New liquor licenses to be doled out in March

The Dorchester Reporter reports the Boston Licensing Board will begin hearings and deliberations in January on the first batch of beer-and-wine and all-alcohol licenses it can now grant, based on applications filed by Dec. 6, but won't actually grant any until March.

The Boston Licensing Board had previously said it would make no decisions on who gets the new licenses until after it complete hearings on applications it had received by Dec. 6. The board has been holding such hearings for the past couple of months and will continue these hearings through January - at which applicants will be asked to explain the "public need" for them to get a license to sell alcohol.

Most of the new licenses will be restricted to applicants in 13 specific Zip codes and Brighton's Oak Square and can't be resold, but a few will be "golden tickets" that will instantly be worth several hundred thousand dollars on the open market.

Earlier this year, the state deigned to let Boston distribute 225 new licenses to restaurants over a three-year period.