Nick Varano
A vehemently fought and decidedly small-time battle in Boston’s North End is showing that, at the lowest most basic interactions between business and government, corruption’s got nothing on rank dysfunction.
Nick Varano opened Nico, a disco-themed meatball palace, in August. It’s just down the street from his North End hotspot, Strega. He took over a storefront from restaurateur Dennis Dyer, renovated it, installed floor-to-ceiling windows out front, and embedded a pair of televisions in his new façade. He installed an LED sign and began serving food and alcohol. He invited the press over for a gala opening featuring Vincent “Big Pussy” Pastore and 1970s dance king Deney Terrio.
And he did it all without making the trips that would normally precede such an undertaking: to his neighborhood associations, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, or the Boston Licensing Board.
Varano is only now making the rounds of the North End’s neighborhood associations. And the welcome he’s getting is anything but kind.
At a pair of neighborhood meetings last week, angry residents complained that when Varano opened Nico he shimmied and tangoed his way around normal development processes. They complained that the affable restaurateur had illegally renovated his storefront and was improperly serving booze on somebody else’s license.
Varano had completed demolition and construction without neighborhood and BRA review, and then went to the neighborhood for approval after the fact. He hopes to secure a liquor license at a hearing at City Hall on Thursday. At that hearing, he’ll ask the Boston Licensing Board to sign off on floor plan changes that have been in place for several months.
At best, his neighbors argued, Varano has been cavalier and sloppy with his paperwork. At its worst – and there was vocal support for this point of view – Varano skirted BRA and Zoning Board of Appeals oversight.
Accusations flew, and tempers boiled, at a meeting Thursday night of the North End/Waterfront Residents’ Association.
“You did not apply for a building permit for the work done outside and inside,” charged David Kubiak, who chairs the association’s zoning and licensing committee. “By law, that requires a building permit, and as far as I can tell, no permit was ever sought.” Kubiak said Jonathan Greely, a BRA planner, had told him Varano didn’t receive building permits for his May renovation. (Varano heatedly disputed this claim. Greeley couldn’t be reached at press time.)
Kubiak charged the city was fine with the lack of permits for the restaurant.
“The city decided that this particular construction was OK without a permit. You’re ignoring the law, and the protections this neighborhood gets from the law.”
It’s Not Personal. It’s Strictly Business.
Varano appeared sheepish at first. He’d come under attacks he characterized as “personal,” at a meeting earlier in the week. So on Thursday, it was best behavior. Initially. He crammed his hands into his pockets and flashed nervous smiles around the room. But he quickly became animated, chomping gum and engaging in frequent, tense exchanges.
When Mark Paul, the association’s president, suggested Varano should’ve asked permission before building out his new restaurant, not after, Varano shrugged and exclaimed, “Shoot me!” He described the changes he’d made to Dyer’s old eatery: “We built a bar. I changed the front of the place – what do you say, a façade? And I put disco balls up.”
During another exchange, Varano complained, “They say the Mafia’s no longer in the North End. Well, this is a Mafia! When one person can dictate what somebody else can build, that’s a Mafia. I’m a nice guy.” That statement elicited screams, applause and shouts of “Yeah, Nick!”
Varano has won plaudits for his skill as a restaurateur, though he appears less adept at filing rudimentary paperwork. A construction application dated May 6, 2008, describes site renovations as consisting of carpentry, painting, plastering, tiling the floor and installing a “small service bar.” The application makes no mention of the large exterior windows that were also installed.
Significant façade changes normally require BRA approval – and, normally, the neighborhood’s blessing. Varano’s lawyer, Bill Ferullo, said although the façade changes weren’t listed on Varano’s construction application, a building plan showing the changes was on file with the city.
The Sept. 24 paperwork concerning the restaurant’s signage appears to be similarly understated. Filed a month after the restaurant’s opening, it shows Varano planned to “replace existing sign lettering with new business name: From Emelios to Nico.” It said nothing about installing a flashy LED light show that one North End resident recently described as “garish.”
Zoning regulations classify electronic signs as being forbidden outside of Lansdowne Street, the Theatre District and the Seaport. Hurdling these regulations would normally require BRA design approval and a trip to the ZBA.
Nico’s liquor license is still in Dyer’s name. Boston’s Licensing Board still has not heard the application to transfer the license to Varano’s name. The restaurant opened in August. The board didn’t receive an application to transfer the license to Varano’s name until Sept. 18. Those applications weren’t signed by Dyer, the man selling the license. He didn’t ink that paperwork for another month.
Varano also received a sharp rebuke for installing televisions outside his restaurant. Patricia Malone, Boston’s director of Consumer Affairs and Licensing, said Varano is operating with a temporary entertainment license. She can’t grant him a regular entertainment license until he clears up his liquor license paperwork. The entertainment license lets Varano play pre-recorded music and display television. It does not, Malone recently told Varano, permit him to operate the HDTVs which he had embedded in Nico’s façade, and which had been playing video loops 24 hours a day.
“I told him, no way can that ever take place,” Malone said.
“My concern is, I don’t want to see this become a precedent,” said North End resident Victor Brogna. “There’s an appearance that you can do the work first, and if a problem comes up, you can just deal with it at the end. We have to nip this in the bud and let it be known that if anybody else tries to pull this, we’re going to pounce on it. The processes are there for a purpose. They’re there to protect businesses as well as residents.”
On Thursday, Ferullo seemed to admit that Varano was navigating the construction and licensing process backwards.
“We have a cart in front of a horse,” he said. “Should this have happened when they were contemplating these changes? Yes. That’s why people have lawyers.”
“I made a mistake,” Varano added. “But I made the place beautiful.”
But Varano, Ferullo, and their supporters protested the rough treatment they have received. Angelo Buonopane, a ZBA member who backed Varano “as a resident,” argued that North End residents’ focus on the timing of Varano’s paperwork was misguided, because, he said, it’s par for the course.
“Sometimes work starts without a permit,” he said. “The city cares mostly about getting its fee. I don’t think the façade change is a big deal, and I don’t think Mr. Varano tried to deprive Boston of its fee. He might’ve been late.”
Outside Thursday’s meeting, Buonopane strongly defended his right to publicly defend Varano.
“I heard a lot of apologizing,” he said. “That’s what I heard. I’d stick up for anybody being treated like that. Would you like to be publicly humiliated? I’ve never seen anybody treated like that in my life. I don’t know who’s right or who’s wrong, if the cart went before the horse. I’m not into that. I’m into respect.”
