Southie Starbucks bid gets shut down

Looks like Southie takes its morning cup of joe with no room —for Starbucks, that is.

After spirited opposition from neighbors this week, the city has pulled the plug on plans to bring the coffee chain to L Street and East Broadway.

The move comes after a meeting Monday on the proposal, where the rhetoric was hotter than a freshly poured venti latte.

The backlash even attracted the involvement Mayor Marty Walsh, who sided with opponents, saying Tuesday that he did not support the plans. Joining Walsh in the anti-Starbucks camp were Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry and City Councilors Michael Flaherty and Michelle Wu

The café would have been the third free-standing Starbucks in the neighborhood, according to the South Boston blog Caught in Southie.

In the end, the city’s licensing board denied project developer Michael Norton the food license he would need to bring the chain to the corner, according to The Boston Globe. The vote was unanimous.

There has been unease in South Boston among neighbors about losing the local vibe of the area, about rents going up and about corporate purveyors squeezing out small businesses.

“Starbucks is definitely a symbol of gentrification,” Maureen Dahill, Caught in Southie’s editor, told The Globe this week. “I think that’s one of the reasons that people got so crazy about it.”