A discrimination lawsuit brought by a group of restaurateurs in Boston's North End against the city for banning outdoor dining in the neighborhood was dismissed Friday.
In his ruling, Judge Leo Sorokin wrote that Mayor Michelle Wu's decision to impose a fee for on-street dining licenses in the North End during the pandemic and later to end the practice altogether "fall squarely within" state and federal laws.
Despite restaurant owners' claims that the policy discriminated against them for their Italian heritage, Sorokin ruled that there was no demonstrable correlation between the policy and the plaintiffs' ethnicities.
"Plaintiffs are understandably upset with the City's policy authorizing on-street dining in other neighborhoods while banning it in the North End ... and believe the City could reasonably and safely authorize on-street dining," he wrote. "Plaintiffs' unhappiness, however, cannot alone give rise to a cause of action against the City."
In 2020 and 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, then-Gov. Charlie Baker issued executive orders allowing municipalities to let restaurants set up outdoor dining patios on public streets. In Boston at the time, restaurants in all neighborhoods were allowed to take part in the program.
However, in 2022, after Wu took office, the program continued, but participants in the North End were required to pay a $7,500 "impact fee" as well as a monthly fee of $480 for each parking space their patios took up. This was meant to reduce the negative effects on the neighborhood, where narrow streets and sidewalks, limited parking, increased rodent activity and other challenges were exacerbated by outdoor dining.
According to court documents, the North End has the highest concentration of restaurants per capita in the state.
The outdoor dining season was also shortened to five months in the North End, compared to eight or nine months in other neighborhoods.
The city's actions sparked an immediate backlash from restaurant owners in the neighborhood. However, after the conclusion of the 2022 outdoor dining season, the North End/Waterfront Residents Association lobbied against allowing outdoor dining in future years.
In 2023, on-street outdoor dining was not allowed in the North End.
In January 2024, a group of 21 North End restaurateurs filed a lawsuit against the city in federal court, claiming discrimination. In their complaint, they claimed that they were being singled out by the fees and later the ban, preventing them from gaining the same competitive advantage as restaurants in other areas of Boston.
In his decision to dismiss the case, Sorokin wrote that he was doing so firstly because the plaintiffs' complaint was incredibly long and wordy, counter to court rules. However, he still went into each of their claims, saying they were demonstrably without merit.
Notably, he wrote the U.S. Constitution does not grant residents the right "to use public streets for private profit as an extension of their restaurants." But, going further, he said nothing in the city's policy was discriminatory based on race, ethnicity or national origin, whether explicitly or implicitly.
In fact, he wrote, the restaurant owners themselves acknowledged in court documents that the North End is uniquely different from other neighborhoods, providing completely reasonable motivation for the city to regulate the neighborhood differently.
"The very policy Plaintiffs allege harms 'white Italian Americans' or 'Italian restaurants' actually benefits several Italian restaurants (and likely restaurants owned by those of Italian descent) that enjoyed on-street dining outside the North End," he wrote.
"What Plaintiffs have alleged is a regulation of restaurants, in a certain neighborhood, predominately serving Italian food, and predominately owned by persons of Italian heritage," he continued, citing legal precedent that disproportionate impacts alone do not constitute discrimination.