The Mount Hope Canterbury Neighborhood Association (MHC) met last week at the Home for Little Wanderers in Roslindale and heard from two businesses looking to make material changes to their establishments.

The first was La Taqueria, which sits at 636 Hyde Park Ave., has 18 indoor seats, three outdoor tables, and serves a variety of Mexican cuisine.

Owner Dianna Gualdron said she is aiming for one of the city’s neighborhood beer and wine liquor licenses – which cannot be sold and must be returned to the city if a business is done using them – for the Roslindale shop to complement the food business. She said the Roslindale location was the founding location; she doesn’t want to expand seating, but just wants to offer customers what they’ve been asking for.

“We’ve been serving the Roslindale community for 10 years,” she said. “Our customers said that beer or wine with their meal enhances the dining experience, and we will remain a food-focused restaurant.”

She said that the Dedham location will not likely be seeking a license, as it has no seating, but the Dorchester site has seating, and she said if this works they will look to get a license there. For Roslindale, she said nothing about current operations will change – hours will remain 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

It should be noted that the patio seating will be excluded from alcohol service, as that requires much more stringent borders and enforcement.

The MHC seemed receptive to the idea. Member Eugena Williams said she wanted to make sure that the restaurant maintains the sidewalk in a clean and neighborly manner, as she said litter is a problem on that corner. But member Alfred Parker pointed out the area sees a lot of commuter traffic.

“They are out there early in the morning, sweeping and cleaning in front of their establishment trying to keep it clean,” he said. “It’s never going to be perfect, because with the amount of traffic going through there, there are always people throwing stuff out their window driving by.”

MHC Co-chair Lisa Beatman said this will be the first of two such applications, as an adjacent restaurant will be coming in September to seek the same thing, and that the association didn’t want to give support just because Gualdron happened to come to them first. However, no specific complaints against the restaurant were made during the meeting.

Also at the meeting, Brothers Market owner Adonis Fernandez stopped by to ask for the MHC’s support in the store’s bid to rearrange its storage containers for its food. He said the market, which used to be Baby Nat’s, has no basement, and their back stock has to be stored in those containers. He said the use violates some zoning requirements, and so they need approval from the Boston Zoning Board of Appeals on three variances – Greenbelt Protection Overlay, neighborhood dimensions, and parking and loading.

He said the rearrangement already took place, and it’s resulted in a better parking situation for customers, but they need retroactive approval from the ZBA.

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“I’m a 26-year-old kid and I didn’t know there were rules to follow before I did that,” he said.

The reception from the MHC was generally positive, as many said they noticed and appreciated the change, but several asked about beautifying the building and spaces around the building. Fernandez said they need permission from the landlord to do that, and he added the Boston Inspectional Services Department – which first dinged him on the violation with the storage containers – said he was not to touch anything until the zoning process was completed.

But he said once that was figured out, they would look to “beautify” the outside of the space. He asked residents to consider what they’ve done on the inside – which they were allowed to do without landlord approval – to get a sense of what they will be going for.

Lastly, the Boston Police Department (BPD) District E-18 Community Service Office stopped by and related all part 1 crimes that took place in the neighborhood. BPD Officer Michael Conley said there were zero assaults, larcenies, robberies or car thefts in the last month. He said, however, that there were two ballistics incidents where shots were fired, one on Rosa Street off of River Street towards Wood Avenue. Conley said officers responded to a shot spotter notification, and found three shell casings and two motor vehicles damaged by the shots.

The other incident was on July 5 at 530 American Legion Hwy., and the victim said he was shot at after an argument with an assailant who was known to him.

Conley said detectives are investigating both incidents. But despite those incidents, he said crime in District E-18 from this time last year is down 12 percent.

The MHC meets every second Thursday of the month, save for August. The group will return in September.