Introduction - License to Pour: Access & Equity in Massachusetts Liquor Licensing Report

An introduction to the liquor licensing system in Massachusetts.

Liquor licenses are central to economic development in nearly every Massachusetts municipality, contributing to downtown redevelopment and the success of the Commonwealth’s restaurant, tourism, and hospitality industries. Licenses are allocated to most municipalities through a state-imposed population-based quota formula (a statutory cap on the number of licenses each municipality may issue, scaled to its resident population).³ Municipal local licensing authorities (LLAs) review applications and issue licenses while the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (ABCC) oversees the liquor licensing system at the state level.

The Commonwealth’s liquor licensing system has been a recurring subject of reform and discussion, particularly during the past decade with respect to who should control the number of licenses a municipality may issue and their transferability. In 2014, then Governor Patrick proposed an economic development bill that included provisions to “[place] authority for granting liquor licenses in the hands of municipalities to allow local communities to make responsible decisions regarding their economic development and growth.”⁴ These provisions were excluded from the House redraft of the bill.⁵

In 2015, then Governor Baker proposed legislation that included similar provisions, as well as addressing license transferability.⁶ These provisions were again excluded from House redrafts.⁷ Similar legislation has been refiled in each legislative session since, with H.437 filed by State Representative McKenna in 2025 sent to study, and provisions included in the proposed Senate’s fiscal year 2026 budget stripped during conference committee negotiations.⁸ The final conference committee report on the fiscal year 2026 budget instead included MGL c. 138, § 12D, which is a limited provision permitting existing wine-and-malt licensees to convert their licenses to nontransferable all-alcohol licenses; it did not, however, give municipalities the ability to increase the number of their issuable licenses.⁹ In July 2026, the Senate returned to the question of municipal liquor control in an economic development bill.¹⁰ The provisions in that legislation, S.3228, effectively mirror Governor Baker’s proposals, rewriting MGL c. 138, § 17, to provide that “a city or town shall determine the number” of on-premises licenses it issues and to address license transferability.¹¹

In 2017, State Treasurer Goldberg, whose office houses ABCC, convened a task force to review the liquor licensing system and issue recommendations.¹² The resulting report recognized that “the licensing process in Massachusetts needs updating” and that “today’s capital markets are more complex than in 1933 when Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 138 emerged.”¹³ This study adds to that work, evaluating specific concerns raised by stakeholders, including artificial scarcity,¹⁴ exorbitant private market costs, neighborhood inequity, information gaps, and opaque home rule processes.

These concerns remain unresolved. This study examines equity, access, and other impacts of the liquor licensing system on municipalities and prospective licensees, specifically: (1) how the quota formula functions, (2) whether access to liquor licenses is equitable, (3) who bears the cost of artificial license scarcity, and (4) the barriers to access created by existing statutory and administrative processes. The analysis focuses on on-premises licenses—licenses issued to restaurants, bars, hotels, and similar establishments to serve alcohol for onsite consumption.¹⁵ It does not include off-premises licenses, which are subject to their own quota, or other license categories.¹⁶

This study draws on five complementary lines of evidence: fiscal year 2024 (unless otherwise noted) licensing data provided by ABCC (see Appendix B); socioeconomic data (see Appendix B); a review of governing laws and proposed legislation (see Appendix E); a survey of business owners, municipal officials, and state officials (see Appendix C); and in-depth interviews with license holders, industry consultants, municipal officials, and state officials (see Appendix C). The technical details behind each—data sources, definitions, statistical methods, and survey and interview administration—appear in Appendices B, C, and D.¹⁷

This study classifies the Commonwealth’s 351 municipalities into three groups, as shown in Table 1 below: 302 quota municipalities for which on-premises license counts are capped by the state-imposed population-based formula, 26 municipalities that are exempt from the quota formula (local-control municipalities), and 23 municipalities in categories outside the scope of this study.

Table 1. Classification of Municipalities

Classification	Count	Definition	Population18
Quota Municipalities19	302	Subject to state-imposed population-based quota limits on MGL c. 138, § 12, on-premises licenses	6,081,934
Local-Control Municipalities20	26	Exempt from state-imposed population-based quota limits on MGL c. 138, § 12, on-premises licenses	872,735
Other21	23	Excluded from the scope of this study	46,730

On the next page, Figure 1 provides an alternative view showing the numerical distribution of municipalities among these three classifications, and Figure 2 shows the geographic distribution of these municipalities.

Figure 1. Distribution of Massachusetts Municipalities by Licensing Classification

Figure 2. Map of Massachusetts Municipalities by Licensing Classification

This study evaluated the practical impact of the population-based quota system on municipalities using two measures: license utilization and license access. License utilization calculates the percentage of a municipality’s licenses allocated under the quota formula actually issued to license holders. License access calculates the number of all on-premises licenses (including licenses allocated outside the quota formula) issued within a municipality, per 10,000 residents. 

This study’s findings are grounded in a comprehensive review of quantitative and qualitative evidence. The findings support the study’s actionable recommendations to make the liquor licensing framework more equitable, accessible, and transparent, while respecting each municipality’s unique needs and priorities.

3.      Under MGL c. 138, § 17, a municipality subject to the quota may issue one all-alcohol on-premises license per 1,000 residents (or fraction thereof) and one additional all-alcohol on-premises license per 10,000 residents (or fraction thereof) over 25,000 residents, as well as one wine-and-malt on-premises license per 5,000 residents (or fraction thereof). A quota municipality may issue 14 all-alcohol and 5 wine-and-malt licenses regardless of population.

4.      Governor Deval L. Patrick, An Act to promote growth and opportunity, H.4045 (Mass., 2013).

5.      House Committee on Ways and Means, An Act promoting economic growth across the Commonwealth, H.4165, 188th Gen. Ct. (Mass., 2013).

6.      Governor Charles D. Baker, An Act to modernize municipal finance and government, H.3905 (Mass., 2015).

7.      House Committee on Ways and Means, An Act to modernize municipal finance and government, H.4397, 189th Gen. Ct. (Mass., 2015); H.4419, 189th Gen. Ct. (Mass., 2015); St. 2016, c. 218.

8.      Representative Joseph D. McKenna, An act returning liquor license control to municipalities, H.176, 190th Gen. Ct. (Mass., 2017); H.289, H.290, 191th Gen. Ct. (Mass., 2019); H.431, H.432, 192nd Gen. Ct. (Mass., 2021); H.367, 193rd Gen. Ct. (Mass., 2023); H.437, 194th Gen. Ct. (Mass., 2025); An act making appropriations for the fiscal year 2026 for the maintenance of the departments, boards, commissions, institutions and certain activities of the commonwealth, for interest, sinking fund and serial bond requirements, and for certain permanent improvements, S.2525, 194th Gen. Ct. (Mass., 2025); Conference Report on An act making appropriations for the fiscal year 2026 for the maintenance of the departments, boards, commissions, institutions and certain activities of the commonwealth, for interest, sinking fund and serial bond requirements, and for certain permanent improvements, H.4240, 194th Gen. Ct. (Mass., 2025).

9.      Conference Report on An act making appropriations for the fiscal year 2026 for the maintenance of the departments, boards, commissions, institutions and certain activities of the commonwealth, for interest, sinking fund and serial bond requirements, and for certain permanent improvements, H.4240, § 51, 194th Gen. Ct. (Mass., 2025).

10.      Amendment to An act relative to economic development in the Commonwealth, S.3228, 194th Gen. Ct. (Mass., 2026). 

11.      Id.

12.    Macey Russell, E., et al., Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission: Task Force Report (Dec. 27, 2017), https://www.mintz.com/sites/default/files/media/documents/Alcohol%20Task%20Force%20Report_0.pdf (hereinafter “2017 Task Force Report”).

13.  2017 Task Force Report, at 24.

14.    Artificial scarcity refers to the shortage of on-premises liquor licenses created by the state-imposed quota formula, which caps the number of licenses a municipality may issue based solely on a single factor, population, rather than reflecting local demand.

15.    See MGL c. 138, § 12. 

16.    This analysis is limited to on-premises retail licenses subject to the quota formula under MGL c. 138, § 17, specifically, All-Alcohol licenses and Wine-and-Malt licenses. Wine Only (0.7%) and Malt Only (1.7%) are not analyzed separately because § 17 establishes a single quota for “wine and/or malt beverages only” so they are subsumed under the Wine-and-Malt quota and counted within the Wine-and-Malt license utilization calculation. Their small, combined share (2.4%) means the treatment does not materially affect results. All other license types are excluded.

17.    Data cycles for the lines of evidence: (1) ABCC licensing data from two datasets—the ABCC fiscal year 2024 annual quota reports, which supplies each municipality’s annual report of license counts, and the ABCC fiscal year 2024 active-license extract, which supplies the license-level records, including the special legislation flag and the authorizing act; (2) socioeconomic data—population: 2023 US Census Bureau municipal population estimates (via Department of Revenue/Division of Local Services), EQV/ wealth: Fiscal Year 2026 Department of Revenue EQV per capita (the Department of Revenue constructs EQV using 2023 population), socioeconomic municipal indicators (population density, income per capita, housing, tax levy, state aid, and related Division of Local Services fields used for context): Division of Local Services Fiscal Year 2025 municipal databank series available at the time of analysis; (3) survey: fielded December 2025–February 2026 (cleaned n = 260); and (4) stakeholder interviews conducted in 2026. 

18.    Data from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, Division of Local Services, Data Analytics and Resources Bureau, “Population By Municipality and Year,” Municipal Databank, 2023 column, accessed September 13, 2026, https://dls-gw.dor.state.ma.us/reports/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=Socioeconomic.Population.population_main, which republishes U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2023 Population Estimates: City and Town Population Totals, Massachusetts, released May 2024, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-kits/2024/subcounty-population-estimates.html. Population figures are the 2023 estimates for each of the 351 Commonwealth municipalities, summed within each classification; the five categories total 7,001,399. These 2023 estimates are used for all per-resident rates in this report.

19.    Boston has its own statutory license allocations pursuant to MGL c. 138, § 17, and is counted as a quota municipality. Sensitivity analysis confirmed that excluding Boston from the quota municipality sample (n = 301) does not materially alter statewide findings. See Appendix B for complete list of quota municipalities.

20.    Twenty-six municipalities operate under local control and are exempt from the on-premises quota (discussed in Finding 2). Per ABCC, the 26 local-control municipalities are Barnstable, Bourne, Cambridge, Dartmouth, Dennis, Falmouth, Franklin, Great Barrington, Haverhill, Kingston, Lee, Lenox, Marlborough, Mashpee, Middleborough, Nantucket, Newburyport, North Adams, Orleans, Pembroke, Plymouth, Provincetown, Sturbridge, Williamstown, Worcester, and Yarmouth.

21.    The “Other” municipalities that were excluded from the scope of this study include (1) 14 municipalities for which no data was provided by ABCC: Florida, Heath, Leyden, Middlefield, Monroe, Monterey, New Braintree, Pelham, Peru, Rowe, Royalston, Tolland, Warwick, and Washington; (2) eight dry municipalities: Alford, Chilmark, Dunstable, Gosnold, Hawley, Montgomery, Mount Washington, and Westhampton; and (3) Milton, which maintains a local prohibition specifically on All-Alcohol licenses while permitting other license categories. Source: ABCC fiscal year 2024 annual quota reports, compiled by DLM; ABCC list of dry towns in Massachusetts.

Date published:	October 13, 2026