Roxbury bar faces more punishment for role in October murder

Four months after the city licensing office lambasted the Breezeway on Blue Hill Avenue as a menace to the public, the Boston Licensing Board gets its chance on Thursday.

The licensing board, which oversees liquor licenses, decides then what action, if any, to take against the bar for a double shooting that left one man dead outside its entrance on Oct. 23.

In its own ruling in November, the Mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing, which oversees entertainment licenses, noted disagreement between the bar and police as to whether the alleged victim had been in the bar before the shooting but said it didn't really matter because the Breezeway has become such a magnet for unruly men spoiling for trouble:

Regardless of whether or not these victims were patrons, it can simply be said that the area outside the Breezeway at and around their closing time is not safe for any member of the public. This is attributable to the licensee's operation, their record of poor management and their propensity to attract unruly patrons which has made their operation the source of disruptive activity and has brought them outside of applicable requirements.

The licensing division noted numerous problems dating to 2005, including stabbings, near riots, fights and attacks on police officers. Last year, the licensing division ordered the Breezeway shut for 22 days - and the licensing board piled on with its own two-week suspension after a closing-time brawl that took 25 police officers to clear.

The licensing division ordered the bar shut for 13 days, its maximum occupancy reduced from 134 to 110 people, prevent patrons from loitering outside and lower the volume of music.

At a licensing-board hearing today, police said they responded to a call from bar manager Nick Stomatos to find a man mortally shot outside the bar and another man shot in the leg nearby. The surviving victim told police he had been inside the bar before the shooting, which Stomatos denied. Video from the bar showed the shooter coming from two blocks away and passing by the bar entrance before he opened fire.

Also at issue: A bottle of Hennessy found outside the bar the night of the shootings, which led to a police citation for letting a patron take liquor outside. Bar attorney Robert Russo at first said the bottle could not have come from the Breezeway. "My client doesn't serve Hennessy. We don't sell Hennessy at all."

"They serve Hennessy," police Det. Richard Henshaw, who attended the hearing. interjected.

Stomatos then said that while, yes, the bar sells Hennessy, it doesn't stock the small-sized bottle police found. Henshaw, however, said the bottle had a nipple on it, of the sort only a bar would normally use. Under questioning from Russo, he acknowledged anybody could buy a liquor-bottle nipple, but said he doubted you'd actually see anybody walking down the street with a nipple-equipped liquor bottle.