The Boston Licensing Board could decide Thursday whether to let Equis Pica Pollo, Blue Hill Avenue at Columbia Road in Dorchester, stay open until 1 a.m. or whether to defer any action until after the New York-based chain meets with a local community group, Project RIGHT.
At a licensing hearing Wednesday, Jeremie Bembury, liaison for the Office of Neighborhood Services, asked for a deferral because of a meeting at which direct neighbors expressed strong disagreement with letting the Dominican chicken place extend its closing time past its current 11 p.m. due to problems that he said included trash – including chicken bones – regularly strewn across the area, sidewalks blocked by food-delivery mopeds and e-bikes and double and even triple parking at the busy intersection by patrons who sometimes stay for awhile “blasting music, congregating and conversing.”
Bembury added that one of the people who opposed the later hours was state Rep. Christopher Worrell (D-5th Suffolk).
Asked at the licensing hearing about the public need for fried chicken until 1 a.m., chain representatives said Equis Pica Pollo is “a community-based business,” that its customers have expressed “a late night craving” for crispy-skinned chicken and that they want to reduce their customers’ need to rush down when that craving hits. They said their other outlets have late hours – one until 5 a.m. – to meet that need.
They acknowledged the problem with double and triple parking, but said they’re hoping to find a place where customers could park.
“I definitely think you need to have a more robust community process,” board Chairwoman Kathleen Joyce said, referring to a meeting with Project RIGHT. She added that before she votes to approve later hours, she’d want to see a specific plan, rather than just a hope, on what Equis Pica Pollo plans to do about the triple parking.
