The Boston Zoning Board approved a liquor store at 2193-2201 Commonwealth Ave. which is in the block of stores next to the Boston College Green Line station and is directly across the street from the campus.
Local government and college administrators are speaking out against it.
“It’s absolutely the worst possible idea,” said Tom Keady, vice president of government relations and community affairs at Boston College.
In her letter to the City of Boston, Mayor Ruthanne Fuller said, “The City of Newton and my office specifically have worked diligently with Boston College over the years to address neighborhood issues in Newton associated with student alcohol abuse and the attendant neighborhood impacts.
“Great progress has been made in large part to the diligent efforts of Boston College,” Fuller’s letter continues. “The prospect of adding a store adjacent to campus where alcohol, a ‘forbidden use,’ could be procured (and then distributed) is counter to the progress we have achieved for the neighborhood and residents in and around the Boston College campus in recent years.”
The store needed a variance from the Zoning Board, because this block of stores is not zoned as a location where alcohol can be sold.
Owner Andrew Arbeeny will have to go before the Boston Licensing Board for a liquor license, so this proposed store still has at least one more hearing before it will be allowed to open.
The store will sell gourmet items and high-end alcohol, and it will not sell nips, kegs, or other items that might especially appeal to young adults. It will not open until 11 a.m. on Sundays.
Joseph Hanley, a lawyer for the owner, said the store will not be a place students will want to frequent, and the store’s staff will receive special training on how to spot fake IDs. One item the store will sell is kosher wine, because of the many Jewish families in Brighton who did not have a local store selling this.
Both Fuller and Keady pointed out that about half of Boston College students are under 21. Boston Police also opposed the permit, as did Secretary of State Bill Galvin, who lives on nearby Lake Street and has expressed frustration by Boston College students drinking and throwing cans into his front yard.
Others supported the proposal, including members of the Brighton Allston Improvement Association, which has said it’s unfair that neighborhood can’t have a convenient place to buy alcohol because Boston College has an underage drinking problem.