No Relief for Viola Restaurante in Lost Liquor License

The same force – economic distress – that put Braintree restaurateur Joseph Viola in the position of fighting for his alcohol license on Tuesday failed to convince officials that he deserved another chance.

Viola and his attorney pleaded with the Board of License Commissioners for time to market and sell Viola Restaurante's all-alcohol license so that he could pay significant debts, but members declined to give Viola the opportunity, citing state law and his failure over the course of several months to cover a bounced check that was supposed to buy his annual renewal nearly a year ago.

The board voted unanimously to cancel Viola's license, and therefore it did not take up the matter of the restaurant closing without notice earlier this fall.

After Viola's unexpectedly shut its doors several weeks ago, licensing officials learned of the closing and sent Viola a letter, calling again for the payment of the outstanding fee and for him to appear before the board on Tuesday.

Attorney Thomas J. Cavanaugh told members that "Mr. Viola's business did not succeed as planned."

The restaurant's electricity was shut-off and the health department told Viola to close, Cavanaugh said, adding that Viola owes money to a variety of entities, including the electric light and water departments, and landlord F.X. Messina.

Lenox-Martell, a Boston-based beverage equipment company, also has some of its equipment inside the shuttered building, an employee told Patch earlier this month.

"When he went into financial distress, his whole world came crashing down," Cavanaugh said.

Viola reached out to a liquor license broker to see how much he could sell his permit for, hoping to pay down his debts, Cavanaugh said. Licenses have gone for $50,000 and more in Braintree in recent years, though the market has been diluted somewhat by special legislation granting the town extra licenses.

"This is kind of his big asset right now," Cavanaugh said. "This could help him out of a giant hole."

Viola urged the board to consider providing the chance to sell his license, saying that it would allow him to "sleep at night and move forward."

"This is the last straw, they are foreclosing on my house," he said.

But Viola cannot exercise that asset, Board Chair Joe Powers said, if the license never belonged to him in the first place. A check Viola wrote for $2,500 in November 2011 was returned for insufficient funds and though he was notified several months ago, Viola had yet to make a payment by Tuesday.

"Today is not the day to ask for time," Powers said. "Today is the day for payment."

Yet despite Viola and Cavanaugh's insistence that they could pay for the lapsed renewal within 24 hours, the board vacated the license altogether.

"This is not an easy motion for this board, as I understand it is not an easy motion for Mr. Viola," Powers said. "However, this board needs to be consistent."