Board shuts Union Street bar over murder outside; says place was a public-safety menace

The Boston Licensing Board voted unanimously this morning to shut Sons of Boston on Union Street indefinitely because of the stabbing murder of Daniel Martinez on March 19 and earlier incidents that board members said proved the place was "an abject failure" in protecting the public.

A complete lack of adequate security measures - including failing to do background checks on employees - "led to serious public-safety issues and now Daniel Martinez is dead," board Chairwoman Kathleen Joyce said. "I don't believe Sons of Boston can adequately protect the public." She said that among the bar's training lapses: Adequately training bouncers and door staff on how to de-escalate incidents.

Board member Keeana Saxon blasted the bar for "a series of abject failures," and said whether they were intentional or just examples of "gross negligence," Sons of Boston has forfeited its right to stay open.

Video of the hearing on Martinez's death:

Joyce, Saxon and board member Liam Curran listed a litany of issues that started even before Martinez's death, allegedly by being stabbed by bouncer Alvaro Omar Larrama, 39, of East Boston. On Oct. 9, another "very angry" bouncer began threatening to fight passersby and when the police arrived and another bouncer tried to get him to stop, he shoved that man into a wall and began yelling "fuck the police!"

Hearing on Oct. 9 incident:

The bar fired that bouncer but failed to do anything to adequately train bouncers or check to make sure they had no criminal past, as required by regulations, Joyce said. The bar had "a complete absence of a security plan," she said.

On the night of Martinez's murder, board members continued, the bar and its employees did pretty much everything wrong:

Even after workers and manager Jason Kuczynski realized something was seriously wrong - and Larrama had fled - they never called police. Kuczynski never tried to keep Larama in the bar after he rushed inside following the stabbing. Video showed that not only did Larrama go to the bar basement to change out of his clothes, another bar worker "brought him a change of clothes."

The roving worker who went outside and spotted Larrama in "an altercation" should have immediately called police, Curran said.

Despite Kuczynski saying doormen only got to work the door after two weeks of training, and that bar policy was to always have two on duty, after the stabbing, the door was staffed by just one man, who had never worked for the bar before and was just working that one night, Joyce said.

Joyce said that everything that had happened with the bar in the past, combined with what happened the night of the murder showed that something like Martinez's death could have been foreseen - and prevented had the bar done things the right way.