Tensions were boiling over in Boston's North End after Mayor Michelle Wu announced the Italian neighborhood won't be joining the rest of the city in outdoor dining this summer. "It's unfair," Monica's Trattoria owner Frank Mendoza said. "It's insane. I cannot believe what they're doing." His brother George added, "This is a form of discrimination."
The Mendoza family is joining several other North End restaurant owners in a new lawsuit against the city, the same tactic used last year when Mayor Wu required restaurants to pay a fee to extend dining onto Hanover Street. "It was an option, pay or don't have it," their attorney Richard Chambers told WBZ-TV. "This year, it's just the North End - you can't have it at all. Everyone else can have it. You can't have it even if you pay. I think that's wrong."
