Scores of Cambridge restaurants paid six figures for a liquor license. Others got them for free

The Boston Globe reports:

It took years of hard work for Sumiao Chen to open her namesake restaurant in booming Kendall Square. She navigated a pricey real estate market, lined up financing, and created a menu of authentic Hunan cuisine that’s been drawing a crowd of young patrons since her summer launch.

But there’s one thing she finds galling: paying $200,000 for a liquor license that other Cambridge restaurant owners got for free.

Chen would have loved the same deal, but it was as though she didn’t know the secret handshake. Nothing on the Cambridge License Commission’s website or at its offices explained how to get a free license, and Chen’s advisers told her she had to try to buy one from another restaurant first.

All monopolies do lead to corruption.