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No Garden party for Bruins fans, Menino says
By adamg on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 8:49pm
We'll have none of that: Fans outside the Garden after Game 6. Photo by Courtney Sacco.
Just not enough time to plan security, hizzonah determines:
"Some people get exuberant have a few and act up, and you know, this is a sport, and a lot of families who like to watch sports bring kids, and I wouldn't want to send the wrong message to anyone," said Mayor Menino.
Photo copyright Courtney Sacco. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.
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Comments
It's official
He has Alzheimer's. But like Castro, he'd never admit being sick.
bruins
The last thing the city needs is a crowd of thousands celebrating or bemoaning the results of the game. Crowds turn from happy to nasty in a second and ifthey do it gets very ugl;y very fast. Note the deaths that have occured after other"celebrations"
As far as providing police ,there will be a strong police presence in the city tonight. Most of the force will be out with 3/4 or so on overtime. An overtime tab that I, a resident of the city am paying.
i do not want my city to be ravaged by a bunch of asses, most of whom are from out of town, just because they want to "celebrate" the Bruins.
If you want to have a large gathering get one of the suburban theaters to show tghe Bruin or convince a suburb to show the game on their common.
One wonders.....
how did they figure it out for game 6?
Pathetic but no surprise after Menino sunk the Tall Ships in '09
My sympathies to the Garden area and North End businesses who will lose a HUGE night due to the latest pathetic Menino decision, not to mention the loyal B's fans who would have attended but won't be allowed to. Talk about a second class (or lower) capitol city. No doubt there was some failed behind the scenes effort by City Hall to extract (extort?) cash from Delaware North / Jacobs, ala the Tall Ships fisaco in 2009.
Spare me the notion that the dealbreaker was that adults may "have a few" in the presence of children. Please! Aren't the taps flowing at Fenway and the Garden in the presence of plenty of kids during every event? As for the BPD being unable to plan for it, given 48 hours, at a venue they are intimately familar with, if that's the case both Menino and Evans should step down forthwith. What would they do with a Tuesday morning (09-11-01) terrorist attack with no advanced notice? How this guy keeps getting elected is beyond comprehension.
Absolute cow town
This city always wants to play with the big boys in New York, Chicago and D.C., but can't even manage being Worcester half the time.
Let's not even talk about how the city needs to impose martial law on every area with a bar during these events because its cops can't figure out how not to aim rubber bullets at little girls' faces. Even college towns in the middle of nowhere eventually learn that lesson.
Showing it on the Greenway... that would be a great idea if this was an actual city that knew how to manage a space like that (hell, even Buffalo gets it right twice a year), but this is a town that managed to turn what could have been the next millennium park into a giant median strip.
Vancouver can host an Olympics and we can't even handle closed-circuit television. Even if the Bruins win, Boston's already lost this one.
Agreed
Menino is the Dead Hand of oppression, corruption and boredom on this city.
I hope this might cause some voters to wake up. What next, canceling the Scooper Bowl?
Aside from that, Evans hasn't been Police Commissioner for many years - last I knew he was a consultant for the London police. Ed Davis is the current commissioner.
Different Evans
You're thinking of Paul Evans. This is Supt. William Evans, second in command, basically. Whenever you see Davis at some big event/announcement, look for a skinny guy in uniform near him.
Set up a giant outdoor TV
on the Greenway, or City Hall Plaza, or the Esplanade, and have people assemble there to watch it.
The only problem is protecting the equipment if it rains tomorrow.
On the Greenway?
Nice idea, but that pathetic median strip would not be able to handle the logistics for such an endeavor, nor the crowd that would turn out. It's a useless strip of land.
The crowd would eventually spill out onto the side roads
and they would become effectively closed to traffic. Not a big deal. Nobody needs to be driving on those roads in the financial district at 11:15 pm anyway. And the nearest residential neighbors are all the way over on A Street in South Boston, so the noise won't bother anyone either.
My guess
Is there's laws against protesting / event organizing without a permit. Even if everyone BYOB's their own TV, they'd say it was an "organized event".
Seriously though, someone should organize something HUGE as a fuck you to this police state bullshit. This is unacceptable.
Um ...
Have to get a permit to assemble peaceably? Something in the first amendment says no. Doesn't stop cities and states and other official organizations from harassment, but they rarely win lawsuits over it.
No Ron, the problem is many
No Ron, the problem is many thousands of (let's face it) drunk rowdy people celebrating and pissing, I'll add, ( w/o a public safety plan.
Utter BS.
IOW, they can't scrounge up a few battalions of police officers, 10 swat teams, a few converted tactile buses and the donated APC.
Really, what did we ever do without them?
Oh, that's right. Everything was fine, a few police directed traffic, and every went home on the T when the bars closed or they got bored (instead of the new norm of police escalating the situation, and trying to provoke 100's of drunk idiots into making their day)
Boozing
Let's save all the liquoring up for the Yuppies down along the Seaport. Everyone else can go have no fun.
Never thought I'd defend
Never thought I'd defend Menino, but . . .
Here goes.
Plans should be developed by the Garden and the teams to show these games in the future.
BUT. People have died here during more anticipated celebrations.
The city and BPD can't bd expected to provide security last minute for an event of 16k with untold thousands showing up for the celebration.
Plan it and pay for the details.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrongwrongwrongwrong wrong. WRONG.
This town should have a plan somewhere in a damn drawer that has this detailed. He basically just threw BPD under the bus as incompetent morons who can't anticipate tomorrow.
As noted by other commenters, the reality is that the churlish fat bastard didn't get his shakedown from either the Bruins or Delaware North (or both).
Such a petulant, petty, small minded little fuck, Hizzonah is.
WRONG
The police have killed people during similar celebrations.
2 if I'm not mistaken.
ok can the garden, how about
ok can the garden, how about can we borrow City Hall's VIP parking lot (aka plaza) for the night?
Boston City Incompetence
A case of Massachusetts residents being subject to over-the-top regulations and bans for past political and police incompetence.
What the hell is the point of 9/11 security funding!?
Well played, Menino.
You just informed the terrorists that if they plan to bomb the Garden during a hockey game, you don't have faith in your officers to be able to respond on a moment's notice to the widespread hysteria and panic that would be unleashed on the North Station area.
Or...are we ready for another 9/11 with all our fancy tools and guns and security/evacuation protocols...just not a simple Stanley Cup victory?
Goddamn tools. Vancouver had people STARTING in the goddamn streets around their arena last night to watch the game on the chance that they'd win! Imagine filling Causeway St while the game was broadcast on the side of the Garden and everyone could attend FOR FREE! Nope. Kids might come...and then someone might do something stupid and the kids' parents would be powerless...POWERLESS!...to use it as a lesson of how to distinguish right from wrong.
Damnit I hate this country's "think of the children", lowest-common-denominator practices. Damn it.
DON'T!!
Don't drink sugary drinks
Don't eat trans fats
Don't smoke cigars in a CIGAR SHOP
Don't go to a private indoor venue to watch a game
Don't vote for gandpa Menino next time!
VAN
Those Nuck fans looked pretty lame.
The best place to watch the game is on my couch with my food and drinks.
Amen, Kaz
Screening the game on the side of the Garden would have been epically awesome.
This whole scenario could have provided the city with an opportunity to show that it wouldn't fuck things up given another big-time event hitting our streets. For a metropolis that supposedly considers itself world-class enough to possibly make a bid on the 2020 Olympics, this is utterly pitiful.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
So we've seen what happens
So we've seen what happens when the Sox win and thousands gather in Kenmore... Couldn't the whole thing a controlled much better if people were kept in the Garden? If you're screening the game inside the garden and you end up with a bunch of rowdy fans at the end you at least have them contained in the garden and not on the streets. You also have much tighter control over the alcohol flow like during a regular game. But I read the Bruins couldn't agree with NBC for licensing rights to show it in the garden (didn't want to pay)?
Nope, it was the Mayor and only the Mayor
There was an initial rumor on Twitter that NBC killed it, but when NBC Sports was contacted, they said that no such decision against it was made and that they had already agreed to allow it with the Bruins.
The Bruins wanted it. The NHL wanted it. NBC wanted it. The Garden wanted it.
The Mayor squashed it.
Putz
Wow. If that is all true then the Mayor really has a lot to answer for here. Not being to be able to be a drunk asshole in the street with a bunch of other so-inclined folks (many of whom probably never watched a Bruins game until the last few weeks) does not exactly cause me to break out violins and my ACLU card, but ....
First they came for the drunken assholes, and I didn't speak out because I'm not (at this moment in time) a drunken asshole.
Where does it end??
(And good point on the 9-11, Homeland Security Theater prep measures that we have to deal with continuously. What? They can only deal with emergencies that are planned out months in advance?)
I am skeptical that the City (Mayor) alone could do this.
I won't be quite as emphatic as the guy below (call the AG, etc.), but there must be more than meets the eye here. Really, by what right would the City (or for that matter, the Mayor) prevent the owner of a private building from allowing people into it (absent a condemnation/structual safety issue, etc.)? If someone could let us know by what right the City could do this, I would be very interested to read the proffered laws and legal reasoning.
I get the Kenmore Square prohibition, as those are City-owned spaces, but a private building? Does this mean that if the City (or Mayor) so decided that it did not like State Street anymore it could lawfully prevent its employees and guests from entering 1 Lincoln or any of their offices in town? This just doesn't sound right to me. There must be more to this.
The City works for the Mayor.
The City works for the Mayor. And the Mayor does what he likes.
Imagine: BWSC finds a reason to do emergency unscheduled work outside the Garden and shuts off the water. City inspectors enter the venue on a random inspection. There's no water? Venue shut down.
Or BFD has no Captain available to certify the facility for the night. Or, BPD refuses to send detail offices. Or food permits are suspended due to anonymous complaints. Or, or, or.
The Mayor rules this town.
And ...
The Laws rule the Mayor - or, at least they do in a democracy or a city not stuck in the machine corruption rule of the nineteenth century.
Under what authority?
Seriously. Under what authority can the mayor say boo about this?
Does it require some sort of variance in hours for a weekday under some sort of license or permit?
Is there Rule of Law in Boston? Being a Feudal Citadel doesn't bode well for modern economic development.
It's a good thing Vancouver had a better record this year
It's also a good thing we couldn't win in Vancouver all series so far!
Could you imagine a Game 7 without anyone in the stands at the Garden? It would have been a NATIONAL embarrassment! I mean, without a capable plan in place, there's no way Menino could have justified letting the fans attend the game as we've been told.
Whew...glad we dodged that bullet there. Go Bruins (in Vancouver)!
ew
Re: the accompanying photo...now that's a "heavy lift."
menino is violating people's rights by not allowing a private pa
Let's file complains against Mayor Menino to attorney general.
By MA, State Law a Mayor can not block a private organization's party.
If Jeremy Jacob and the Bruins organization decided to open his doors , Mayor can not block it!
CALL ATTORNEY GENERAL MARTHA COAKLEY AT10:00am and file a complain against Menino!
Good luck
Martha wouldn't care...unless you told her the Mayor is hiding a Lite-Brite in his office.
Not Enough Time For Police Union Extortion Talks
Remember the Tall Ships?
Also, wouldn't it be far better to have the nonsense in a holding pen rather than distributed throughout the city? This way, lots of bars will make a lot of money selling lots of beer, and then "drunk in city + celebration" as an excuse for wilding.
"Holding pens" are usually worse.
Menino is looking at this situation as a lose/lose one.
-The Garden/Bruins would pay for X(20-50)% of the police OT/details (FYI the police OT/details in the city is probably going to be at the same staffing level regardless of the Garden Party. Also, there IS a police plan in place for any game 7 and it would be the same if they had a garden party with no game there.
So Basically there was a plan for game 6, and that plan would be the same if there were to be a garden party. And that same amonut of cops is going to be the same regardless.
Question, Pete
Until I hear from the city or someone more in the know than you might be, what exactly does Menino derive his authority from in keeping The Garden from hosting a viewing party tonight?
Not 100% sure.
But I assume these large venues need confirmation with the city for any event they want to have. The sports teams always have detailed schedules and TBA schedules that are approved in advance. Every park also has a police detail plan that is approved well in advance for every event.
Also you need special permits for any extra event you want I think. Sporting events are covered I would assume, and I know like the EMC club at Fenway has to get approval for weddings and stuff but those permits are good for the year.
So I don't have an offical answer but I assume it has to do with special permits and maybe alcohol.
Genteel Canucks fans? We'll see.
Per an interesting NY Times article today, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/sports/hockey/nh... Vancouver fans rioted to the tune of $1M in damages the last time the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup in seven games (1994). The hope is that the Olympics taught them better behavior, but I'll be curious to see how they act. Maybe all that weed will mellow them out.
As for Boston, we sure seem to get blotto and tear sh*t up when we win a big one, and history has shown our police aren't the greatest at handling such scenarios. I agree that this shouldn't be, but without convincing evidence that this issue has been fixed, I'm not totally against Menino's decision here. I don't want the B's victory tarnished with another fan death due to inept crowd control.
Thankful for . . .
. . . the small things. Talk about NIMBY? Well- on this - guilty. Police and EMT sirens til 4:30AM I do not appreciate.
Sorry, neighbor
That's going to happen regardless of whether the people come out of the bars or out of The Garden.
Bruins Hockey Rules
I award the rare and coveted
+1,000 Internets to you, sir.
+everything
I was going to give you an internet, but Michael already gave you 1,000.
A Modest Proposal
Get a super projection device and a satelite hookup.
Put lots of chairs and 40 kegs down in the Menino-BRA Memorial Hole in DTX.
Project the game on the shrouds covering the ripped open and abandoned side of the building.
Must pass a breathalizer test to leave the whole.
WIN!
Mr. Mayor, give Bostonians
Mr. Mayor, give Bostonians what they increasingly demand... Bread and Circus.... and also you'll be re-elected.