Cambridge Police report that around 7 p.m. on Thursday, a man without a mask on walked into a market on Monsignor O'Brien Highway:
When asked to wear his mask he became upset and said, "you guys want germs." He then spit on food causing $80.00 worth of damage.
Boston's ISD announced today that it's banning thin plastic bags at supermarkets and other retailers come Sept. 30 - and bringing back the five-cent fee for paper bags or thicker, reusable plastic bags for shoppers who don't bring their own bags.
Boston had unbanned the bags in March, as the pandemic was hitting us like a ton of bricks.
The Boston Cannabis Board yesterday approved a proposal by the city's first medicinal-marijuana dispensary, on Milk Street, to add recreational pot to its offerings and approved a number of proposed pot shops from East Boston to Roslindale. Read more.
The Boston Cannabis Board yesterday voted to approve a proposal for a pot shop on Hyde Park Avenue by three local entrepreneurs and to reject a plan for a dispensary a block away by a company based in Arizona. Read more.
The Boston Sun reports the Hingham Institute for Savings is closing its Beacon Hill branch and that Cambridge Trust is seeking permission to shut its branch on Tremont Street in the South End.
Update, 9/18: A federal judge ruled today this is not a federal matter and sent it back down to state court.
A Cambridge lawyer is suing Netflix, the producers of its "Dirty Money" series, the Boston Broadside and an Essex County attorney for allegedly ruining his life by portraying him as an evil money grubber out to defraud an elderly Needham man who owned five derelict properties in Needham that the town had been trying to get cleaned up for 20 years. Read more.
The BPDA board is urging the Zoning Board of Appeal to reject a proposed Amazon "last mile" distribution center off Dorchester Avenue in South Boston because it doesn't fit with a city vision of a Dorchester Avenue as a walkable district of largely residential buildings to replace the current stretch of low-rise commercial and industrial buildings between Broadway and Andrew Square. Read more.
The state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission voted last week to indefinitely suspend the liquor license of a Weymouth bar where inspectors say they found an unmasked bartender, customers swigging liquor without food and an owner whom inspectors said told them that coronavirus "is a bunch of bullshit" and "that no government is going to tell me how to run my business." Read more.
Rendering of proposed Evergreen shop on Hyde Park Avenue.
Over nearly five hours today, the Boston Cannabis Board heard from companies seeking to open nine pot shops across the city, from Rte. 1A in East Boston to Brookline Avenue across from Fenway Park to Washington Street in Roslindale, but none proved more contentious than a proposal from a company with 38 dispensaries in the US for a shop on Hyde Park Avenue in Hyde Park - about a half block away from where three local residents have proposed a pot shop of their own, well within the half-mile limit the city says it has for minimum separation between pot shops. Read more.
Update: The board approved the license request.
The owners of Roslindale Liquors on Corinth Street are seeking a license to open a new liquor store at the Stop & Shop strip mall at 950 American Legion Highway, near the Hyde Park line. Read more.
Who should shoulder the cost of rent for stores shuttered by Gov. Baker's shutdown of "non-essential" businesses in March due to Covid-19? In a suit filed this week, the Gap argues its Coolidge Corner landlord should eat the expense - and be made to suffer damages for not doing so. Read more.
Boston Restaurant Talk reports the Pour House's landlord is looking to buy out the other partners in the Boylston Street place and possibly re-open it within a month, even as he works on plans to connect the buildings housing that restaurant with the neighboring and equally closed Lir and build above them.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court today sided with Cingular Wireless and its subscribers and agreed the state could not tax their BlackBerry service just because those devices did not come with parental blocking software. Read more.
Cambridge Day reports Raj Dhanda wants to lease some space in his Crimson Galleria mall building for a pot shop. Just three years ago, Dhanda sued over a proposed pot shop, which he accused - along with the city - of ruining his business and violating the federal anti-racketeering law. Dhanda now says he was misinformed; a "substantial payment" to settle the suit possibly helped.
A war of words between Massport and city planners broke out this week over a city proposal to create dedicated bus lanes in the "Summer Street corridor," with each telling local business owners to ignore anything the other side says. Read more.
A federal judge today told a wireless company to do a better job of filling out applications the next time it wants to install some of those utility poles/wireless transmitters in Cambridge. Read more.
The Kenmore Army & Navy Store, 477 Washington St. in Downtown Crossing, is suing its insurance company for the more than $320,000 it says it's lost due to the Covid-19 crisis - which it says its insurance company is supposed to cover. Read more.
Henry's Market, 892 South St. in Roslindale and Sava's, 150 Bennington St. in East Boston, go before the Boston Licensing Board next week for permission to extend their current beer-and-wine licenses to include harder alcoholic beverages.
The board's Zoomed hearings begin at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
Update: Ten charged.
TJ Connelly got a photo of the Citgo Sign refinished as the Climate Change Sign this evening. Unfortunately for them, they forgot to put holes in the banner to account for the wind, so ... Read more.
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
