After Boston police cited two restaurants for serving large, portable beer taps on St. Patrick’s Day, licensing officials have moved to suspend the “beer towers,” and are requiring businesses to request city permission to sell the drink dispensers, according to a March 29 article in The Boston Globe.
Tavern in the Square in Allston and Roggie’s Brew and Grille in Brighton both were cited for serving beer towers, which police reported might be in violation of state law.
State law prohibits serving patrons more than two drinks at a time and selling malt beverages or mixed drinks by the pitcher except to two or more persons at one time.
The portable beer taps can come in sizes double to triple the size of a typical pitcher. The tall, cylindrical reservoirs that give the beer towers their name can hold about three liters of liquid.
Licensing officials told The Globe that businesses were cited not for selling beer towers but for misusing them by serving illegal quantities of beer.
While the two businesses are licensed to serve alcohol, police said that Boston businesses had been informed about a week before St. Patrick’s Day that they should request hearings with the Boston Licensing Board if they wanted to serve portable beer dispensers.
A letter sent by the licensing board to businesses said that the board “is taking this stance based on its concerns with serving the public need and at the same time protecting the common good and safety of all.”
Police found that at least three 148-ounce beer towers had been served at Roggie’s Brew and Grille and the Tavern in the Square served 128-ounce beer towers.
While the management at the Tavern told policy that there needed to be two to three patrons in a party to order a beer tower, police reported that the ratio of beer-to-people still exceed state limits.
Boston has alerted all businesses licensed to serve alcohol that they must stop serving beer towers and file requests to the licensing board if they wish to sell beer towers. Licensing Board chair Nicole Murati Ferrer told The Globe that businesses granted permission to sell self-service beer tap system would not have to pay additional fees.
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