Grub Street

A story in today’s Sun hits very close to home. (Home as in, where we should’ve been at 2:30 this morning.) As Grub readers shouldn’t be surprised to read, community boards are increasingly placing restrictions on closing times when they recommend bars for liquor licenses, despite the fact that nightlife venues make 58 percent of their bank after 1 a.m. Here’s the sobering (literally!) last sentence:

According to minutes from [CB’s] monthly meetings in November, December, and January, the most recent records available, not a single liquor license recommendation was granted to a bar that would close after 3 a.m. on weekends and 2 a.m. on weekdays.

As usual with these articles, it’s unclear exactly how often the SLA accepts the CB’s recommendations. All we ask is this: If the “city that never sleeps” is going to adopt the closing times of, say, Boston, can we also at least adopt the drinking-in-the-street policy of, say, New Orleans?

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