Hypocrisy over booze

Mayor Marty Walsh has his holiday tinsel in a twist over the possibility that the cashstrapped MBTA may finally lift its ban on alcohol advertising.

“You don’t need the revenue that much,” Walsh told the Herald. “I think it’s 2 million bucks. There are plenty of companies out there — between Amazon and Apple and other places — that will buy that space on MBTA property.”

Now to our way of thinking the $2.5 million a year the T is anticipating from the sale of such advertising isn’t chump change. In fact, T officials estimate it will pay the wages of about 30 employees.

But Walsh insisted, “I think it’s the wrong message to send to our young people, and those ads aren’t targeting adults. They’re targeting little kids just like the cigarette ads were in the ’80s and ’90s.”

So far T officials have agreed to reintroduce alcohol advertising — which had been banned for the past five years — only at stations with low student ridership. Because, of course, high school students — who are those taking public transportation to and from school — surely don’t know that beer or other alcoholic beverages exist, right? They’ve never watched a football game on TV, never strolled through a mall where patrons are having something tall and frosty with their burger.

But how’s this for utter hypocrisy — you know that Boston Winter festival that just opened on City Hall Plaza? Well, here’s a shocker, there’s actually a tent where wine, beer and mulled wine will be sold. Surely no teen headed for the skating rink will catch sight of that!

The Greenway — yes, in the city but not city property — hosted an open air beer garden, it should also be noted, which was a huge success this summer.

And, of course, this is a city that seems to have no interest in controlling the open toking of marijuana on Boston Common — and the pot shops haven’t even opened yet. There’s a little something to look forward to.

But continuing to ban alcohol ads on the MBTA, yep, that will make the world a much safer place. Seriously?