If Boston Mayor Michelle Wu didn’t already feel targeted after Sunday morning’s St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast roast, then the crowd waiting outside the event for her probably sealed the deal.
While Wu and most of the rest of the Massachusetts political class were inside the Ironworkers Local 7 Union Hall in South Boston for the annual holiday breakfast, North End restaurateurs were outside protesting decisions the mayor has made that they say are hurting their businesses and the neighborhood.
“They are being blighted like everyone else in the North End,” Robert Regnetta, owner of Ristorante Euno, told the Herald.
Regnetta was joined by perhaps a dozen other restaurant owners and workers who said they feel unfairly targeted by Wu’s decision to prohibit street dining in Boston’s crowded North End neighborhood, a practice made popular during the pandemic when indoor dining space was restricted.
This spring, when other restaurants start seating diners in front of their sidewalks and next to passing traffic, just those operating in the North End will be excluded and allowed only “compliant sidewalk patios.”
Even when the pandemic was still impacting restaurants and they were allowed street dining permits, Regnetta said North End owners alone among the city’s eateries had to pay upwards of $7,500 for a privilege now sold to other businesses for no more than $399.
“It’s fair for everybody else, but not for us,” he said. “We’re disgusted with it. We’re the most recognizable community in America, the North End, and she’s taking away our outdoor dining.”
When the mayor’s office announced in early February they would begin accepting outdoor dining permit applications for this season, a clear focus was placed on accessibility. The particularly narrow streets of the North End are not featured elsewhere in the city, Wu has said in the past, and thus the neighborhood has to face different restrictions that take into account the people living there, not just the business owners.
Wu gave remarks to the breakfast attendees while the protesters stood outside the union hall. In her short speech, she recalled how two years ago her decision to offer a joke about the North End’s fed up business owners, some of whom were protesting outside her home at the time, had landed her in hot water.
“A few years ago at this event I made a joke comparing protestors outside my house to snowflakes. The protestors were so offended at being compared to snowflakes that they sued me after the breakfast,” she said.
The lawsuit, which accused the mayor of bias against “white, Italian men,” has since been dropped, though the protests continue.
“She takes away the right we have to operate equally to other businesses in Boston, while we’re being charged the same taxes and the same licensing fees. It devalues our property, it devalues our contracts,” Monica’s owner George Mendoza said. “Why are my taxes the same as someone with more opportunity?”
