Slow-walking BYOB plan

The Walsh administration takes pride in its can-do, upto-the-minute, data-driven way of delivering city services. And for the most part it has worked quite splendidly. But then there’s what ought to be the simple implementation of a BYOB policy for some neighborhood restaurants . . .

A person could get mighty thirsty waiting more than a year for the city bureaucracy to get its act together here.

The City Council voted (at the end of 2015) and the mayor approved an ordinance that would allow restaurants outside the city’s core to permit customers to bring in their own beer or wine to have with their meals. It’s similar to policies implemented in dozens of other major American cities.

The Licensing Board voted last April to amend its own rules and to set conditions for implementing the new policy. But for nine months it has done nothing and some restaurant owners, who were looking forward to having the new policy boost their own businesses, are getting grumpy — and rightfully so.

A mayoral spokeswoman told the Herald the Licensing Board will hold a public hearing on the issue Jan. 18 to get community feedback. So that couldn’t have happened back in, say, May? She was “optimistic” the board would vote on the new regulations by the end of this month.

There was no reason to reinvent the wheel here, folks. The council did a good job of drafting its own restrictions — on limiting the amounts of alcohol that could be brought onto the premises and the neighborhoods not included in the new policy.

This is bureaucracy run amok, and Mayor Marty Walsh ought to demand an answer — and action.