Bucks in booze ads

At a time when the MBTA is doing everything but holding a bake sale to make fiscal ends meet, the T’s fiscal control board has taken an astonishingly cautious approach to restoring the system’s ability to accept liquor advertising.

MBTA Revenue Director Evan Rowe recently suggested that lifting the current ban on booze ads — imposed in 2012 — could generate anywhere from $2 million to $4.5 million a year in advertising revenue. Not a bad chunk of change.

But by the time the board finished nickel-and-diming the proposal to death for fear that students might actually see ads for a frosty cold beer — oh, no, not that! — who knows what revenue might be left?

Several of the board’s usually sensible members seem to believe that students who use the transit system (so already we’re talking largely about high schoolers) live in some Neverland where they are unlikely ever to encounter ads for beverages they are too young to drink. Gosh, let’s hope their parents don’t let them watch the Super Bowl ever again.

Control board member Monica Tibbits-Nutt, who is executive director of the 128 Business Council, raised concerns about the wraparound ads proposed for the exteriors of up to 15 train cars catching the eye of youngsters as they passed by, according to reporting by the State House News Service. Others wanted the ads limited either by time of day — say, for digital billboards — or station locations.

“I’d rather give up a couple of bucks and do it right and not do harm,” said board chairman Joseph Aiello.

It was, in short, one of the silliest discussions the board has ever engaged in — especially in a state that is expecting to open pot shops for the sale of recreational marijuana a year from now.

The T staff has been asked to go back to the drawing boards — so good luck to them. It’s actually the board that needs to stop clutching its pearls and reenter the real world.