Eastie casino foes: Fold Suffok's hand

East Boston casino opponents yesterday called on their elected officials and the state Gaming Commission to reject Suffolk Downs' last-ditch effort to shift its proposed casino to Revere, but a gaming expert said the matter ultimately may be decided by the courts.

"Whether you can do this at the last minute is an interesting question," said Boston College professor Richard McGowan. "I have the feeling the courts are going to be the ones who eventually decide this, and it's going to be interesting to see whether people in East Boston have any standing as a surrounding community."

After Suffolk Downs' casino plan was voted down by East Boston and approved in Revere on Tuesday, the racetrack said it was looking at shifting the casino site to its land in Revere — an idea that has outraged opponents.

"Fifty-six percent of the voting constituency in East Boston voted no. To have that disregarded is something we take huge exception to," said Celeste Myers, co-chairman of No Eastie Casino. "How is this a fair process if you move the target after the fact? As far as we're concerned, it's game over."

Suffolk Downs Chief Operating Officer Chip Tuttle last night said he has had discussions this week with "suitable gaming partners that have been through the process in Massachusetts, and there continues to be strong interest."

"We've also had very constructive discussions with Revere on what alternatives there are that honor both East Boston's no vote and Revere's overwhelming affirmation for gaming development," Tuttle added.

Revere Mayor Daniel Rizzo said he has been talking with Suffolk Downs "two or three times daily."

"Revere is a big part of that site," Rizzo said, "and our voices should be heard as well."

Officials for the other casino plan voted down Tuesday — Mohegan Sun in Palmer — yesterday asked for a recount after losing by 93 votes. A recount date has not yet been set.

The Gaming Commission also has scheduled a suitability hearing Wednesday for Foxwoods' Milford casino, which town residents will vote on Nov. 19.

And, the revised compact between the state and the Wampanoag tribe for its East Taunton casino, which has received the Legislature's conditional approval, is expected to head back to the Senate and the House next week for enactment before it can be signed by the governor and the tribe and sent to the federal government for review.

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Classics that keep memories alive

There is nothing like a classic car to bring back memories from years ago, but it takes work to build and maintain a legacy.

"Few things get brand recognition like a name with a story," said car expert Mike McGrath, features editor at Edmunds.com. "You hear Porche 911, you think back to the old race cars. You hear Corvette, you don't even need to say Chevy anymore."

For Veterans Day, McGrath put together a list of 10 of the top new versions of classic cars. From trucks to muscle cars, these vehicles are some of the best available, just like they have been for years.

"These cars are examples of how to build on a storied legacy, not simply ride the coattails of the cars that came before," he said.

We profile five today, and check back Monday for five more revamped blasts from the past.

The Mustang, almost 50 years old, is just as powerful and impressive as ever.

"The 2014 Mustang is still a great car with strong bones," McGrath said. The '14 comes available with a "wicked 400-plus horsepower, 5 liter V8," McGrath said. With its retro looks and memories to spare, the Mustang is "a ton of fun," he added.

The 50th anniversary Mustang is expected to be announced soon, likely at the Detroit Auto Show, just like the original Mustang. It is possible, McGrath said, that the next Mustang could be called the 2014 A, harkening back to the 1964 A original model. Starts at $22,200.

This Corvette is the product of 60 years of work to put together a car that carries on the name and is worthy of the "Stingray" moniker for the first time since 1976, McGrath said.

"Finally after 60 years of Corvette, Chevy has pulled out all the stops," McGrath said. "2014 has blown that out of the water."

The result is a performance vehicle that offers plenty of comfort as well, thanks in part to its suspension.

"The Corvette is one of the most comfortable cars to drive anywhere, and a flip of a switch makes it a killer on the track." Starts at $51,000.

The 911, a racing legend, is "an icon, there's no two ways about it," McGrath said. While there have not been many dramatic changes to the 911, steady improvements and upgrades have done wonders for the car.

"It proves that evolution works," McGrath said. "Those decades of slow, meticulous evolution have made for a car that has few flaws beyond the high price tag." Starts at $84,300.

The Dart, a classic muscle car from the '60s, shows that classic doesn't have to be repetitive. The Dart, built on an Alpha Romeo platform, is now a small, four-door compact.

Still, it does what it needs to do, both internally and externally.

"There's not a compact on the road today that makes the visual statement that the Dart does," McGrath said. Starts at $15,995.

A new Beetle with a new shape, the bug is going back to the beginning.

"They've gone into the history books and pulled classic details," McGrath said. "They're trying to get that 'I had a Beetle in high school and it was so cool' mentality back."

The curvy, more styled — and less cartoonish — body makes a statement, McGrath said.

"It's a lot of fun." Starts at $19,995.

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Amenities rival upscale hotels’

It's not new for apartment buildings to be customized with common areas, including pools, gyms and game rooms, but some of today's high-end buildings are outdoing each other with services and features that rival the most upscale hotels.

"Modern and sophisticated amenities are extremely important for developers when differentiating their product in the marketplace," said Ted Tye, managing partner at National Development.

A number of Boston luxury rental buildings can boast of amenities such as a health club or fitness center, an on-site concierge and lobby-level bicycle storage. But even communal party spaces, billiard rooms and screening rooms are becoming more and more common.

Maxwell's Green, located on 5.5 acres in Somerville, features 184 rental units with amenities to rival downtown Boston luxury apartment buildings. The property was completed last year by Gate Residential Properties and includes an on-site fitness center with a TRX training room, a club suite with an outdoor terrace that can be reserved for functions or parties, a cyber cafe, underground bicycle storage and garage parking with electric car charging stations.

"The property is also offering a level of service that adds to a sense of community, with weekly fitness and yoga classes, 'football Sundays' in the theater room and organic cooking classes in an open chef's kitchen at the club suite," said Damian Szary, principal of Gate Residential Properties. Prices range from about $1,965 for a studio to $4,055 for a three-bedroom townhouse.

Recently completed in August by Metric Construction, Gatehouse 75 in Charlestown is a five-story apartment building with 99 apartments. The property features a drive-through portico providing access to an underground garage, an on-site Zip Car, a 2,000-square-foot rooftop deck with trellis and grill, a resident lounge with catering kitchen and a state-of-the-art fitness center. The common roof deck has incredible views of Boston, the Zakim Bridge, Bunker Hill Monument and Charlestown. Apartments range in price from about $2,750 to $3,675.

Boston's newest building to open its doors is the Kensington, a 27-floor, 381-unit tower by National Development in downtown. On the sixth floor known as Club Kensington, residents have access to an outdoor pool, game room, cafe, solarium, quiet library area, gym, exercise room, tech room, lounge and kitchen area, and the "do-it-yourself" pet spa called the groom room. One-bedrooms start around $3,000 and two-bedrooms are priced in the high $4,000s to the $9,000s.

Designed to reimagine the former Boston Herald site, National Development's Ink Block South End will feature 475 units of housing in five buildings and 85,000 square feet of premiere retail space, including a flagship 50,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market. It's set to open in early 2015.

"At Ink Block, we aimed to create a community that sets a new standard for the style of the South End and would attract people looking for all the conveniences associated with luxury urban living," said Tye.

Invented for those who wish to live life South End-style, the Ink Block will include edgy and stylish living accommodations and luxury amenities, including a rooftop pool, outdoor living room, fitness center, bicycle workshop, dog amenities and underground parking.

Jennifer Athas is a licensed real estate broker. Follow her on twitter @jenathas.

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Massachusetts economy’s running ahead of U.S.

A recovering housing market and resilient consumers boosted the Bay State economy in the third quarter, but federal fiscal policies continue to restrain growth, according to a University of Massachusetts journal.

Massachusetts real gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 3.5 percent, well above the national rate of 2.8 percent and more than double the state rate of 
1.7 percent in the second quarter, according to the latest MassBenchmarks published by the UMass Donahue Institute in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

The improvement was due to slow but better job growth, a recovering housing market, rising incomes and a higher rate of spending on goods subject to sales tax — all providing some relief from the fiscal drag of the across-the-board cuts in federal spending known as sequestration and higher payroll taxes than last year.

"The state housing market, as well as consumer spending, have both firmed up, perhaps more so than nationally," said Robert Nakosteen, executive editor of MassBenchmarks and professor of economics and statistics at the UMass-Amherst Isenberg School of Management. "However, pushing the other way, the sequester and global weakness is hurting the state. The balance seems to be favorable."

Both Nakosteen and MassBenchmarks' senior contributing editor, Alan Clayton-Matthews, cautioned, however, that their estimate of the state's economic growth in the third quarter is based on incomplete data because last month's federal government shutdown caused a delay in the state's employment report for September until Nov. 22.

Using the national employment report for September and the historical average relationship between U.S. and Massachusetts employment, MassBenchmarks estimated the state's missing September payroll employment data at 1,000 new jobs, indicating that state employment expanded at an annualized rate of growth of 
0.7 percent in the third quarter. In contrast, during the second quarter, payroll employment declined at a 
0.3 percent annualized rate, said Clayton-Matthews, associate professor of economics and public policy at Northeastern University.

Nationally, the 2.8 percent annual rate at which real GDP grew in the third quarter was "a tepid number by itself, but still the fastest growth seen so far in 2013," said Doug Handler, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington.

"The consensus growth rate was around 2 percent, with most of the gap traceable to a buildup of inventories," Handler said, referring to goods that collect in warehouses and on retailers' shelves.

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Startups urged to fight patent trolls

The booming Bay State startup economy is being threatened by patent trolls — patent-owning firms with frivolous or overreaching infringement claims — and needs to fight back, industry leaders and Attorney General Martha Coakley said yesterday.

Level Up founder Seth Priebatsch said fighting patent trolls has cost his firm nearly $1 million, and prevented him from hiring as many as 20 workers.

"We're lucky to have great backers," he said. "There's lots of other companies that are smaller and can't afford the legal bills."

Level Up — which makes an app that lets users pay with their phones — is fighting four suits from patent trolls, including one that alleges infringement on a patent designed to monitor traffic.

Priebatsch was joined at the Boston headquarters of Level Up's parent company, SCVNGR, by Coakley and Cambridge Innovation Center CEO Tim Rowe.

"It really is highway robbery, said Rowe, whose Kendall Square center houses about 450 startups. "Over half of all patent litigation is in the troll category."

Coakley said her office is looking into how to defend Bay State companies from the "predatory behavior," including filing unfair business practices lawsuits.

Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell, who sued a patent troll in the spring, told the Herald he has not heard of any other such complaints since then.

"I think Vermont has delivered a pretty strong message that patent trolls should stay out," he said.

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BRA: Exhibit ‘Vital’ to foot traffic

Faneuil Hall Marketplace is bringing in a new tenant just in time for the holiday shopping season, but it's not a store or restaurant.

"Body Worlds Vital" — an exhibit of human body parts and cadavers preserved through "plastination" — debuts at the center Nov. 22.

An iteration of German doctor Gunther von Hagens' "Body Worlds 2" that ran for six months at the Museum of Science in 2006-2007, it will be open through March on the second floor of Quincy Market, in the former Comedy Connection space that's been vacant since 2008.

It's another short-term move by marketplace manager Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. to drive foot traffic, following Nintendo's Wii U Tour stop in August and the 1D World pop-up store in April.

"We think it's a great temporary installation," Boston Redevelopment Authority spokeswoman Susan Elsbree said. "This exhibit is supposed to drive over 20,000 people to the marketplace."

The BRA signed off on Ashkenazy's $136 million purchase of the marketplace's lease in 2011 based in large part on its capital commitment to the city-owned center, including upgrades to draw locals. In June, it expressed frustration over the New York real estate investment firm's slow pace of progress on a master plan. Ashkenazy did not return calls yesterday.

But the firm, which hired Boston's Elkus Manfredi Architects in December to help guide the master plan, since has added Watertown planning and design firm Sasaki Associates and New York's Biederman Redevelopment Ventures Corp. to its team.

"We think that that's good news for the marketplace," Elsbree said.

Biederman will concentrate on the center's outside areas, according to Carol Troxell, president of the Faneuil Hall Merchant Association. Troxell and other merchants recently toured New York's Bryant Park with Daniel Biederman, who's also co-founder of Bryant Park Corp.

Troxell is on board with "Body Worlds Vitals" exhibit: "It's opening at a good time, because the tourist season is winding down. If it brings the medical groups in and the school trips and other groups, that will certainly help the merchants."

But in addition to "Body Worlds 2," area residents had the chance to see two copycat exhibits in recent years, including one that filled vacant space at the Atrium Mall in Chestnut Hill in 2011. That exhibit closed three months early due to a lack of visitors — despite aggressive marketing by the mall's owner.

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Twitter to start trading

Social media giant Twitter will start trading tomorrow on the New York Stock Exchange in one of the highest-profile initial public offerings in years, and analysts and investors are expecting shares to be at a premium.

"When this thing starts trading, it's going to do pretty well," said Michael Scanlon, managing director of Manulife Asset Management in Boston. "It seems like they're very committed to getting this deal done and getting it done successfully and leaving a good taste in everyone's mouth."

Scanlon, who was at Twitter's road show presentation in Boston last week, said Twitter's losses — $65 million in the third quarter — are a concern, but he sees significant room for growth in its user base and advertising revenue.

Twitter already has raised its price range once, from $17 to $20 per share to $23 to $25 per share. Scanlon expects the final IPO price, which will be announced today, to be $26.

Max Wolff, chief economist at ZT Wealth in New York, said he expects Twitter to have a good first day.

"There's a lot of excitement around Twitter," he said. "That usually creates a good environment for a strong first day of trading."

Renaissance Capital in Connecticut said in a note there could likely be "IPO frenzy" tomorrow.

Still, Wolff said the test will be the performance of Twitter three months from now.

The Twitter IPO has by most accounts been dramatically different from Facebook's, which was heavy on hype, but fell below the initial price and didn't recover for more than a year.

"They've purposefully done things opposite of what was done during the Facebook deal," Scanlon said.

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New mayor should hook up these 5 tech improvements

He may not be big on voice mail, but Mayor Thomas M. Menino leaves a respectable technological legacy, having released a series of transformative mobile apps to help residents and students, established the Seaport Innovation District and launched an open government portal so anyone can scrutinize city data. But the city still lags in other technological areas that the new mayor must address. Here are the top five:

No. 5: Antiquated city services. Why do I need to go to City Hall to receive my resident parking sticker or send my dog license application through snail mail? All city services need to be digital and online. Period.

No.    4: Cable. Donnie Wahlberg can stand in Copley Square for Verizon FiOS commercials all he wants, but city residents don't have access to this high-speed fiber-optic option. The new mayor must find a way to break Comcast's near-monopoly.

No.   3: Wi-Fi. Menino had a bold plan for citywide Wi-Fi coverage, but it fell apart. The new mayor will have to create far more hot spots to maintain our digital street cred.

No.   2: Big Data. Boston needs to embrace this fundamental hallmark of efficiency. The book has already been written by Big Apple Mayor 
Michael Bloomberg, whose so-called geek squad has used quantitative analysis to locate illicit grease-dumpers without ever putting boots on the ground, double the rate at which the city finds illegal sellers of untaxed cigarettes and help overburdened housing inspectors identify the biggest fire hazards in the city.

No.   1: Lure more entrepreneurs, or keep them from leaving. Boston has lost its position as the startup front-runner on the East Coast to New York City, according to a report by the Startup Genome Project last year. To start, the next mayor should create an Office of Entrepreneurial Outreach, lift the archaic curfew on bars and find a way to bring back overnight MBTA service to help lure young professionals. Labor statistics tell us that all net new jobs — yes, every single one — are created by new businesses, so this is a no-brainer.

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Black day for BlackBerry

Shares of BlackBerry plunged yesterday on news that its $4.7 million buyout was off and that its chief executive was out — leaving an opening for Microsoft to fill behind Google and Apple in the race for smartphone stardom.

BlackBerry's stock tumbled by more than 16 percent to $6.49 on the Nasdaq stock exchange after the announcement that a preliminary deal with Fairfax Financial Holdings had fallen through and that Chief Executive Thorsten Heins was being replaced by John S. Chen, former CEO of Sybase Inc., until BlackBerry finds a permanent replacement.

Fairfax will now lead a $1 billion investment in the embattled Canadian company, but analysts are not optimistic about its future.

"I see this as the beginning of the end of Blackberry," said N. Venkat Venkatraman, professor of management at Boston University. "It tried multiple options, including possible interest from Facebook. Finally no one stepped up ... and that itself says something profound: No one saw any value that could be unlocked easily either through financial engineering or a longer term strategic road map to revive BlackBerry."

BlackBerry had been locked in an intense competition for third place behind Google and Apple in the smartphone wars.

"But they've been a day late and a dollar short in every innovation," said Max Wolff, chief economist and strategist for ZT Wealth in New York. "Their bungling has allowed Google and Apple to own the space, and the No. 3 role has gone to Microsoft's Windows phone."

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The Ticker

MGM Springfield, 
Six Flags ink deal

MGM Springfield and Six Flags New England have signed an exclusive, multiyear joint-marketing agreement that designates MGM Springfield as the official resort casino partner of Six Flags New England, MGM Resorts International announced yesterday.

Apple opening new U.S. plant

Apple Inc. said it's opening a new plant in Mesa, Ariz., that will create 2,000 jobs to make components for its products, part of a push by the world's most valuable company to boost manufacturing in the United States.

Apple struck a deal to pay $578 million to GT Advanced Technologies Inc. to supply equipment for the facility, GT Advanced said in a statement. The machines make materials out of sapphire, which is increasingly used in smartphones to cover camera lenses and home buttons.

Valve to release own computer

Hoping to break fresh ground in its industry, Bellevue, Wash. game developer Valve, best known for its "Half-Life" franchise and Steam online software sales portal, will release a prototype Steam Machine computer of its own design, complete with an operating system and a game controller the company also developed in-house.

Today

  Institute for Supply Management releases its service sector index for October.

  Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee hearing on the aviation industry.

   T-Mobile/Deutsch Telekom AG, HTC Corp., and Caremark Corp. report quarterly financial results before the market opens.

TOMORROW

 Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies before the Senate Finance Committee about the health care law.

 Toyota reports fiscal third quarter earnings.

 Time Warner Inc. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

 CBS Corp. and Whole Foods Market Inc. report quarterly financial results after the market closes.

 Legacy Real Estate Ventures has recently announced that it has hired Ben Schultz, left, as an asset manager. Schultz will oversee the day to day operations of the Legacy portfolio, as well as assist in marketing requirements and new deal due diligence.

 Tufts Medical Center has named Terry Hudson-Jinks, RN, MSN as its chief nursing officer. Hudson-Jinks has a long history of leading quality and cost improvement initiatives that have improved patient safety and satisfaction, the hospital said.

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Hub startup musters $5M in venture capital

A year after a Boston startup began testing the military equivalent of LinkedIn, the firm has raised $5 million in venture capital to officially launch its fast-growing website in time for Veterans Day.

The investment, which brings RallyPoint's total funding to $6.6 million, was led by Silicon Valley-based DBL Investors to help redefine the way corporate hiring managers connect with and recruit military talent, said Yinon Weiss. Weiss served 10 years of military duty before founding RallyPoint with fellow Iraq War veteran and Harvard Business School alumnus 
Aaron Kletzing.

"We've gone from a standing start last year to very quickly growing the site" to include 125,000 members — both active duty and veterans — and pages for more than 400,000 companies doing business in the United States, he said.

Nearly one in 10 members of the active-duty Army alone — the military's largest branch — already use RallyPoint for free from bases around the world, he said. Starting Veterans Day, members' spouses, who often share similar employment challenges, can use the website, too.

The same day, 400,000 companies on RallyPoint will be able to post jobs for $99-$5,000. And early next year companies will be able to upgrade their offerings.

John Silva, a 32-year-old former Marine who is now a partner at Cambridge Bookstore, recently discovered RallyPoint through a friend and agreed to help test it to connect with other veterans and recruit employees. In the few weeks since he signed on, he's already conducted two interviews by phone and one in person. And although the latter decided to take a job in western Massachusetts to be closer to home, Silva is confident he'll find the right person on RallyPoint soon.

"As an e-commerce business, we need people who have a high attention to detail, and because we're a small business, a strong sense of teamwork," Silva said. "And veterans have both."

As a Massachusetts employer, he has even more reason now to hire people with military backgrounds. Last month the state more than doubled cash grants for employers who hire Massachusetts veterans. Firms can now apply for training grants of $5,000 for each vet they hire, up to a total of $75,000 per calendar year. Raising the amounts, Weiss said, provides a greater incentive for employers to hire veterans, who have an average unemployment rate of 9.9 percent, compared to 7.2 percent for civilians.

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Holiday season war of tablets

The iPad Air is the best 10-inch tablet ever, but it faces stiff competition as we enter the first-ever holiday season of the tablet. The war is being waged on three fronts: battery life, value and productivity.

It seems like nearly everyone — from HTC to Nokia to Sony — is making serious forays into the tablet arena, not the least of which is Lenovo's new Yoga tablet. This Android beast boasts 18 hours of battery life, eight more than the iPad Air's advertised 10 hours. The 8-inch, 16GB Yoga will cost just $249, and the 10-inch, 16GB version is $299.

So not only does it beat the iPad Air on battery life, it's 40 percent of the price.

That's right — though the size and weight of iPad Air are slimmed down, the same can't be said of the cost, which ranges from $499 to a whopping $929 for the 128GB WiFi + Cellular version.

Though you'll sacrifice screen quality if you go with the Yoga, Google's Nexus 10 also operates with Android and has a higher pixel count than the iPad Air. Rumor has it that a new version is coming out this holiday season with a starting price of $399.

At $100 less than that, the Dell Venue 8 Pro, a Windows-based tablet, delivers the same listed battery life as the iPad Air and is seemingly a match for those who rely on the Microsoft Office productivity suite, as is the Surface 2, which starts at $449.

And then there's the competition that the iPad Air faces at home. The iPad mini, due out later this month, has the same so-called Retina display as well as identical specs as the iPad Air in an 8-inch frame for $100 less.

So while there are reasons for some to look elsewhere, the iPad still retains its first-place standing for those of us who do light productivity work and enjoy apps on a portable touchscreen device. I was reminded of the iPad's primary appeal this weekend as I watched my toddler play around with the Air. If you ever want to have your mind blown, give an iPad to a 2-year-old. As my son navigated to the virtual drums featured in the GarageBand app and found a numbers game to play with Elmo, I realized: No tablet is easier to use, prettier to look at and simpler to carry around than the iPad Air.

That said, the battery life on the 16GB WiFi model I tested did not live up to its advertised 10 hours. In fact, the device barely made it to eight hours after heavy use of various apps for 60 minutes and then being left to drain with the screen on for the remaining seven hours.

The new iPad contains the same super-fast A7 processing chip as the iPhone 5S. With any luck, developers will take advantage of the new speed and power with updated and improved mobile apps. If they do, the iPad Air should remain a favorite until Apple releases another generation iPad and it becomes instantly antiquated. I'm hoping we make it to a year.

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Site repair: Hold that online health application

WASHINGTON — The application page of the troubled health insurance website is offline until Sunday morning.

The Health and Human Services Department says a technology team will be working on HealthCare.gov, so people won't be able to apply or enroll through the site.

That part of the site will be down from about 9 p.m. Saturday to about 9 a.m. Sunday.

The government says people can apply for coverage through the health marketplace call center — 1-800-318-2596. That's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The federal website locked up the day it went live, Oct. 1, and has been cranky since. It's been taken down for maintenance before — usually for a few overnight hours.

The administration has said it's aiming to have HealthCare.gov humming along by month's end.

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Food pantries fear EBT cuts

Local charities are bracing for a boost in requests for help now that almost half a million households in the Bay State that rely on government assistance to feed their families are getting less money thanks to the end of a federal stimulus program.

"Demand will go up," said Jarrett Barrios, CEO of the American Red Cross of Massachusetts, which runs food pantries in Boston and New Bedford. "There's no two ways about it."

About 480,000 Massachusetts households — and 47 million around the country — that receive food stamps via EBT cards saw their benefits cut by about 5 percent after a temporary boost in the federal SNAP program's funding that was part of a 2009 economic stimulus package expired Friday. Even as the unemployment rate has dropped and the economy seems to be slowly rebounding, the number of SNAP recipients has continued to rise, including in Massachusetts.

"We are not in a better place yet," said Barrios. "Lines are already really long."

Melissa Sanchez, 32, of Dorchester, was at the Red Cross' Boston food pantry yesterday, and said the food she gets there helps stretch her monthly benefits. She said her benefits were cut before, and the new cuts only add to her worries.

"It's going to affect a lot of people," said Sanchez. "It's going to affect the economy. There's going to be less jobs, less customers because families can't afford to buy as much."

Benefits, which are distributed throughout the first two weeks of the month, dropped by $36 a month for a family of four.

Barrios said the cut may not seem like much, but it matters a great deal to the families that rely on the benefits. For families, "taking those $40 away means 'do I go without breakfast a couple days a week?'" Barrios said.

Lucinda Rodrigues, 43, of Dorchester, said she just started coming to the food pantry last month.

"I have two kids and what I was receiving before wasn't enough to support my family on a monthly basis," said Rodrigues. "Now the cuts are going to be worse, so I have to come to the charities to put more food on the table."

Anti-poverty agency ABCD also is worried about the cuts' effect on the families it serves.

"They're taking away from people who really can't afford to be taken away from," said John Drew, president and CEO of ABCD.

To make matters worse, winter is fast approaching, and with it comes the need for heat, holiday presents and new coats or boots.

"These cuts going into effect right before Thanksgiving couldn't come at a worse time," Barrios said.

There are continued talks in Congress about additional cuts to the food stamp program, which has more than doubled in cost since 2008 to almost $80 billion a year. Both the House and Senate have passed different versions of a farm bill that includes cuts — $4 billion in the GOP-controlled House bill and a tenth of that in the Democratic Senate's bill.

Colneth Smiley Jr. contributed to this report.

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