Confusion over bottle service at Boston club ends in punches, dueling allegations

The Boston Licensing Board today continued a hearing on a violent incident at Candibar in the Theater District after an out-of-town patron and the club's owner, sitting next to each other, took turns calling each other a liar.

The board agreed to extend its hearing to let police, the man and the club round up more witnesses to try to shed more light on just what happened shortly after midnight on Oct. 9.

All sides agreed that the incident involved a man seated at a bottle-service table who was asked to leave, and that the bouncer punched him in the forehead. Other details, however, presented a Rashomonish display of alleged facts for board members and observers to select from.

A police detective said the man claimed he was sucker punched for no reason after being kicked out, again for no reason.

Club staffers told police that the man was argumentative, wanted to walk around the club with the bottle from his table and began calling club workers "niggers" and "spics" as he was being escorted out - and that the bouncer punched him in self defense after he appeared to be winding up to take a swing at him.

But the man, a Norton resident, called that account absurd. When he came up to testify, he sat with his wife, a dark-skinned woman from the Dominican Republic, and said "those disgusting words would never could out of my mouth." He added that most of his clients at his Brockton business are Haitian and Cape Verdean.

The man said he and his wife came up to Boston for a day in town. They spent the day shopping, then after Googling Boston clubs, picked Candibar and Ubered over. He said that after spending some time there, on a slow night, they wandered into the room with bottle service and decided to get a table - paying $350 for the table and a bottle of Johnny Walker Black.

But then the server walked away - and took the bottle with her - he said. The man said he and his wife were confused by that. "We thought that was a little odd," he said. Board Chairwoman Christine Pulgini said that's just state law - patrons in Massachusetts bars are not allowed to be left alone with a bottle of liquor.

The man said he questioned the server when she returned - she told him she needed to use the restroom - and that the woman motioned over a security guard. The man said he got up just to hear what the guy was saying in the noisy room, but before he knew it, the guard motioned over a couple more and they began escorting him up and out.

Once outside, he said, he turned to "address the issue," only to find a doorman sucker-punching him in the left forehead.

Owner Charles Delpidio angrily disputed the man's story.

"We're not in business to throw people out for no reason whatsoever," he told the board. Delpidio, sitting next to the man at the hearing, continued, "He was so far out of control, we asked him to leave."

Delpidio insisted the man had, in fact, been throwing racial slurs at club members and that the guy "hit and punched" the doorman, who is 66, first. Delpidio charged that when EMTs, called by Candibar, arrived, the man told them to tell Depidio "to go fuck myself."

The board did not set a specific date for the hearing to continue.