Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverage Licensing Blog

The Boston Globe reports that Parsons Table in Winchester will soon close.

Chef Chris Parsons plans to head downtown, where he'll reopen Catch, his previous incarnation of Parsons Table, with a focus on seafood. He tells Boston that he wanted a bigger space.

Meanwhile, for hungry Winchesterians: The Globe reports that Bistro 5's Vittorio Ettore will buy the space and turn it into an Italian restaurant called A Tavolo. The little restaurant by the West Medford train tracks has upped its profile lately.

In an effort to boost business, the Somerville Board of Aldermen is crafting legislation for Beacon Hill that would give the city an unlimited number of beer, wine and liquor licenses to distribute to qualified bars and restaurants, reports the Somerville Journal.

Those bars would still need to make a case before the Licensing Commission, but unlike the current system, there would be an unlimited number of licenses for the city to award.

At a Legislative Matters Committee meeting last week, Alderman at Large Jack Connolly said the board should "exercise a very wide degree of caution."

Cambridge does not have a state-imposed cap on the number of licenses but the city has a self-imposed cap on the number of licenses that can be awarded in a particular neighborhood. On the contrary, Somerville has a limit of 84 liquor licenses - and 10 of those need to be located in the still undeveloped Assembly Square.

This March, Las Brisas - on the McGrath Highway - beat out a Brazilian barbecue on Lower Broadway and a Korean restaurant in Union Square for the city's only available beer and wine license. After that, Ward 1 Alderman Bill Roche, who had supported Las Brisas at the Licensing Commission, argued that the city's cap should be lifted.

The new licenses that would be available if the cap is indeed lifted would be non-transferable and owned by the city, which is the case for 12 of the current liquor licenses, as well as the 10 reserved for Assembly Square.

Alderman at Large Bill White expressed concern that uncapping the licenses would devalue them, but Economic Development Director Rob May claimed the 49 liquor licenses currently owned by bars and restaurants in Somerville would retain their value.

Kathleen P. McNally, an attorney with extensive experience in state liquor law cases, has been named by Treasurer Steven Grossman to the three-member Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission, which oversees liquor licensing activity in Massachusetts.

McNally joins ABCC Chair Kim S. Gainsboro and Associate Commissioner Susan Corcoran. McNally, of South Boston, replaces Robert Cronin and will begin her new duties Oct. 7.

According to Grossman, McNally has appeared before the ABCC dozens of times and in liquor law cases before the Appeals Court and Superior Court. She worked as executive secretary and general counsel for the Boston Licensing Board from 1997 to 2002.

The ABCC oversees more than 22,000 liquor licenses throughout the Commonwealth.

Patch.com reports that although Twin Seafood customers will not be able to buy alcohol at the restaurant, they will be able to bring their own.

The Acton Board of Selectmen agreed to allow Twin Seafood, soon to open on 541 Massachusetts Avenue, a Common Victualler's License and a Carry In License (bring-your-own). The restaurant will offer fresh fish and lobster, take-out, a 900 square-foot deck to eat outside and a place for customers to eat inside.

A proposal to use fingerprinting for criminal background checks is one of 19 articles on a warrant approved by Selectmen Tuesday for the Nov. 15 Town Meeting.

Under a proposal by Brookline Police Chief Daniel O'Leary, the police department is seeking to change its background check system for a number of business and retail license applicants, including ice cream truck drivers, taxi drivers, managers of a business with a liquor license, automobile dealers and door-to-door solicitors.

The town currently performs criminal record background checks based on the names of license applicants, but the system only searches through Massachusetts criminal records and does not include criminal records of other states or federal crimes. The name-based system also doesn't catch crimes in which a person used a false name at the time of arrest, according to Brookline Police.

Fingerprint-based background checks are considered more reliable, and O'Leary's proposal would enable the FBI to assist with the local background checks beginning in May 2012.

One Saugus resident wants Hooters to be classified as adult entertainment instead of a regular restaurant/bar. The resident wants to see the town enact new zoning laws. I have a suggestion: the resident should not patronize Hooters if he doesn't like the business.

To prevent alcohol sales to youths, the Allston-Brighton Substance Abuse Task Force recently hosted a retailer training for local liquor stores at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center.

Representatives from 11 stores participated in the three-hour session led by Frank Connelly of the Cambridge Prevention Coalition, a community-based substance abuse prevention coalition.

Topics covered at the training included: best practices for preventing youth access to alcohol, information on state-of-the-art scanning technology to detect fake identification, and Massachusetts state law, among others. The following retailers participated:

Allston Food & Spirits, Allston
Bazaar on Cambridge Street, Allston
Chansky's Market, Brighton
Dorr's Liquor Mart, Brighton Center
Hurley's Liquors, Allston
Marty's Big Buys, Brighton
Mod Liquors, Dorchester
Oak Square Liquors, Oak Square
Reservoir Wine & Spirits, Cleveland Circle
The Wine Press, Brookline
Wollaston Wine & Spirits, Quincy

The training was a combined effort between the task force, St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, local schools and universities, the Boston Police. and the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission. Earlier this year, the task force hosted responsible-server training for bars in Allston-Brighton.

Women who drink 15 grams or less of alcohol a day (the equivalent of one drink of any alcoholic beverage) at midlife may be healthier when older than women who do not drink at all, who consume more than two drinks a day, or who consume four drinks or more at the one time.

A study led by Qi Sun from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and published in this week's PLoS Medicine, suggests that in women, regular, moderate alcohol consumption during middle age (average age 58 years) is related to good overall health--that is, having no major chronic diseases, such as heart disease or diabetes, and no major cognitive and physical impairment, or mental health limitations--in those who live to 70 years and beyond. The authors define this good overall health as "successful ageing."

The authors used information from periodic food frequency questionnaires given to the 121,700 female nurses enrolled in the US Nurses' Health Study (which began in 1976) to assess the alcohol consumption of the nurses during middle age. The authors then included in their analysis the vast majority (98.1%) of participants who were not heavier drinkers (45 g/d) when middle-aged and examined the health status in the 13,984 women who lived to 70 years and over.

After discounting other factors, such as smoking, that might affect their health status, the authors found that women who drank 5 g of alcohol per day (between a 1/3 and 1 drink per day) had about a 20% higher chance of good overall health when older compared to non-drinkers. Furthermore, women who drank alcohol regularly had a better chance of good overall health when older than occasional drinkers: compared to women who didn't drink at all, women who drank five to seven days a week had almost 50% greater chance of good overall health when older.

The authors conclude: "These data suggest that regular, moderate consumption of alcohol at midlife may be related to a modest increase in overall health status among women who survive to older ages."

They add: "The 2010 US Department of Agriculture dietary guidelines note that moderate alcohol consumption of up to one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men may provide health benefits in some people. Our data support this recommendation and provide novel evidence suggesting that light-to-moderate alcohol consumption at the levels of one to two drinks/day or slightly less at midlife may benefit overall health at older ages in US women."