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No Boston Olympics takes victory sips at Beantown Pub – Metro US

No Boston Olympics takes victory sips at Beantown Pub

For No Boston Olympics and its supporters, Monday was a day to celebrate victory over a powerful foe.

The group challenged Olympic organizers from the start of the bid via a grassroots campaign with a shoe-string budget, outspent many times over by Olympic organizers and their all-star roster of boosters. They were among those that kept pressure on Boston 2024 and the US Olympic Committee during the bid process, online and in person at community meetings around the state – both those hosted by Boston 2024 and by opponents.

To mark the end of Boston’s efforts to win the right to host the Games, the No Boston team gathered at Beantown Pub Monday night. The meet-up, which drew organizers, supporters and a cluster of Boston press, came just hours after the USOC and Boston 2024 announced they reached a mutual agreement to ditch the bid.

This isn’t the end for the group, though their branding is likely to change now that the Boston’s Olympic bid is no more, according to Chris Dempsey, one of three co-chairs for the group who has become the public face of opposition to the bid.

“We’re not going away,” Dempsey told Metro, nursing a brew in Beantown’s function room, which had been quickly decorated with No Boston Olympics posters and stocked with pitchers and nachos.

What is next for the group is unclear, Dempsey said. Diverse supporters from around the state come from camps liberal and conservative, and there haven’t been conversations about other issues to tackle.

“I don’t think we should expect a consensus from our group about now to move forward as a city,” Dempsey said. “But we’re hopeful that some of the energy we create will be productive.”