Board: Bar not to blame for man's death in restroom stall

The Boston Licensing Board ruled yesterday the Bell in Hand did nothing that contributed to the death of a Canadian man in its men's room in September.

At a hearing on Tuesday, a police detective said that, based on surveillance video and interviews with witnesses, the man showed up at the bar's karaoke night alone, struck up a conversation with a couple of men there, went into the restroom, appeared to do some drugs, came out, went back in, then expired in a stall even as he was using his cell phone to complaint to a friend in Canada about not feeling well sometime between 2 and 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 18.

The detective told the board that while the bar should probably check the men's room a bit more frequently, it didn't do anything wrong. A bar employee said he noticed the man in the stall at closing, told him it was time to finish up and that the man replied "OK." Another employee then found him dead about 30 minutes later.

Police are continuing to search for the two men and awaiting a report from the medical examiner's office on the man's death.