Liquor licenses have long been a topic of debate in Boston, with many businesses unable to get a hold of a license even if they wanted one.

So the city implemented a fix to make more licenses available in communities like Dorchester and Mattapan. But out of 15 licenses set aside for Mattapan, only one has been acquired by a local restaurant.

“The city has actually gone to neighborhood groups and said, ‘Do you know of anyone? Please find us applicants,’” Seth Daniel, news editor at the Dorchester Reporter, said on GBH’s Under the Radar. “Shopkeepers and purveyors, they’re not coming to the table for it.”

This has happened before, Daniel said. A prior slate of licenses was made available in Mattapan about a decade ago — but only for a period of time. When no one stepped up, those licenses all were redirected to businesses in the Seaport and Downtown.

“This time, that won’t happen. These [licenses] will stay there. But we have to find someone who’s ready,” he explained. He said the costs — from building upgrades to insurance hikes — is a huge factor.

“We did talk to Cafe JuiceUp, a very popular juice and smoothie spot right on Blue Hill Avenue, and they’re trying to use an outdoor space, but there’s all this red tape,” Daniel added. “So a lot of people felt like you hit the jackpot with all these licenses, there’s new opportunity, but now it might be a little harder than we thought.”

Congress Boston
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu talks with reporters following a Massachusetts Congressional Delegation press conference regarding the impacts of the Trump administration's actions on communities across Massachusetts, Tuesday, March 4, 2025, in Washington.
Rod Lamkey AP

Also in local news, the Trump administration has its sights set on Boston.

Border czar Tom Homan said he was “bringing hell” to the city. More recently, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem named former Boston ICE office director Todd Lyons to lead the national agency as its acting director.

“A portion of New England does share a border with Canada, but it’s not nearly the kind of border-centric community that you would find in, you know, the southwest parts of the United States,” said Mike Deehan, reporter at Axios. “So elevating someone from the relatively sleepy New England office, so to speak, into the top administrative role is kind of an interesting move.”

In the Boston suburbs, the MBTA Communities Act is top of mind, especially in places like Wrentham and Middleborough, which have filed lawsuits against the state pushing back on the law, particularly after State Auditor Diana DiZoglio and the auditor’s office declared that the act as an “unfunded mandate.”

“They’re not saying this undercuts the actual law’s constitutionality,” said Jennifer Smith, reporter and podcast host at CommonWealth Beacon. “What they’re saying is this then gives cities and towns the opportunity to ask a court to say, ‘We don’t have to comply with the law until it is funded. So that’s where you end up with this strange little domino effect, where someone can be in favor of the concept of the community’s law, while at the same time saying there are funding costs associated with this that the Legislature did not include.”

All that and more on our local news roundtable!

Guests

Stories discussed in this week’s roundtable