Boston's social scene is already limited enough, if you're used to a place like New York. The last thing we need is a policy that limits it even more. How about actually going in the opposite direction and getting the T to run 24/7?

How about focusing on breaking up the party's in neighborhoods with more crime (and more guns), while leaving stupid college kids and 20's something’s alone?

Oh wait, that be more work and involve confronting people with guns...

I seriously had a noise complaint called on me in the Back bay when I was in my apartment listening to music with 4 friends at respectable levels, even if at 2am.

Meanwhile it sounds like the cops overlook all night ragers in Dorchester and Roxbury..

Juniper Pearl plays George Bailey to Menino's Mr. Potter.

Twice a year, I go to a party near Codman Square in Dorchester, a party attended by lots of other nerds, geeks, SF fans, gamers, SCAdians and the like. The parties run quite late into the night -- overnight, in fact. None of us would be happy if the Boston Police stormed in at 1 am and made us all disperse.

"It's crazy. It's nuts," Mayor Thomas Menino told the Boston Globe. "We know all those parties bring bad events in our city. They always end up in some kind of violence."

Okay, Tommy needs to give a better definition of what those crazy, nutty, late night parties are (and how the hell does he know? He has NEVER accepted an invite to one of my all night keggers in Brighton).

The ones where innocent people get murdered at the end of the night? Sure, I'm all for that ban. A few kids having beers after the bars close (even if they do pee on the side of my house, those rascals)? I think I'd rather see the police spend their time on other matters, such as what happened to my garden gnomes last spring (those rascals again!).

Some college students (and other adults) are perfectly capable of having a party without disturbing their neighborhood, wreaking havoc, damaging property, or shooting people. I see no reason to punish those people with a blanket law.

However, having lived next to what my neighbors and I 'fondly' (not!) referred to as the Tufts Frat Boy Party House for too many years, I'm 100% behind shutting down parties that ARE disturbing the neighbors after 10pm.

Of course, this means the *community* actually getting INVOLVED and not just sitting on their collective asses waiting for City Hall to take care of everything for them by punishing the innocent with the guilty in one fell swoop.

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Jen Stewart

A city can pass and enforce noise ordances, but I'm pretty sure that a city can not tell adults who they can have in their domiciles and at what hours. I believe that extends way beyond their legal bounds. On the other hand, if one has 20 people over and the neighbors don't hear a peep, the city will never know about it in the first place. So, how exactly would they enforce it?

I'd love to see a civil-liberties-type convention in Boston where they tear apart the laws here.
We still have some old blue-laws to get rid of. More?!!? That's crazy-talk - trying to scare landlords and schools and whatnot into submission.

Then as the other comment states, it's just a form of mass punishment (pun intendend) that punishes the greater good for the deeds of a few bad apples. They told us not to do that in teacher-school.

I just recently moved out of Boston to the North Shore. Just in time, I think.

or at least peer pressure our neighbors into not shooting at late night parties.

Then it wouldn't be an issue that the mayor would have to comment on.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I realize the Boston cops have a longstanding issue with this one, being that "they aren't lawyers and can't be expected to know the law" when three people they don't like are holding signs. If they think this constitutes an "illegal rally" in their small minds, I'd hate to see what they define as a party.

I think there could be said to be a right to party, however, in that it is difficult to define a party versus an assembly of citizens. Of course, if other laws are broken, dispersal is warrented - but this is currently the case now. Somehow, I don't think outlawing freedom of assembly amok the constitution is going to do diddlysquat for late night raves.

I'm with Eeka. How would this be enforced? If parties are being LOUD, then that's a noise violation and enough grounds to break up the party...but otherwise???? Are they saying Boston residents would have to tattle on neighbors, etc?

Could Mumbles get these damn kids off my lawn while he's at it?

The Boston Police district where I live already have a system in place that could be and should be extended year-round in neighborhoods that are impacted most by gun violence: the Party Line (see http://www.dotnews.com/partyline.html) is a targeted way for neighbors to help police their own streets using a dedicated phone no. and police responders who are on overtime.
Calls for the program to be expanded in scope and duration have not yet resulted in any action, despite several other violent incidents. We shouldnt have to wait for the summer to have a tool like this. We had one man killed outside a party here over Thanksgiving and another on New Years Day.

like the one that Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone is now setting up. If he had such a committee, and listened to it, he wouldn't propose stupid ideas like this one.

Seems like our policing resources could be better spent elsewhere.

Thats not the answer

Clearly the majority of these areas in Boston cannot party responsibly (evident by the violence that these late parties bring and the many people that have been killed or injured as a result), so they NEED to be restircted until they learn to do so.

and a late-night noise ordinance can be tough to enforce at times. However, there are two things that can be done:

A) Legislators/lawmakers, etc can enact stronger gun control laws, since the presence of guns tends to exacerbate already tense, volatile situations.

B) Hosts/hostesses themselves who give parties in their homes/apartments, or wherever, can be responsible for either not serving alcohol or limiting the amount of alcohol that's served at parties, shut off drinkers who've had too much, booting real troublemakers out the door, and seeing to it that a really intoxicated person doesn't drive home drunk.

C) Extending the public transportation hours through the wee hours of the morning (i. e. between 1-4 a. m.) will make it so that drunk partygoers won't have to drive home and possibly maim/kill themselves or others in a car crash.