ALFRESCO BACK ON THE MENU
Outdoor dining returns to Boston; North End faces restrictions again
Outdoor dining will be coming back in May across city streets, but North End restaurateurs will again face heavy restrictions if they decide to provide the alfresco option to patrons.
Applications for this season’s outdoor dining program, beginning May 1 and lasting through Halloween, opened up yesterday, and participating businesses will have to pay a fee like they did last year.
Restaurants approved for outdoor dining are being told to pay $399 per month if they have a liquor license and $199 per month if they do not. The fees went into effect last year, a change from the pandemic-fueled outdoor dining seasons outside of the North End, with restaurateurs there forced to pay a $7,500 fee in 2022.
Officials highlighted that this year’s program will include “new features such as outdoor dining consultations, accessible design templates, real-time application tracking, office hours, site visits, and an option to apply separately for annual license renewals.”
“Boston’s outdoor dining program reimagines how we can best use our streets, while setting clear requirements around accessibility,” Mayor Michelle Wu said in a statement. “This year, we’re making it easier for new and previously approved businesses to take part in the program, creating spaces to gather together and enjoy the cuisine of our small businesses.”
North End restaurateurs again will be limited to “compliant sidewalk patios” in the neighborhood, with the option of on-street dining banned, officials said. The restrictions, which went into effect last year, have caused a firestorm in the business community.
The North End Chamber of Commerce and restaurateurs who own 21 North End establishments filed a lawsuit against the city in federal court last month, continuing to argue officials showed “unequal, unfair, and discriminatory treatment” against them the past two outdoor dining seasons.
Restaurateurs demand the city pay for the losses their businesses sustained due to the fees and ban, and declare its actions the past two years were “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law.”
“This unfortunate dispute arises out of the City’s current administration’s misguided and ill-founded decisions to mistreat and discriminate against the North End’s Italian restaurants — knowing it would inflict financial hardship on them — just as they were beginning to recover from the crisis caused by the pandemic.
A task force of officials, restaurateurs and other stakeholders formed after the city delivered the bitter news of the ban last year, examining “potential pathways forward” to providing on-street dining in the future.
Some options include allowing the option only on weekends but the season would be shortened with limited hours; an annual lottery system for limited participation; and a program allowing smaller patios or a “certain number of patios per block along major roadways like Hanover Street,” Segun Idowu, chief of economic opportunity and inclusion, wrote in a letter Monday to the task force.
But the group raised concerns heard in the past: narrow sidewalks and streets, trash building up leading to increased rodent activity, and impacts to traffic and congestion, Idowu wrote. “Without a fully designed alternative in place, and with applications for the outdoor dining season launching shortly citywide, we are making the decision to continue last year’s policy,” he wrote.
Last year’s ban led to four restaurateurs amending a lawsuit they filed against the city in 2022, alleging Wu made them pay thousands to provide outdoor dining last year because of her bias against “white, Italian men.”
By last June, the restaurateurs had dropped the suit.