The city wants to dismiss a lawsuit from North End restaurant owners, arguing that the businesses have no valid reason to claim the mayor has unfairly targeted them by imposing strict restrictions on outdoor dining due to anti-Italian bias.
Lawyer Samantha Fuchs filed a motion to reject the restaurant owners' complaint in federal court, stating that their argument is flawed on multiple levels, especially in failing to show why it deserves special scrutiny.
The proprietors of the 21 local restaurants and the North End Chamber of Commerce submitted the complaint in January.They accused Mayor Michelle Wu of demonstrating hostility toward them by imposing the restrictions.
In 2022, officials required restaurant owners to pay a $7,500 fee for outdoor dining in a shortened season compared to other neighborhoods. In 2023, the city prohibited on-street dining, restricting the option to “compliant sidewalk patios,” a restriction that will continue this year..
Restaurant owners revised the complaint last month, adding in projected losses for 2024, fees paid in 2022, and lost revenue from 2023.
Out of Boston’s 23 neighborhoods, the North End is the only one facing these unwanted restrictions.
The so-called “North End Restaurant Group” claims that Wu and other city officials are motivated by anti-Italian bias in maintaining the restrictions and that the neighborhood should be treated equally to others.
Fuchs, in a motion to dismiss filed last Friday, emphasized that the policy has affected all North End restaurants, including non-Italian eateries, while Italian restaurants in other areas have not been affected.
Fuchs stated, “It is also inadequate and demonstrably false to assert that the City targeted businesses with Italian ethnicity and/or Italian national origin.” She added, “The restaurants cannot overcome a motion to dismiss by claiming unfair treatment and concluding that the defendant was driven by discriminatory animosity.”
The North End Restaurant Group – led by Jorge Mendoza-Iturralde, co-owner of Vinoteca di Monica, and Carla Gomes, owner of Terramia and Antico Forno – remains steadfast in its disagreement with the city’s decision to heavily restrict its participation in outdoor dining.
“We feel that we have been unfairly singled out by the city, as we outlined in our complaint,” the group stated in a message to the Herald on Tuesday. “All we are asking for is fair treatment in line with other neighborhoods in the City of Boston.”
Fuchs described the city’s restrictions on the North End as “economic policies addressing the unique characteristics of a specific geographic area.”
These characteristics include the neighborhood, with 11,000 residents, having the highest concentration of restaurants in the state, with about 95 eateries in a third of a square mile. The North End, the city’s oldest neighborhood, is filled with historic buildings and narrow brick sidewalks.
Officials stated that the restrictions were aimed at alleviating burdens on residents' quality of life, such as increased noise, trash, traffic, and loss of parking caused by outdoor dining.
Restaurant owners have pushed back against those claims, using data they’ve obtained through Freedom of Information requests to show that restaurants on specific streets in other neighborhoods are similar – like Newbury Street in Back Bay, West Broadway in South Boston, and so on.
Fuchs described the group’s approach as an "excessively detailed view," and said that the complaint should be dismissed with bias.
“The restaurants are focusing too much on small details and not seeing the bigger picture,” she wrote. “The City's decision is based on the neighborhood and its characteristics, as well as the fact that having restaurants in the public right of way presents different challenges and impacts depending on the neighborhood.”
Restaurant owners have also criticized the Wu administration for using $552,000 of their payments for outdoor dining in 2022 to buy an electric street sweeper that has been spotted in other neighborhoods instead of just the North End.
“There's inevitably more need for cleanliness due to increased outdoor dining in public areas, especially in the North End,” Fuchs wrote, “where over 60 restaurants provided outdoor dining in less than one-third of a square mile.”
