Thousands Petition to Bring Happy Hour Back to Boston

The count is ticking toward 7,000 on a startup-backed petition to permit Happy Hour drink specials in Boston, but it's no guarantee the city will reverse its "un-fun" stance.

Happy Hour, which was banned in 1984, means offering drink specials, often during the after-work hours when people most want to relax outside the office or keep talking business over drinks.

The crux of the new petition is that Massachusetts has rolled back many other "Puritan laws of old" from the introduction of medical marijuana to easing gambling regulations (and the laxer liquor laws to match). It also runs through other common complaints: that drunk driving deaths have gone down since 1984's Happy Hour ban, but as part of a national trend that doesn't necessarily correlate; the dread threat that young professionals will take their college degrees and flee to "better places"; Boston's reputation problem.

This latest petition is promoted by the Boston-based Cheers app, formerly Who's That, which connects groups going out over complimentary drinks. It targets Mayor Marty Walsh and his Late Night Task Force.

But Walsh has long taken a hard line on Happy Hour.

The mayor previously said he doesn't support Happy Hour drink discounts, stating during his 2013 election bid: "I’m opposed to happy hour. I always have been. I know people have criticized me for this, but the studies have shown that the drinking in happy hour increases drunk driving. I don’t think that we necessarily need happy hour."

From the start, the mayor was more amenable to letting bars keep serving past 2 a.m. He created the Boston Late Night Task Force in 2014 to explore the possibility. In January, the group released a list of recommendations, including extending Last Call times, bending the rules on live music and allowing restaurant-goers to have a drink outside (gasp!) without also ordering food.

Happy Hour, however, was missing from the Task Force's initial slate of recommendations.

Asked about Walsh's stance Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the mayor's office told Patch, "The City doesn't have a position on this issue right now."

Repealing the ban would ultimately be up to the state, under whose authority the Liquor Control Act is in place. The debate most recently flared up in 2015, when Illinois rolled back its own Happy Hour ban. With Chicago rules rewritten, that left Boston as one of only three major cities nationwide to ban the practice.

At the time, Gov. Charlie Baker said he had no problem with the ban - even if it makes him "an old fuddy duddy."

Many of the arguments in this latest petition echo those that have been trotted out for years, albeit given new weight by the must-placate-the-Millennials panic gripping cities nationwide. Whether the force of some 7,000 signatures makes a difference remains to be seen.