to reserve the parking space(s) outside their shop for use for extending the store/business. They shouldn't be allowed to block the sidewalk or use the space for parking a vehicle or advertising -- only services.
A metered spot earns the city $90 a week if it's in continuous use. ($1.25/hr x 12hr x 6 day) So the fee to use a spot should be somewhat less.
What about package stores?
What about package stores? Have their had trouble selling their typical products to consumers?
I imagine the package stores
I imagine the package stores did ok... They never closed and most people I know stock piled booze until their cars sagged from the weight.
And
There's not much benefit to package stores having a patio since they can't serve on premise. And the laws are such that restaurants can't really compete on price so it's not as if they are direct competitors.
If a clothing store wants to put some racks in a parking spot(s), more power to them. It probably would help their business too and make the street more enjoyable than a row of parked cars.
Wouldn't bars also be able to sell cocktails to go?
Seems like that'd be a decent revenue source if available. Heck, plenty of packies have basically already been doing this for years with the ol' paper bag method.
I believe their percentage is
I believe their percentage is called Mass meal tax.
They would make a Hell of a lot more than 90$ a week, the question is how much harder it is to park. Mother’s Day night we found a space in a garage at parcel 7 for 3$ to eat in North End
I think I parked in that
I think I parked in that garage before... It's $3 but then after you go over the first segment of time it jumps up to like seven million dollars. I'm convinced that's how they make the $3 work, they assume a bunch of people will lose track of time and then they hold you over a barrell.
I thought the $3 deal was a
I thought the $3 deal was a concession to nearby businesses who had to endure Big Dig disruptions.
Fine but
You have to make a concession to us consumers. Stop fighting bringing happy hour back.
Can’t have it both ways.
Don't bring Happy Hour back, please
The problem with Happy Hour is it encourages compressing one's drinking into a shorter period of time. You might go to your local after work and have four drinks over a few hours while you eat food and watch the game. But if drinks are half price from 5-7, many people will compress that four drinks into those two hours to save $$ and then head home, much more impaired than if it was spread out over time and consumed with food.
Much better under the current system where it might be the food discounted during that time or $2 PBR all day on Wednesdays neither of which will make patrons try to squeeze in as much drinking as possible before the price goes up.
Actual research paper:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4017966/
Haven't ordered drinks to go
Haven't ordered drinks to go yet, super difficult to figure out who is actually doing them. Any places in Malden?
Great idea.
We need to keep the things that worked during the lockdowns. And we need to help these businesses succeed.
It's decided then...
Take-out cocktails, limited-hour open containers, parking spot patios (with enough availability for other businesses left intact), and happy hours (that don't require food purchases, but aren't allowed to be discounted below a certain percentage of normal)...
Anything else we need to change?
Extend Operating Hours
And...
...enforcement of noise ordnances.
I hadn't heard about the
I hadn't heard about the DoorDash/GrubHub 15% fee cap. That's a great law, and I hope they make it permanent. Customers don't realize how much these large tech companies pressure independent restaurants. Even 15% is a huge amount to take away from the people who actually make the food.
Ithaca, NY has Ithaca To Go, a local delivery app. It would be great if we had something like that here, especially if they made a point to support local restaurants.