Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | October 26, 2020 | Worcester Business Journal 11 Hudson has a liquor license cap but has gotten approval to grow that number. Ground Effect (top) and Rail Trail Flatbread are among the town's best known establishments. vibrancy to downtowns." e great majority of the remaining Massachusetts cities and towns are forced to turn to the state Legislature for special approval if they want to approve more restaurants, bars or breweries, putting them at the mercy of the state's bureaucracy if they want to make a larg- er hospitality industry a bigger portion of the local economies. A huge economic tool Worcester, which has the third most active liquor licenses in Massachusetts behind Boston and Cambridge, hasn't had a license cap since the City Council voted to li the quota in 1983. "Not having a cap really reduces the scarcity of licenses, so it tends to be cheaper," said Peter Dunn, Worcester's chief development officer. "It reduces the barrier to entry, and helps get restaura- teurs started." e absence of a cap gives business- es two other things they highly value, Dunn said: certainty and time. ey can be sure there will be a license available to them, and the process for obtaining a license is as simple as winning approval from the License Commission, a board oen meeting twice a month. In the last decade, the number of ac- tive licenses in the city has grown by 5%, totaling more than 200. Worcester's li- censes tend to be newer: 43% have been issued in the past five years, compared to a statewide average of 38%, according to the WBJ/WRRB analysis. Other Central Massachusetts commu- nities without a cap have found a built-in advantage when hopeful restaurateurs come with plans for a new business. "e liquor license situation is a huge tool we have," said Arthur Vigeant, the mayor of Marlborough, which has 64 active licenses – far more than the 49 it would be limited to un- der the state's cap. "We can meet with the Licensing Board and get one immediately instead of having to go to the Legislatures like most other communities need to do," Vigeant said. Marlborough city officials have been pushing to bring more restaurants, bars and breweries to downtown, hoping to keep more workers from its big office complexes in the city past the workday. It has gone as far as soliciting brewpubs in 2017 with a marketing campaign and generous incentives: up to $15,000 for rent and up to $10,000 for equipment. Downtown breweries in Marlborough have had mixed success since, but today two are operating in there today. "We're working with every restaurant we can because they're the drivers right now," Vigeant said of the business' ability to attract people to a downtown that can get quiet at night. "ey get people out and about." Vigeant's counterparts in other towns see it similarly. Next door in Hudson, Executive Assistant omas Moses helped in the town's request to the Legislature to get five additional licenses it plans to use as part of its burgeoning downtown restaurant scene. A growing number of restaurants brought new visitors to the neighborhood, but also a problem of sorts. "We ran out of liquor licenses," Moses said. Last year, Hudson got approval for live licenses to use downtown, in addition to another five to be used at the Highland Commons retail plaza. Like Marlbor- ough looking to keep workers from, say, Boston Scientific Corp. or TJX Cos. around the community past the work- day, so does Hudson with Intel, whose sprawling office building is about a mile and a half from downtown. In one meeting with officials at the Intel office, Moses said he asked what the town could do to make itself more attractive for company workers. More high-end restaurants, he was told, for employees to grab a bite or a drink aer work. "It makes your downtown sort of like a 6 a.m. to midnight endeavor, instead of the old 9-to-5," Moses said. "at makes a town buzz." Creating a destination Sturbridge also punches above its weight with its restaurant scene, which benefits from Old Sturbridge Village and the town's location at the interchange of the Massachusetts Turnpike and I-84. Sturbridge has 33 liquor licenses, com- pared to the 19 a town of its size would typically have. "A lot of restaurants enjoy having the opportunity to sell liquor – it's part of the experience of going out to eat," said Sturbridge's town manager, Jeff Bridges. Continued on page 10

• Cover