Boston gets 225 new alcohol licenses; now city officials have to figure out how to dole them out

Gov. Healey last week signed a bill giving Boston 225 new liquor licenses, most to be doled out to restaurants in 13 specific Zip codes - and at prices nowhere near the $600,000 or more that most current licenses go for on the open market.

Now city officials have to come up with a plan on how to alert potential license holders and to decide who gets the new Zip-code-restricted licenses, which will be given out in groups of five every year for three years in each of 13 Zip codes: 02118, 02119, 02121, 02122, 02124, 02125, 02126, 02128, 02129, 02130, 02131, 02132 and 02136. The groups of five will be split between three licenses to serve all types of alcohol and two limited to beer and wine.

Unlike most of the city's current 1,400 alcohol licenses, which can be resold and even used as collateral for loans, the new licenses can't be sold; if a restaurant with one of the new licenses goes out of business or moves, it will have to return its license to the licensing board - which can then only award it to another applicant from the same Zip code.

The City Council today approved a request by Councilor Brian Worrell (Dorchester) for a hearing at which councilors, the Boston Licensing Board and other city officials can discuss the way the new licenses are awarded. Worrell called for an aggressive education campaign that would include fliers and tutorials in several languages and even door-to-door canvassing in city business districts with few if any liquor-serving restaurants to ensure potential applicants learn about the new opportunity.

The licensing board does not sell liquor licenses - and so has nothing to do with the price of licenses on the open market - but it does charge an annual fee to license holders, currently starting at $1,800 for a beer-and-wine license and $2,800 for an all-alcohol license - on top of fees based in part on the size of the restaurant.

The last time the state Legislature deigned to give Boston a large new supply of licenses, in 2014, the licensing board simply threw open the application process, met with applicants and then selected winners. But while those licenses were also limited to certain neighborhoods away from downtown, the North End and the Waterfront, in the end, some areas, most notably Mattapan and much of Blue Hill Avenue, got no new licenses. This year's legislation aims to solve that by reserving 15 licenses for each of the 13 Zip codes - those 15 licenses can only be used in the Zip codes for which they were designated.

Worrell, who spearheaded the successful effort to get Boston its first major infusion of liquor licenses in ten years, called the measure "a truly transformative economic opportunity" for current restaurant owners in the city's outer neighborhoods - and for operators of take-out places that might now have a reason to invest in adding seats - who couldn't compete with well heeled national chains to buy one of the old-style licenses.

By encouraging the growth of restaurants, the measure will also help grow the city's "Main Streets and economic corridors" outside of Boston Proper and the Seaport, he said.

In addition to the Zip-cde licenses, some of the new licenses will be reserved for non-profit groups and 12 will be traditional licenses that can be used as loan collateral and resold. In a nod to state Rep. and House Majority Leader Michael Moran, who had blocked previous efforts to get Boston more licenses, three new restricted licenses are specifically set aside for Brighton's Oak Square neighborhood.