Behan Hosts Hearing on Red Tape Reduction for Small Biz

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Brendan Behan Pub, 378 Centre St., Jamaica Plain

Kelly Creedon for Planet Takeout, via Creative Commons license: https://www.flickr.com/photos/planettakeout/

Brendan Behan Pub, 378 Centre St., Jamaica Plain

Brendan Behan Pub, 378 Centre St., Jamaica Plain

Kelly Creedon for Planet Takeout, via Creative Commons license: https://www.flickr.com/photos/planettakeout/

Brendan Behan Pub, 378 Centre St., Jamaica Plain

It's no secret it's a nightmare trying to start a small business in Boston. In the past few months, local politicians have been promising to streamline the city's cumbersome permit and license system.

On Thursday at 8 a.m., the city councilor leading this most recent effort to cut red tape for small businesses, Michelle Wu, hosts a working/listening session at the Brendan Behan Pub in Hyde Square. All businesspeople and would-be businesspeople are invited to attend this meeting of the council's special committee on small business, entrepreneurship and innovation.

It's the last of three such meetings Wu is holding around the city. She told the Globe her aim is to prune red tape that has grown up during the city's four-hundred-year history.

The effort has the backing of the new mayor, Marty Walsh. In a recent public chat on Reddit, Walsh addressed several questions about streamlining Boston's sometimes archaic rules around starting businesses, especially restaurants.

One commenter pointed to this city brochure, aimed at guiding restaurant owners through the permitting and licensing process, as an example of just how Byzantine that has become in Boston. There are 11 different departments the would-be restauranteur needs to deal with.

If you plan to go to the listening session at the Behan, 378 Centre St., on Thursday at 8 a.m., you can RSVP by contacting committee liaison Juan Lopez at 617-635-3041 or via email at juan.lopez@boston.gov.

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