The City of Boston is announcing today a plan to help address the low number of liquor licenses held by minority-owned businesses — and the resulting economic inequities.
A formal proposal is expected to come during a working session this morning led by Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s chief of economic development, John Barros.
The proposal will create a new class of restricted liquor licenses that only minority-owned businesses can apply for. Barros said the plan is to distribute five all-alcohol licenses city-wide per year, over the next three years.
“In an internal review of liquor licenses in Boston... it was clear that there is a huge gap” between minority-owned businesses and non-minority-owned businesses, Barros said in an interview. “The Mayor would like to begin to address that gap immediately.”
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He said the initial review was cursory, and that the city would continue to look for statistical inequities in license holders.
“Liquor licenses are an important asset in generating revenues for any restaurant — historically, they are not held by minority-owned restaurants,” he said. “This gives us an opportunity for us to give them an amazing tool to position them for wealth creation and long-term success.”
As with other licenses, restaurants would apply through the Boston Licensing Board. Once these licenses are granted, they could only be resold to minority-owned businesses.
Barros said the city has not yet determined the price of these licenses, but that they would be “far less expensive than market rate,” since the city would only collect administrative fees.
Boston’s liquor licenses have long been a source of debate— earlier this year, a committee held a hearing to discuss issuing new licenses. And City Councilor Lydia Edwards proposed the idea of the city buying liquor licenses from struggling establishments to help them survive the pandemic in May.
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Barros said this new initiative fits into the city’s previous plans to make the city’s restaurant scene more equitable for minority-owned businesses and communities of color.
“We have put this right in the middle of that — because the effort [was] to expand liquor licenses and target them to neighborhoods that have been underserved — we feel that this sharpens our intent,” Barros said.
Anissa Gardizy can be reached at anissa.gardizy@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @anissagardizy8.