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'Embarrassed' manager at West Roxbury Corrib fires two waitresses who let a pair of 20-year-olds drink beers

Managers at certain Boston restaurants and bars make frequent trips to the Boston Licensing Board to answer police citations for liquor-law violations. The Corrib Pub in West Roxbury is not one of them. Today, however, Corrib manager Tony Bligh had to explain why police on a routine inspection found two 20-year-old women with Coors Lites in front of them on Jan. 5.

Bligh offered no excuses - in fact, he read a statement that started, "I am embarrassed to be in front of this board."

Bligh told the board said an off-dutry waitress came in with two friends and the on-duty waitress failed to card them because she assumed the other waitress wouldn't let them try to buy beers if they weren't of age.

Unfortunately for them and the restaurant, Boston Police detectives William Gallagher and Robert Mulvey chose that moment to conduct an unscheduled inspection of the restaurant. Gallager said his attention was immediately drawn to a table with young-looking patrons and that when he asked for ID, the two admitted they were underage.

Ironically, the whole situation may have arisen because the Corrib is a restaurant that prides itself on its family ties and close-knit workforce. Bligh said the server had worked at the Corrib for eight years - and that her brothers before her had also worked there. The off-duty waitress had also worked at the Corrib for several years - and she has a sister who used to work there. All the women involved also had ties because they'd gone to Boston Latin School together, he said.

"There was a trust level there," one that was violated as police entered the place, he said.

"I had to let them go," he continued, adding he held immediate staff meetings to reinforce restaurant policy to card everybody and to schedule training in dealing with potential liquor issues. "I told them this can't happen," he said.

The Corrib's lawyer, David Eisenstadt, said the restaurant has never been before the licensing board in the 23 years for which he has records, and is an integral part of the West Roxbury community, to which it donates thousands of dollars a year for everything from youth hockey to Pop Warner. He added that only about 30% of its revenue comes from bar sales.

The licensing board decides Thursday what action, if any, to take about both this incident and an unrelated incident on Feb. 6, in which a man came out of the men's room covered in blood, claiming some guy had just smashed him with a glass. A Boston Police officer on detail duty that night - called in because of the Super Bowl - was unable to find the alleged assailant, although he did report finding a smashed glass on the floor of the men's room. The man declined medical attention.

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Comments

....embarrassed that anyone drinks Coors Light.

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Seeing not one, but two people drink Coors Light was probably what tipped them off that something was very wrong.

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I'm glad those detectives were there to prevent those two adults from having a good time.

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If a cop comes up to you in a bar and asks for ID, or asks how old you are, what rights to you have?

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somebody did get killed right outside several years ago.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/roslindale/news/x173721...

more recently...

http://westroxbury.patch.com/articles/corrib-pub-g...

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Couple of things:

The 2005 incident started in Dedham and only happened to wind up outside the Corrib.

The second incident was the one I mentioned at the end of my post. The detail cop on duty that night painted a rather different picture: He couldn't find any evidence of an assailant, the guy with blood pouring out of his forehead had rather slurred speech and at one point he tried to put his bloody hand up to the cop's face. So was there actually a fight in the men's room? Nobody else in the bar that night heard any evidence of fighting.

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I'd like to read about that - I didn't know that the 2005 fight started in Dedham.

Thanks.

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Sorry about that!

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Oh, good heavens! I cannot BELIEVE they allowed such young children to drink light beer in their establishment! Those children will be scarred for life1 I surely hope the board takes that license away immediately! And puts the owner in jail for a very long time! Does he have ANY IDEA the harm he's caused? Thank GOODNESS the good police officer was there to lessen the damage done to those poor little CHILDREN!

(/snark)

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. (The drinking age, the enforcement of the drinking age, the fact that the police hauled the bar before the board over a couple of light beers being drunk by 20 year olds, the drinking age. Or did I say that already).

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Drive without restrictions.
Emigrate on their own.
Immigrate on their own.
Get married.
Sign their own tax returns.
Join the military and serve in a war zone.
Sign contracts for credit cards, mortgages, car loans, employment,etc.
Be the legal parent and guardian of children without restriction.
Legally adopt.
Run for local office.
Drink in most of Canada and Europe.
etc.

I hope we one day have a civilized country where it won't be a crime for an adult to have a beer with dinner. I can't think of a better way for young people to learn to consume alcohol responsibly than with a meal in a social situation.

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which was my former stumbling distance bar in Roslindale. (Well, now it's a former bar, but that's another story..)

I was involved with a disturbing incident at the Corrib President's Day weekend. Loudmouth white boy against a loudmouth black boy and his friends. Words were exchanged throughout the night, and it culminated with the black boy threatening to shoot this place up. Of course, I was right in the middle of the incident and was scared half to death. Folks were kicked out immediately, and the bar was shut down.

I still like the Corrib, especially since it's right down the street within stumbling distance. Getting to Doyle's requires planning and a friend or a cab now....

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We love freedom. Unless it's the freedom to drink alcohol as an adult.

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Boston City Council considering a bill to change the name of West Roxbury to Curley, noted for his politcal favoritism, in honor of the fact that West Roxbury is loaded with poltical hacks.

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To all who are complaining about 20 year olds being reprimanded for drinking underage when they are "adults," you do realize that it's the LAW? Grow up.

Here's a good question, why didn't the off-duty waitress just go across the street to Blanchard's and buy a case of beer to drink with her 2 underage friends? Why did they choose to go and compromise the restaurant that employed her and was apparently a haven for her family? Who's worse in this situation, the cops who enforced the law, or the girl who had such blatant disregard for it?

Also, to the author, you should change the post to say the Corrib has donated "HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars" to the community. After this year's road race, it will probably be a million.

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We're not saying they didn't break the law. We're saying the law is wrong. It needs to be repealed.

Personally, I think we need to break our addiction to Road Socialism, and we should tell the Federal Highway Agency to go take a hike. They've done nothing but help us fuck ourselves over with sprawl-promoting, city-destroying, budget-busting highways.

It happens that a nice side-effect of that is the removal of the nanny state-ism connected to highway funds.

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