January 4, 2005
By Brian Ballou

A Brockton teenager is clinging to life after being shot yesterday on a street so crime-ridden that the mayor is advocating the use of surveillance cameras there.
 
     ``Crime has dropped over 30 percent in this city, but there are a couple of places - Green Street being one of them - that continue to be problematic,'' said Mayor John T. Yunits Jr.
 
     ``We're exploring the use of surveillance cameras as a way to attack this problem. The splendor of such a system is that it would give us the capability to monitor around the clock,'' he said.
 
     Parris Brown, 18, is in critical condition at Boston Medical Center. He was shot at least five times while smoking a cigarette in front of 113 Green St. shortly after midnight Sunday, according to the victim's older brother, who declined to give his name. The family lives two houses away, at 109 Green St.
 
     ``It's really tough out here, you don't know who has a gun nowadays,'' the brother said. ``The first day I moved here six months ago, I saw a man get shot in the head right in front of our house. And two kids were shot up down the street not too long ago.''
 
     The brother said Parris spent his day playing video games, but would occasionally join him on odd jobs. ``He didn't bother anyone.''
 
     But the landlord of a nearby house disagreed, saying the victim was involved in drugs.
 
     ``That house is a big reason why this street is so bad,'' the man said yesterday.
 
     Police visited 109 Green St. more than 100 times in 2004, according to their records.
 
      The mayor said he is working with the Plymouth District Attorney's Office to seize the house.
 
     Police made more than 1,100 total calls to Green Street last year. No arrests have been made in the shooting.
http://news.bostonherald.com/

 
HAVERHILL  2 a.m. closings will face review
Restaurants, bars defend new policy

By Meredith Goldstein, Globe Staff  |  July 10, 2005

Restaurant owners in Haverhill who successfully lobbied for longer nighttime hours are fighting to keep their 2 a.m. closing time on weekends, after an increase in police calls downtown, including a late-night stabbing in front of a bar last month.

The owners fear that the city License Commission may do away with the later closing time, which was approved on a trial basis this spring. The commission meets tomorrow night.

Previously, restaurants and bars in the city were required to close at 1 a.m. every night but Friday, when they were allowed to close at 2 a.m. But in March, bars and restaurants were allowed to begin closing an hour later on Thursdays and Saturdays, which owners said would make their businesses competitive with establishments in nearby cities, such as Lowell, that have a daily 2 a.m. closing time.

The commission said this past spring that it would determine after Labor Day whether the weekend 2 a.m. closing time would become permanent. But the issue has been placed on the agenda for tomorrow's meeting, for discussion only, according to License Commission member Joseph Edwards.

Edwards said the commission will not take a vote about the bar issue tomorrow night. He said the three-member board must advise the public if it plans to take a vote on the issue.

Owners say they hope that the stabbing outside Cheerleaders Sports Bar and Grill on Washington Street will not inspire the commission to eliminate a change that has improved weekend business.

''I think that one incident was just an isolated incident, and it doesn't have anything to do with the extended hours," said Francis Bevilacqua, a co-owner of River City Billiards, one of the establishments that petitioned for the later closing time. ''I believe it's one of those isolated cases that just happened."

The stabbing occurred at about 12:50 a.m. June 10. Police said three men who had been denied entry to the bar started a fight with a patron, who had stepped outside to have a cigarette. Police said two of the three men were charged with assault with intent to murder. The men had been denied entry into all downtown bars that night, according to police.

Edwards said the stabbing in front of Cheerleaders is not what inspired the planned discussion about the later closing time. He said the commission is taking up the issue because of complaints about people congregating outside downtown bars and an increase in late-night police calls downtown.

Edwards said the commission will evaluate how the later hours have affected the city so far, but will take into consideration that the outdoor congregating might be caused by the smoking ban.

City Councilor Mary Ellen Daly O'Brien, who brought the issue up with fellow councilors late last month, said she hopes the meeting will establish whether there are ways to curb late-night problems without changing the 2 a.m. closing time.

O'Brien said she has concerns about whether the later hours have created more police problems, but acknowledged that the stabbing outside Cheerleaders happened before the regular closing time of 1 a.m.

''I don't want to penalize bars and restaurants that have behaved correctly," she said.

O'Brien also believes that problems are more likely to arise when people are outside establishments smoking cigarettes. She suggested that bars with a designated outside smoking area may be better able to manage their clientele than bars where patrons are forced to smoke in the street.

''The places that have no problems all have places for people to go out and have a cigarette that are off the road," she said, mentioning the deck at The Tap and the smoking area at Pedro Diego's.

The problems that have occurred, restaurant owners say, are not because of the extended hours.

Michael Conneely, owner of The Peddler's Daughter, said bar owners have been responsible about patrolling their businesses at night and have made responsible decisions about who to let in. He said business has improved with the later hours. ''It's brought people in," he said.

Bevilacqua, of River City Billiards, said the hours have been key in retaining business. Most of his patrons are in their 20s, he said, and do not arrive at his bar until midnight. He said the extra hour gives them the time to actually spend money at the bar.

Bevilacqua added that he stops serving drinks about a half-hour before closing. When the bar closes at 1 a.m., that leaves them with only about a half-hour to order. ''They come out later," he said. ''That's the whole thing. Especially the younger crowd."

Former License Commission member George Florent, who served on the police force for 30 years, said he hopes the commission rejects the later hours. He said that his experience tells him that a 2 a.m. closing means police will have less time to focus on the rest of the city.

''My thoughts were that it would cause trouble, and it has caused trouble," he said.

Meredith Goldstein can be reached at mgoldstein@globe.com. 
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/07/10/2_am_closings_will_face_review?mode=PF
 
  

Smoke, coffee seen as weapons

September 22, 2005

Last Thursday, a man smoking a cigarette reported that a woman threw a cup of hot coffee on him, claiming that he was "assaulting" her with his secondhand smoke.

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