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Troubled Fenway bar to be shut permanently
By adamg on Tue, 02/02/2016 - 8:54pm
Who's on First on Yawkey Way will be going away, Red Sox President Sam Kennedy said tonight at a meeting between Red Sox officials and Fenway residents.
Daniella Torres, who attended the meeting, reports Red Sox officials began working to move the bar out of its Yawkey Way location following the fatal shooting of a bar customer as he exited the bar at closing on Nov. 26. No time has been set yet for the bar's final day, however.
In addition to Jephthe Chery's murder, two women were shot outside the bar on Sept. 6.
In both cases, the Boston Licensing Board ruled the bar was not responsible for the shootings. Police say, however, the bar has proven a magnet for violence and that they have cited the bar several times over the past few years.
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Comments
"This will give us just the
"This will give us just the right amount of leverage to break lease and not get sued. Hey, you over there--the unpaid intern! Send a wire to China and tell them to increase tchochke production post-haste! We're openin' up another store-front!"
Roll 'Em Up. - Clark Griswold
This is a clear move by the Sox to give their suburban attendance base a sense of protection from the perceived threat of bad people in the city (i.e. black people).
The shootings are very much a thing to be concerned about, but these shootings happened after midnight in a bar that is shut off during game days by the Sox anyway.
If the 6 black people attending a typical Red Sox game acted as moronic / drunk as Bubba from Hubbardston or Jimma from Wilmington during / after games there would be calls for riot police on Van Ness Street nightly.
Beautiful window dressing Henryco; Getting rid of the asinine perception to their base of dangerous black people at a bar on a street named for an avowed racist on the first week of Black History Month.
Are you stupid
It's to creat a safe atmosphere for all people, including the young black man murdered their, who was by all accounts a stand up guy!
Go pander elsewhere. The bar failed to run a safe establishment and is getting the boot.
Are you stupid
Good question, but you followed it up with a spelling and grammar mistake. Also, you might have wanted to use a question mark.
Ha Ha, what are you talking about
Ha, how is anyone supposed to 'create' a safe atmosphere down the street from their establishment? Are you required to ensure no one gets shot at down the street from your house? I didn't think so.
Absurd
I'd wager the amount of game-attending suburban fans who are paying attention to what is happening with this bar is three, give or take three.
As a somewhat unwilling suburbanite,
The perceptions I hear from people about what happens north of the Neponset are funny to the absurd. I actually had someone tell me that they were concerned going into Fenway to watch one of the pre-Thanksgiving football games in case there was "trouble".
It is a different world out here and the perception of people can be way off base from how you think.
That's very true.
That's very true.
It's also very true that Who's on First has been a dump and problem spot for a long time. No tears shed on its loss. I'm as against cookie-cutter chains as anyone, but Who's is a special instance of a place that we can do without. I'm sure the actual neighbors are thrilled.
As an actual neighbor that
As an actual neighbor that lives a block a way I say good riddence that place is a dump. I remember as a freshman in college being able to get in that place at 18, they didnt care.
I too would like to see every
I too would like to see every place that ever served me beer before I was 21 shuttered. I can't believe those scumbags would allow me to do that.
Closing down that particular bar has nothing to do with racism.
Given the fact that the Fenway area is often not the best area to walk around in at night anyway, the fact that the bar is right close to Fenway Park, and the fact that many fans get drunk as hell during games and become much nastier and much rowdier, especially when the NY Yankees or some baseball team like that in town and the Red Sox are losing, it's not a half-bad thing that this bar is being permanently closed. What's even more unfortunate, however, is that it took something like a murder in order for the closing of this bar to take place.
Correct
As much as we want to blame NIMBYism, this is a safety issue. Besides, why don't you attack the reported racism in Brookline? Oh right, faux liberalism...
Meh
I'm old enough to have partied, or 'clubbed' down on Yawkey Way back when Axis and a couple other clubs were there. It was pretty well known they slowly did away with all clubs that played hip hop music or had hip hop nights. Maybe it was justified, maybe it was a racist, but it definitely was a thing that happened. Tough situation though, on one hand we want to complain about the lack of options for minorities, but there's usually some form of violence when we do get something.
YOU'RE THINKING OF
Landsdowne. Yawkey way is a small city street adjacent to Fenway full of souvenir stores that the Red Sox somehow bought/took over from the City of Boston. On game days the road is closed to the public and that bar has essentially had its business disrupted by the Red Sox.
All I can say about the hip-hop thing is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ meh...
It's not a racist thing, I don't care what anyone says. As a metal kid growing up and still today, I cahllenge anyone thinking it's racist to find me a venue in Boston that embraces Heavy Metal and consistently has metal shows. They don't exist. Thats what Worcester is for. Boston loves the shoegaze/indy rock scene where scared little college kids and white suburbanites stand around sipping PBR and bobbing their heads a bit at the most.
Matel and hip-hop/rap have always had rambunctious if not straight up violent shows.
Not quite
Chances are, you won't be pounded to a bloody pulp for wearing a Mortician t-shirt at a Cannibal Corpse show, but you can easily catch a bullet of five for wearing a wrong-colored hat at a hip hop concert.
You have no idea what you're
You have no idea what you're talking about. That bar is, and has been, open every game day and night.
Yawkey Way closure
When Yawkey Way is closed off for games, how do people who don't have game tickets get into this bar?
Brookline Ave
There is an alleyway on Brookline Ave that has a back door entrance which non game ticket people can use to enter the bar.
Perceived threat- sounds more
Perceived threat- sounds more like actual threat when there are multiple shootings (one resulting in murder) outside the same bar in short time frame (weeks/months - not years/decade). If the bar caters to a particular clientele and that clientele causes trouble for the neighborhood, then I'd say the bar is somewhat culpable.
Other bars shut for same reason: Upstairs/Downstairs (formerly the Pony Room); Packy Connors (I think there was another recently in the Brighton area) I would not call either of these closing a racist - more due to the shootings and stabbings that continuously happened between patrons just outside the establishment.
The bar is actually open
The bar is actually open during all Fenway games and concerts
This is
The sox got a two-for here. Close down an establishment they see as a blight which scares aunt milly from New Hampshire when she comes to her one Red Sox game per year and rent out the space to someone more desirable (another overpriced restaurant probably). Can't help but think John Henry really flexed his influence here
Once you get the money, then
Once you get the money, then you get the power, once you get the power, then you get to play.
"The bar has proven a magnet for violence"
Ah, the bastard cousin of "she was drunk and wearing a skimpy dress, so it's her fault." I was waiting for that to come out.
Is it too much to demand of certain black bar patrons that they listen to a rap record and drink alcohol without flying off the handle into a murderous rage? I don't think that's an unreasonable inquiry, especially since I can tell you that the conscious business strategy of at least two Boston bars is "don't play rap on the weekends because it attracts troublemakers." Same reason you see a dress code.
To suggest that it's a bar's fault that a black-on-black crime occurred outside their premises is insulting to black people, who should be treated as equals and held to accountability.
Of course, that blacks who are hundredthousandaires at absolute best (I would bet that I can count the number of black millionaires in Boston on two hands, and I would bet double that none of them have been to Who's on First in the offseason) won't have this bar to visit anymore means jack (expletive), since the white billionaire who owns the shop across the street doesn't want it there.
All it took was somebody's death to make that happen, but in the realm of excuse making, it's still less flimsy than "we're going to try to have somebody else deliver the newspaper."
Wow
Are you acquainted with the facts of the case, and so know that this was a case of "certain black patrons...listen[ing] to a rap record and drink[ing] alcohol" and then "flying off the handle into a murderous rage"? Just give those black people rap music and alcohol and look what happens, that the idea?
YOU SIR
Come off sounding like a GIANT douche bag.
Instead of using veiled passive aggressive racism, why don't just put on your white hood and say what you mean?
Also, maybe you could provide a link to where you got your information on successful black people and how many there are in the area.
I live in the neighborhood
I live in the neighborhood and I support the closing of this troubled establishment. Some people say the bar is not responsible for the problems outside it. But bars aren't supposed to overserve alcohol to people, and I am willing to bet that an alcohol fueled rage was involved in some if not all of these terrible events. As to the patrons, if they don't want their bar shut down then they should clean up their act. And no one has talked about the bullies who have been employed there as bouncers. More than one broken limb has come out of the bouncers' actions at that establishment. Good riddance to the place!
When the answer to the Abbott & Costello
routine "Who's on First" is "the guy with the bullet wound", I think its time to go.
Family Atmosphere
Fenway Park has really tried hard and succeeded in promoting a family atmosphere.
I have been to Who's on First and the bar is gross. Don't get me wrong, I love a good dive bar but a skanky gross bar does not fit in with the family atmosphere that Fenway Park is trying to promote.
"Family atmosphere"
Not defending this particular bar, or trashy behavior in general, but the whole "family atmosphere" thing has always annoyed me somewhat. It's pandering and it's as if the only thing we can do to push back against people acting like barbarians is to screech, "Think of the CHILDREN!" It's like the damn Baby on Board signs. People, not "families", are deserving of decency and civil treatment.
As a business owner
I'm just trying to wrap my head around the ability of an outside entity to take someone's livelihood away for something that happened outside the establishment.
No one who worked there shot anyone.
The violence took place out on the street.
I haven't seen any reports of the owners or employees being negligent in a way that could have caused this.
So what do we have here?
It is a dive bar that the neighbors didn't approve of.
Black people were somehow involved.
It doesn't promote a "family atmosphere"?
What was the violation? What are the owners guilty of legally? Not your "opinion"?
Pretty scary.
U ARE A 100 PERCENT RIGHT THE
U ARE A 100 PERCENT RIGHT THE OWNER HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT AND THEY DID NOT FIND HIM WRONG AT ALL IN FRONT OF THE BOARD THIS IS ABOUT THE REDSOX AND THE PEOPLE THAT OWN THE STORE ABOVE THE BAR TO GET A SMALL BUSINESS OWER OUT THAT IS MAKING A LIVING FOR HIM SELF SO THEY CAN TAKE THE SPACE OVER AND MAKE MORE MONEY FOR THEM SELF WHEN DOES IT BECOME ENOUGH THAT U PIGS HAVE TO PUT THIS POOR GUY OUT OF BUSINESS
OKAY
GLAD WE GOT THAT OUT OF THE WAY AND DIDNT USE ANY PUNCTUATION BECAUSE WHO NEEDS THAT SHIT ANYWAY U PIGS
All Caps Aside
If that is true then that is in fact, BS!
The bar owner developed the environment that attracted
The bar owner developed the environment that attracts violent people. I'm not one who encourages yet another liability case, but it's justified to just shut down the place if the owner has no interest in changing whatever attracts these types.
I am not a child
And I love dive bars but taking a bullet should never be on the menu. This place was a shithole among shitholes back in the 80s- now it's a dangerous bucket'o'blood
Your info is incorrect
Two women in September were not shot outside this bar, they were shot outside Boston Beer Works. Please get your facts straight as now other reporters are using your incorrect reporting in their news articles.
http://www.wbur.org/2015/09/06/fenway-shooting-non-life-threatening-inju...
Um ...
There's a reason Boston Police cited Who's on First and not Boston Beer Works for the shooting.