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Back Bay restaurants ordered to shut patios during Patriots parade
By adamg on Wed, 02/06/2019 - 9:30am
WFXT reports police ordered five restaurants along the parade route to shut their outdoor patios yesterday - and issued them citations - because their patios are only allowed to be open between April 1 and Nov. 1 - rolling rallies on unseasonably warm February days not excluded.
The citations carry no fines, but require the restaurant owners to appear before the Boston Licensing Board for a hearing on why they were cited for violating the terms of their licenses. The board then has to decide whether a violation occurred and, if so, whether to simply issue a warning not to do it again or shut the restaurants down for one or more days.
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Comments
Are the patios on private
Are the patios on private property?
If they are
And they could well be, it still wouldn't matter in terms of getting a citation, because patios are regulated by the licensing board, which sets terms for each license, including their seasons and hours of operation (especially in an area like the Back Bay, restaurants that can stay open until 1 or 2 a.m. have to close their outdoor patios long before that).
Whether seasonal limits are appropriate at all is, of course, another issue.
Way to go Marty!
At least he got to go to the super bowl and see a parade
Seriously, no fine but you have to go to the principals office?
Whats the point? To waste time when actual important business could be dealt with?
If the city can drop everything and plan a parade so quickly without concern for commuters or its effect on the city how on earth can they say five, FIVE restaurants patios being open is somehow a problem?
Walsh is a complete clown who is controlled by developers and a City Hall overflowing with their cousins, brothers, nephews, and neighbors all with their heads dunked in the public trough.
What?
Because Walsh ordered and hand delivered the citations. I'. no Marty fan, but this is a wild comment!
You want a big boy parade?
Act like a big boy and plan for it
Make it a weekend, offer temp permits, etc...
Also a savvy pr person would get in front of this, release a statement and not make these people have to beg for forgiveness in front of a board of hacks.
Its a bad look and stifles the very businesses these parades are supposed to benefit from.
Weekend parade is a non-starter
At least for a Patriots parade - the players and coaches aren't sticking around for a week.
There's a pretty big
There's a pretty big discussion on Reddit where Marty is getting trashed too, but I'm not sure these businesses shouldn't be held accountable.
They knew the sidewalk for their restaurant's patio (which they able to rent for almost nothing) is city land and they further knew the sidewalks would be PACKED yesterday. So the restaurants unilaterally chose to take the sidewalk space away from fans (knowing their permits weren't valid) so they could make more money selling food & drinks. At the very least, they should owe the city a percentage of their take from the patio business...right?
They already get a percentage
Its called taxes.
If you can quickly plan for 1million idiots to descend on us then you should be able to help the very businesses that this parade is supposed to be benefitting from.
Actually, I think these
Actually, I think these patios are all on private property. The sidewalk is very wide in this area, but only a small part of it is actually city owned.
patio question
are these same patios allowed to be open during marathons?
Yes, but...
The marathon happens in April, which is apparently within the allowed seasonal time frame.
i see the allowed seasonal time frame
im asking if they clear off the sidewalk/patios specifically on marathon mondays for security reasons.
The marathon doesn't bring
The marathon doesn't bring anywhere near this size crowd to such a small area during such a short window compared to this parade, if that's the point you're trying to make.
The woman quoted in the article sounds like an entitled piece of work.
Oh no!
Good thing they caught them and shut this blatant disregard for safety down! The last thing we need is the city to break into a riot and burn to the ground.
I get that this is the law as it stands. But this is another of those laws where I just have to ask: Why?
Exactly so.
On a nice day, a great many people, including all of Nature's Noblemen and Noblewomen, prefer to eat outside rather than indoors. Why? Because air.
Time to rethink this regulation.
I tried to ask myself the same question
I'm guessing it's due to a few possibilities:
1) Over the winter, the patio will likely be rolled up when the weather is bad, but how soon after it's good again would they try to roll out the patio furniture? Would that be potentially dangerous to customers? What about pedestrians who have less sidewalk to traverse in case of snow piles, etc. Policing whether the patio "created a dangerous situation" on any given day is going to be a lot more judgemental and difficult than just saying "no patios during the winter".
2) Overprotection of customer health. Temperatures outside during those months average much colder and sitting at length in those temperatures isn't a great idea healthwise, so best not to allow/encourage it by making the patios close.
3) Safety at night. It's darker much earlier during those months. That makes dinner patrons less safe from any sort of assault. It makes pedestrians less safe from dark poles/ropes, table/chair legs, etc.
Some combination of the above means they just said "no sidewalk patios for these months" rather than "well, ok, if it's above this temperature, and at least 1 hour prior to sunset, and there's no snow nearby, then you can have a patio for that one or two days in January, but not the rest of the time".