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Theater District club fires bouncers who tried to keep cop from investigating soused patron
By adamg on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 8:24am
Guilt faces possible sanctions for over-serving customers - and trying to keep a Boston Police detective from investigating one drunken woman while writing the club a sanction for two other inebriated customers.
The Boston Licensing Board decides Thursday what action, if any, to take against the Tremont Street club for twin incidents on Dec. 4.
At a hearing yesterday, a Boston Police detective told the board he arrived at the club around 1:15 a.m. to find a drunken man walking away from the club while carrying a passed-out woman on his shoulders. After investigating that, he went into Guilt to issue them a citation for over-serving patrons.
He said that as he was writing out the citation, he noticed another apparently drunk woman proving unable to get up some stairs. He said when bar workers noticed him looking at her, some hustled over to get her up the stairs and away from them. When he took out a camera to video the woman, he said, two bouncers put their hands in front of his camera to keep him from capturing her on video.
A Guilt manager told the board the bouncers have been fired and that the staff has been retrained to not interfere with police.
The detective added that the initial two drunk patrons were way past tipsy: "These people were annihilated."
The licensing board will also consider possible sanctions against Whiskey Priest on Northern Avenue for letting a woman under 21 sip a vodka and soda at the bar, at least until two BPD detectives on a routine inspection asked her for ID. A Whiskey Priest manager told the board the doorman who let the woman in without checking ID had been fired. He said the doorman failed to check her ID because she was a regular.
Also possibly in trouble tomorrow: Felt on Washington Street, for an incident in which the current girlfriend of a waitress's ex-boyfriend either poured or spilled a drink on the waitress's head. A club manager said the woman claimed it was an accident, which they said is not uncommon, and that the waitress returned to work. After leaving for the night, however, the waitress sought out police.
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Comments
Huh?
So a club/bar can get its license suspended because a woman comes into the bar and pours her drink on her boyfriends' ex-girlfriend? Are they supposed to issue their bouncers the photos of the staff's jilted ex's?
Our tax dollars at work.
What a joke.
That the BLB would even entertain such an idea is proof of how grossly they overreach.
You might as well cite a convenience store or a bank when they get held up.
Guilt-y!
I guess it's hard to get a fair hearing when the name of your club is "Guilt."
On a related note... is Boston Nightlife Ventures still planning on renaming the "Felt" nightclub to "Sin"?
Boston Nightlife Ventures is
Boston Nightlife Ventures is not associated with Felt
A few more details
Apologies for being perhaps too terse.
According to police, the waitress told officers club managers refused to do anything about the woman who'd poured a drink on her head, such as ordering her out of the club (let's not forget that pouring a drink on somebody's head on purpose could be considered assault and battery, which is a felony).
Based on that, police wrote out a citation, which by itself only means Felt has to explain itself before the licensing board - which could vote to just dismiss the citation.
At the hearing, Felt's manager said they agreed to reassign the waitress to another part of the club for the evening, that she didn't seem at all angry or agitated, that they didn't get the sense after talking to the drink pourer that she'd deliberately poured the drink on the waitress's head and that the waitress not only finished her shift, but worked at Felt for another month. So, yeah, what else were they supposed to do?
Board Chairwoman Nicole Murati Ferrer, however, said the waitress might have had reasons to conceal her feelings - waitresses work on tips and if she really needed the money, she might have sucked it up (not her exact words) and kept working.
In any event, Felt also had to answer to five other complaints on five other incidents, from relatively trivial (guy's coat disappeared from the coat check) to more serious (patron allegedly punched a cop). All those will be decided tomorrow as well (complete list; Felt stuff starts at item 9).
shoe on the other foot, gumshoe?
When he took out a camera to video the woman, he said, two bouncers put their hands in front of his camera to keep him from capturing her on video.
Aha, how's that feel?
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/201...