City Moves To Limit Booze Permits

The Cambridge City Council last night took the initial steps toward limiting the total number of businesses permitted to serve alcoholic beverages.

Because the actual licensing process is controlled by the Commonwealth, the nine-member body asked City Councilor Russel B. Higley to draw up a "home rule" petition to be submitted to the state legislature for final approval.

The council recommended that the number of licenses be fixed at the current number, but that a provision be included exempting new hotels from the restrictions. City Manager Robert W. Healy did not have exact figures for the current licenses, but estimated that there are 125 liquor licenses and an equal number of beer and wine permits.

"In the obvious future development boom, we would not want to lose hotels." Councilor Thomas W. Danehy, co-sponsor of the measure, said last night.

Higley said he could have the petition ready for council approval in two weeks, but added that it could be tied up in the state legislature for two or three months. "It depends when they get around to working on it," he explained.

Currently, the city has no official policy limiting alcoholic beverage licenses. A state law that restricted the number allowed was repealed by the council in May 1981 through what Councilor David E. Sullivan, co-sponsor of the bill, called "an accident."

"We wanted to grant a license to one more business, and in doing that we unintentionally opened the door for others," Sullivan said.

Recent community opposition to the proliferation of drinking establishments--particularly in Harvard and Central squares--prompted the Cambridge Licensing Commission to impose an unofficial moratorium on licenses.

"We wouldn't mind it one bit if the city passed a formal limit," licensing commission Chairwoman Mary Calnan said yesterday.

But city businesses, and their advocates on the council, oppose restrictions. "We have to give some licenses out," Councilor Walter J. Sullivan, who, along with Saundra Graham, voted against the measure, said last night.

Graham said that the measure would deny licenses to "respectable restaurants that only want to sell beer and wine."

"The issue is not the number 0, licenses, but monitoring who gets one and who doesn't." Graham added, explaining that "when neighborhoods reach a saturation point, residents and places like churches oppose more liquor."

Activists in the Square have been among those who consider their neighborhood saturated, and have opposed several petitions for licenses in the last year. The Ruggles Pizza restaurant has petitioned the licensing commission three times for a permit to sell beer and wine, and each time has been turned down.

Ruggles has been offering its patrons non-alcoholic near beers, but is continuing to seek a license.

In the case of Grendel's Den, another Square restaurant, a nearby church exercised its option under a state law to vote the establishment being allowed to serve alcohol. Grendel's appealed its case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which eventually declared the law unconstitutional.