Bridge Repairs Could Take Up To A Year, Cost $1 Million: Patch PM

MASSACHUSETTS — It's Tuesday, July 27. Here's what you should know this afternoon:

• Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has approved a Brookline law banning tobacco and vape sales to anyone born after January 1, 2000, the first law of its kind in the United States.
• Nine dolphins found themselves stranded on Cape Cod beaches during low tide Monday, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
• Another local chain of breweries and taphouses bites the dust forever due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This time, it's Beerworks.

Scroll down for more on those and other stories Patch has been covering in Massachusetts today.

Today's Top Story

The financial toll of the damages caused by an over-height truck that smashed into the Roosevelt Circle overpass last week is still unknown, but it will likely be in the "million-dollar range," Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver said.

Gulliver told the MassDOT board of directors Monday both I-93 South and Roosevelt Circle have reopened to full capacity following temporary repairs, with narrower lanes on the overpass. He described the work done to repair the bridge, which included building shoring towers in the highway to stabilize it while crews removed a fascia beam that was "nearly torn in half."

Temporary repairs are estimated at "several hundred thousands" of dollars, while long-term repairs are expected to cost less, Gulliver said. Permanent repairs will likely take about 8-12 months to complete.

Read the full story.

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Tuesday's Other Top Stories

Banned in Brookline: Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has approved a Brookline law banning tobacco and vape sales to anyone born after January 1, 2000, the first law of its kind in the United States. Local officials voted in favor of the law at a November 2020 special town meeting and have been anticipating approval from Healey, who released her decision on July 19 based on the restriction's consistency with state and federal laws. According to the article's sponsors, the goal of the amendment is to incrementally increase the number of people who cannot legally purchase tobacco products in Brookline until the law applies to everyone.

Dolphins rescued on Cape Cod: Nine dolphins found themselves stranded on Cape Cod beaches during low tide Monday, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. IFAW officials said they rescued five of the dolphins, but two of the dolphins died, including a calf. The other two dolphins were able to swim away on their own when the tide came in.

Beerworks closing all locations: Another local chain of breweries and taphouses bites the dust forever due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This time, it's Beerworks, a staple for many on their way to a Red Sox game, a stop while visiting Salem in the fall, or a trip for those checking out the Hingham shipyard. With five locations, Beerworks has decided to call it quits.

Eat fresh: Patch's 2021 Massachusetts Farmers Market Guide

Picture This

The "most famous band you never heard of:" In a musical collaboration they describe as "the unlikeliest of brotherhoods," Neale Eckstein, Jagoda, Matt Nakoa, Tom Prasada-Rao, and Eric Schwartz are playing the rare live show to celebrate the release of their debut album "Strange Times," a timely collection of songs that came together over five years of writing music in Eckstein's basement recording studio. The Fox Run Five, a band based out of Fox Run Studio in Sudbury, will be bringing reverence, relevance, and resonance to The Burren Irish pub in Davis Square at their 7 p.m. show on Tuesday, August 3.

They Said It

"She's a newer boater and she was having a hard time because it was a real strong outgoing tide, it was a moon tide, and when she started to lose a bit of control of the back end of the boat, she panicked."

• Newburyport Harbormaster Paul Hogg. A Tewksbury woman tried to dock her 25-foot Tidewater — named "Unbreakable" — in Newburyport Sunday but accidentally throttled the center-console craft up onto the dock.

In Case You Missed It

Two days better than none: Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker's plan to waive the state's 6.5 percent sales tax for the months of August and September isn't happening this year. Baker said at a news conference he met with Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Ron Mariano about the proposal Monday, but the three "agreed to disagree." Lawmakers had been cool to the idea since it was first proposed in June, but Baker said he wanted to help businesses and shoppers after the state collected higher-than-expected sales tax revenue in the fiscal year ended June 30.