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Police: Canal Street bar becoming a major nuisance

The Boston Licensing Bar decides Thursday what to do about alleged incidents at Hurricane O'Reilly's, 150 Canal St., one involving a man who says he was held by a bouncer while other patrons punched and bit him, the other involving three teenagers who got soused using older friends' licenses.

"It's becoming a troubled premise," Boston Police Sgt. John Devaney told the licensing board. "We're down there every weekend ... Young kids, fights, disorder."

Jack Brewer of Norwood told the board that he was "having a good time" dancing at the bar the night of March 13 - along with all the other drunken people celebrating St. Patrick's Day. He said he was leaving the dance floor when his left arm was grabbed by a bouncer - who proceeded to hold him while other people bit him in the shoulder and punched him. He was taken to Mass. General, where, he said, he had to get stitches and a tetanus shot. He said he also had to undergop physical therapy for 16 weeks to regain the full use of his arm.

Club officials, however, said Brewer was involved in only a very brief scuffle on the dance floor and that both he and a group of five or six people from East Boston were escorted out before things could get out of hand.

In a separate incident on May 16, Det. Kevin McGill said, he and Devaney were doing inspections of bars in the North Statino area when they heard yelling and saw what appeared to be a Hurricane O'Reilly's bouncer standing over some guy lying on the ground.

The guy on the ground got up and began walking toward the Haymarket T stop. McGill said he caught up with the guy and two female acquaintances and eventually learned all three were underage. The guy, bleeding from a cut over one eye, was 18 and using the license of somebody nine years older and several inches taller, he told the board, adding he didn't even look 18, let alone 27.

At that point, police asked bar workers to clear the premises and shut down for the night in case there were any other underage drinkers inside, McGill said.

Bar managers acknowledged they should not have let the trio in and that they fired the bouncer who held the kid to the ground, even though they said the kid probably deserved the treatment. "The kid was a punk on the ground saying he was going to go back in and take care of business," one manager said. "He was an idiot."

Board member Michael Connolly, noting the bar's owners own seven other bars in Boston, said the incident should never have happened, given their collective expertise. Managers said they have since done staff retraining.

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Comments

Disclaimer: I work for Stump! Trivia/Trailside Entertainment, and several bars owned by Glynn (H O'R's parent company) are clients of ours.

Your employee does not pin a patron to the ground EVER. If he's causing trouble, the only reason you touch him is to lead him out the door. I don't usually side with Pokaski and his merry band of scumbags, but the bar is clearly in the wrong here.

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Hurricane has been a known masstrash bar for a few years now. Pretty much the same atmosphere as you used to find at the Kells, plus the added C's and B's related testosterone.

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