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Is Boston world class or the City that Always Sleeps? Taqueria owner says he wants to prove we're the former, not the latter

The owner of a chain of local taquerias is hoping the third time's a charm with an attempt to keep one of his Boston outlets open past 2 a.m.

El Jefe owner John Schall is asking customers to sign petitions to the Boston Licensing Board to let him extend the closing time of his Huntington Avenue taco place from its current 2 a.m. to 3 a.m.

Unlike with past attempts at Emerson and Boston University, where he pointed to ravenous hordes of students needing sustenance in the wee hours, this time he's pointing to the need to feed first responders, nurses and other gainfully employed people on overnight shifts (but just in case, he's also linked the petition from a Northeastern group on Reddit).

Sign this petition to support extending El Jefe's closing time until 3am because residents of world class cities like Boston deserve good food late at night!

In 2020, Schall asked the board to let him run a new restaurant at Emerson College until 3 a.m. The board sided with the Midtown-Park Plaza Neighborhood Association, who said even Boston's downtown core needs to stay asleep late at night and set a midnight closing time.

In January, Schall requested a 4 a.m. closing time for a new restaurant on Comm Ave., in the heart of Boston University. The board gave him 1 a.m., agreeing with Boston Police that letting people get tacos after 2 a.m. would prove a meddlesome magnet for barflies from across the area getting shooed out of watering holes at closing time.

The El Jefe across the river in Harvard Square is open until 4 a.m.

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Comments

Boston should be careful, if it allows an El Jefe (good burritos btw) to stay open till 4AM, they might attract some real miserable ne'er-do-wells and malcontents. You know, people like Alan Dershowitz.

Beware!

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I went to college in a midwestern city with a Perkins open 24 hours and a friend of mine was a graphic design major that had to get her work color photocopied at Kinkos (in the 90s) at all hours so I would drive and be reward with Perkins coffee and breakfast at 3 am. It was awesome and that Boston college students will never experience.

I grew up in this area and fled my parents house out to the midwest and was totally culture shocked when I went and it was the best thing I ever did, I think.

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"Boston Police that letting people get tacos after 2 a.m. would prove a meddlesome magnet for barflies from across the area getting shooed out of watering holes at closing time."

Letting people eat so they can sober up is a good thing you absolute imbeciles

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only thing that lessens the effect of alcohol after you've already drunk it is the passage of time for your liver to break it down. That takes about an hour for every drink you've consumed. All the coffee and greasy fast food in the world will not change that.

I'm in favor of more late-night eateries, but that's no way to justify them.

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the time it takes you eat that greasy fast food is time where your liver can be working to break down any alcohol in your system? As opposed to just, you know, hopping in your car right away to head home.

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Are you an alien? We don't consume pills for food, so there is a passage of time associated with eating.

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you would get the exact same sobering effect by sitting on the sidewalk in front of a closed restaurant as you would eating in one. It's a brain-dead argument for late-night eating. Try something less science-ignorant.

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What do you think better encourages people to not jump into their cars, bikes, or scooters as soon as they leave a drinking establishment?

1. Availability of tasty food
2. A cold sidewalk

Think this one through before ranting about science.

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A succulent Chinese meal

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Your notion that 30 minutes of taco eating is going to "sober you up" after you've been drinking at a club till the wee hours before you get in your car? That's moronic, and dangerous. If you want to convince non-morons that late-night eating is a good idea, you're going to need a better argument.

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Non-morons are already in favor of late-night eating. It's the morons, many of whom have power and influence, who need convincing.

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Unpossible as long as we have 3rd world mass transit.

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That's unpossible!

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