Boston Democrat Mayor Michelle Wu has been accused of racial discrimination by a group of white restaurant owners who say they were targeted for city fees in part due to their ethnic heritage.

According to the restaurant owners, Wu and the city singled them out for a $7,500 outdoor dining fee, a fee which only applied to establishments in their neighborhood. The plaintiffs are seeking $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages.

“It is commonly known that the traditional owner of a restaurant in the North End of Boston is a white male of Italian descent, and the North End is generally regarded (as) the last true ethnic Boston Italian neighborhood,” a Tuesday legal filing from the group of restaurant owners said.

“The Plaintiffs had a right to be treated the same as other restaurants in the City who were granted outdoor dining and not singled out to pay fees … to have outdoor dining because of their sex or national origin/ethnicity as appears in this case,” the lawsuit continues.

Those suing Wu include Jorge Mendoza-Iturralde, Carla Gomes, Jason and Kim Silvestri, and Patrick Mendoza, all of whom run restaurants in Boston’s North End neighborhood. In October, a judge dismissed a similar claim from the group when they said the fees imposed on them were unconstitutional.

Wu claimed the fees were necessary to ease traffic congestion and garbage disposal in the historic neighborhood, which was the only place in the city to be given the extra fees. After criticism, Wu eased the requirements somewhat and introduced a way some establishments could apply for exemption.

“I won’t comment on ongoing litigation that the city is involved in, but I will say that we stand fully behind decisions that are to ensure residents can live in their neighborhoods with the full range of ease of access and safety and opportunity,” Wu told reporters when asked about the suit.

Jorge Mendoza-Iturralde, one of those involved in the suit, ran unsuccessfully for a city council seat last year in response to Wu’s restaurant fees, running on a platform of supporting law enforcement, small businesses, and maintaining the city’s historic monuments.

“The city of Boston is failing the people and I feel I have to do something about it,” he said in announcing his campaign. “I will be a vocal challenge to Mayor Wu.”

Wu has come under fire for racially charged jokes in the past, making a joke last St. Patrick’s Day about having to deal with “white” problems.

“I’m getting used to dealing with problems that are expensive, disruptive, and white — I’m talking about snowflakes, snowstorms, snowflakes!” Wu said at the time.

Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) vetoed a bill that would have classified a potential central bank digital currency as money while excluding cryptocurrencies.

Policymakers at the Federal Reserve have considered the adoption of a digital dollar over the last several years. Noem said in a veto letter to the South Dakota House of Representatives that the legislation “opens the door to the risk that the federal government could more easily adopt a CBDC, which then may become the only viable digital currency.”

“At this moment in time, such a government-backed electronic currency has not yet been created,” Noem told lawmakers. “More importantly, South Dakota should not open the door to a potential future overreach by the federal government.”

The bill would have defined money as a “medium of exchange that is currently authorized or adopted by a domestic or foreign government.” Lawmakers passed the measure 49-17 in the House of Representatives and 24-9 in the Senate, both of which are margins that would allow for the overturn of the veto in the two chambers.

Noem added that cryptocurrencies, which are decentralized digital assets that can be transferred between virtual wallets, would not be considered money under the legislation. She asserted that the bill therefore “needlessly” limited freedoms and placed citizens at a “business disadvantage” by discouraging development within the nascent sector.

Opponents of a potential central bank digital currency assert that such an initiative would render citizens vulnerable to government censorship and surveillance. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies, digital assets managed by central banks are not decentralized and are tethered to their analog counterparts. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said two years ago that his “mind is open” to a digital dollar, noting that he was “legitimately undecided” on whether the “benefits outweigh the costs” of central bank digital currencies.

“We would want very broad support in society and in Congress,” he told lawmakers. “It’s a very, very important initiative, and I do think we should ideally get authorization.”

A central bank digital currency would preserve the international role of the dollar while mitigating pitfalls intrinsic to cryptocurrencies such as liquidity risk and credit risk, according to a paper from the Federal Reserve. The central bank recently conducted a simulation with Citi, Mastercard, BNY Mellon, and other companies to determine the “feasibility of payments between financial institutions” using tokenized assets.

Increased skepticism toward cryptocurrencies comes in the aftermath of FTX and other digital asset companies controlled by Sam Bankman-Fried filing for bankruptcy at the end of last year after customers learned that FTX had commingled funds with trading company Alameda Research. Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, which include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit campaign finance violations.

Recent tumult in the cryptocurrency sector and the widely publicized criminal proceedings against Bankman-Fried have quickly eroded consumers’ trust in the novel assets: a survey conducted by CNBC and Momentive found that 60% of Americans see the risk of cryptocurrency investments as “high,” while only 10% say the assets carry little or no risk.