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BOSTON — Fresh off signing a law to let cities and towns across the state extend last call for two months this summer, Gov. Maura Healey threw her support behind another liquor law expansion Tuesday morning.
Healey said on WEEI 93.7 FM that she “personally” supports happy hour — which allows for specifically discounted alcohol prices, but is illegal in Massachusetts.
Since 1984, the state has maintained a ban on special or reduced-price alcohol drink promotions to curb binge drinking and alcohol-related driving incidents and crashes.
But the state also has a reputation for a lacking nightlife scene, especially for young people.
Healey has made attracting and retaining young professionals a priority of her administration. While this group has been leaving Massachusetts at higher rates than other populations, the reasons extend beyond the state’s social scene and include factors such as high prices for a shallow pool of available housing.
But on Tuesday morning, the governor made it clear she is interested in doing more to create “vibrancy,” which she says is good for both residents and small businesses.
“I personally support happy hour. That said, it’s, again, it’s a local option,” Healey said. “But for me, it’s especially, I really want 20-somethings, 18- to 35 year-olds staying in Boston, staying in Massachusetts. And it’s really important that we create spaces for them to hang out and socialize.”
She noted that happy hour is just “one thing” and “there are different things you can do to create that. But I want to build a better vibe for young people here in the state, and young people who want to come here to stay here, hopefully.”
Healey signed a law Monday to allow bars to extend last call an hour past their license limit, until 3 a.m. at the latest, and allow for public alcohol consumption “districts” through July 31. Both require individual municipalities to opt in before the measures take effect.
She endorsed the bill as it was moving through the Legislature, and signed it about two hours after it landed on her desk Monday afternoon.
Lawmakers pitched the bill as a way to make the most of an influx of international visitors this summer for the World Cup held in Foxborough, creating an opportunity for local businesses from increased foot traffic and more spending on later nights.
On WEEI the morning after the signing, host Greg Hill asked the governor if the two-month authorization could serve as a pilot program for the state to consider the later last call permanently in the future.
“Yeah, I think it could be,” Healey replied. “We’re going to do this through the end of July, and we’ll see how it goes. I think allowing people more forms of entertainment after hours — we’ve expanded the T’s hours, right? We run the T later into the night, because we want people to be out and be able to enjoy themselves. And the World Cup is a great opportunity to test this out.”
The governor emphasized that the last call expansion and public drinking districts are a local option opt-in, as cities and towns “know what’s going to work best” for themselves.
“So I think this is a good opportunity for a city to test it out, see how it goes,” she said. “I’m all for more vibrancy and more things happening later at night. We look at New York, there are other places that are doing this. We don’t have to do the exact same thing, but I’d love to see more vibrancy and more options.”
This is another reason to vote Healey out of office. We lived through this and saw the affects of Happy Hours and now with town and city budgets hurting across our state, cut backs that are impacting most local law enforcement agencies, she wants to put more drunks on the road. 100% Massachusetts needs new leadership in the Governor’s Office.
No, it isn’t. There are plenty of things she’s done badly on but this isn’t one of them. Nearly every other state permits some form of happy hour so there’s absolutely no reason for Massachusetts to not be able to get on the same page as the rest of the country.
You’re welcome to your opinion, but maybe you have never lost a friend or family member to a drunk driver. Happy hours were done and shut down for good reason and the chance of bringing them back and having more inebriated people on the road would be a disaster waiting to happen. And for the record this Governor is a complete and total disaster and needs to be removed from office.
I’m sorry for your loss but again, this is something nearly the entire country is able to manage.
Managed come on, nothing could be father from the truth, impaired driving kills thousands of people every year in the United States. But everyone knows what this is really all about ( the $ Dollar Bill ).
The people who elected her will remove her.
Governor Healy’s “vibrancy vision” is incredibly short sighted. She thinks and articulates that she wants a younger demographic to stay in Massachusetts and cheap booze is her answer. This is disordered thought on her part.
We already have enough drunk, wrong way drivers on MA highways driving up death and disability to innocent victims statewide.
Cheap alcohol, cannabis, cocaine or psychotropics are not reasons to see a state as “vibrant”. If this is one’s idea of “vibrancy”, please leave and populate another venue.
MA Happy Hours will only increase the activity of medical examiners and morticians. We need to learn from our history not re-learn from our history.
Big time ‘Reefer Madness’ vibes on this one.
Lol good reference
Look at your natural gas bill for this past month and you will see why she is supporting this. Young people living in apartments are getting a $76 gas bill for a month with no heating. $8 in gas supply and $69 in delivery (infrastructure) charges. That’s what my bill says. Young people who pay their own bills have enough reasons to vote Maura right out of office as it is. Here she comes pandering with “hey, wanna drink?”
Late night drinking and cheep booze in the afternoon isn’t going to make this ridiculous state any cheaper. If she cared about her reputation she should have held the line when the great migrant invasion was underway. Instead now we are broke as a state because of it and being offered an extra hour at night to drown our woes. No thank you.
This is aimed at making Greater Boston a little more desirable to high achievers with $125-$250k salaries who can live anywhere and want to enjoy their 20s and early 30s in the same manner they might in New York, LA or San Francisco. They don’t even think about the minutiae of utility bills.
High achievers do not do cheap booze. Boston Boozers achieve very little in life.
Also, $125K-$250K salaries do not go very far in New York, LA or San Francisco. Net negative migration of taxpayers from ll four cities.
I’m in San Francisco about quarterly, New York almost monthly and Boston one or two days a week and as astonishing as this might sound, high achievers(lawyers, doctors, engineers, consultants, financial professionals, techies) do actually go out for cocktails after work or on the weekends just like everyone else. They’re not getting plastered and then driving home because they’re mature adults and live in or around real cities with transit, abundant Uber/Lyft, etc. but not everyone is going straight home after work to a tall glass of milk.
And when you’re 22-25 years old and starting out, a $125k salary in Boston is not nothing.
The Boston “high achievers” are not partaking in “Vibrant Healy Happy Hours” (they do not currently exist) which will be very different than today’s cocktails after work.
Cheap and abundant booze (other than increasing tax collections) serves no purpose and certainly is not the way to entice people to stay in the Commonwealth.
During the prior era of “Happy Hours”, in the Commonwealth, more slaughter took place on Route 1 than in the prep room of the Hilltop Steakhouse.
Source?
Source: Revere, Saugus and MA State Police reports and Massachusetts Medical Examiner records.
Private communication from Hilltop butchers.
Albert, you can verify yourself.
People still drive drunk regardless of happy hour or not. You’re always on here about lack of this, lack of that and it’s everyone elected officials fault but here is a pro business example that helps a significant population that is point blank leaving the state and you poo poo that too. So do you have any solutions or do you just hate everything?