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East Boston McDonald's vows to clean up restrooms, where cops keep finding drug addicts, one of them dead

The new owner of the McDonald's at 178 Border St. says a $1-million renovation of the facility should curb the appetite of drug addicts who keep shooting up in his restrooms.

Chief among the new changes: The new restrooms won't have locks, Peter Tripoletti told the Boston Licensing Board today.

Tripoletti was there to answer a citation by Boston Police for "permitting an illegality, drug use on premises," issued after several incidents over recent months involving the restrooms at the restaurant. Police say addicts would go into one of the restrooms, lock the doors and shoot up.

On Oct. 9, around 1:50 p.m., workers discovered an unconscious man in the men's room - whom they had difficulty getting to because he was slumped by the door. The man was pronounced dead at the scene of an apparent drug overdose. Police found a number of syringes in the men's room with him.

On Oct. 17, around 3:15 p.m., Lt. Det. Stephen Meade told the board, an A-7 sergeant watched a man and a woman, both with the "pallid and pockmarked complexions" of drug users, get out of a Lynn cab in front of the McDonald's, sit on the curb for awhile, then go inside - where the woman bought a small soft drink and the man went into the men's room and locked the door.

Meade said the sergeant knocked on the door several times over 15 minutes and that each time, the man answered he was using the toilet - even though the sounds of running water and footsteps made it obvious he was not using the toilet. When the man finally did emerge, Meade said, the sergeant talked to him. The sergeant noted he now had droopy eyelids and difficulty keeping his head up - and signs on his left arm consistent with the use of a tourniquet of the type used by addicts to expose a vein. In the men's room, Meade said, the sergeant found drops of blood under the sink and "only unsoiled toilet paper in the toilet."

Meade added that while the man was continuing to deny he had shot up - he said he had a prescription to keep him from using heroin - a syringe fell from his right side to the floor.

Tripoletti, who bought the franchise in March, said he's already doubled the number of security cameras, increased the number of times workers check the restrooms and put up signs, recommended by police, that the restrooms are only for patrons. But he said the real improvements should come in a month, when the newly renovated restaurant opens with new, larger restrooms that can't be locked.

He said police have not had any problems with the temporary, trailer-based restrooms he now has on the site.

"There is not a feather, not an inch in me that would allow any type of illegal [drug] use in my restaurants," he said. Tripoletti, who has been a McDonald's franchise owner for 37 years, added the East Boston location might be the victim of decisions by other nearby businesses to kick drug addicts out - they then end up at his franchise.

The board decides Thursday what action, if any, to take. It could suspend the restaurant's food-serving license for a set number of days, issue a warning or decide no violation has occurred.

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Comments

A family-owned, mortgage-free hotel in Tewksbury finds itself under siege from the feds in Boston due to vague reports of "drug activity" that weren't even as serious as those at the neighbouring WalMart ...

And now this McDonalds, with serious, ongoing and validated incidents of drug activity, sees no such action by Carmen Ortiz and her merry band of sharks.

Interesting.

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Probably donated to the wrong politician.

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When are we going to just declare open season on drug addicts already? Shoot 'em like deer and bring 'em to a police station.

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Another brilliant suggestion Will. The Commonwealth is really doing itself a grave disservice by not hiring you to consult on everything.

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What heroin does is not a surprise. We all did DARE in school. If you put that in your body, that's your own problem. If you tie up a bathroom in a McDonald's for 15 minutes, you deserve to be shot dead. Goodbye. 7 billion people already. Don't need you wasting space.

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DARE is useless garbage. They don't tell kids what drugs do to them, they just say "drugs bad mmmkay?" over and over. Except for prescription drugs, which they said nothing about the abuse of when that was the #1 problem in the schools.

I pulled my kids out of it. Total waste of time.

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I've only ever seen it on bumper stickers but I guess I never bothered to figure out what it is. It sounds like a school program but it wasn't at my school.

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DARE was common during the 1990s, but shown to be useless and dropped from a lot of curricula in the 2000s. Nonetheless, private contributions kept it going in some areas. http://nymag.com/nymetro/urban/education/features/2671/

I pulled my kids from the program, too, using a law originally designed to let fundamentalist parents pull their kids from sex education. My husband had been a teacher at the Voke, where oxycontin was the biggest issue. DARE avoided the topic all together, and, much worse, spread ridiculous and potentially dangerous misinformation about the effects of alcohol and illegal drugs, while relying on a useless abstinence paradigm.

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I once told a friend of mine that I think that 7th graders should know what a blow job is as a means of contraception. Her response: "You're not teaching sex to my kids."

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playing Vladimir and Estragon in a revival of "Waiting for Godot"

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Since the schools didn't teach anything meaningful until Sophomore and Junior year(!)

But I just let them show off the wisdom they acquired in Our Whole Lives classes at the local UU church at age 13 or so. http://www.uua.org/re/owl/

BTW, masturbation is a means of contraception that is 100% free of any and all possible consent problems. It is also practicing safe sex, unlike unprotected oral-genital contact, which can spread diseases.

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Great idea!!! Can we do the same with assholes?

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If you tie up a bathroom in a McDonald's for 15 minutes, you deserve to be shot dead

Yes, that's exactly what a reasonable, non-insane person would say.

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I'm not usually sad when people die... Living beings are supposed to die.

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Mr. Grinch....

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We all did DARE in school.

No, some of us went to school well before Nancy Reagan and her "just say no" bullshit took over the country. But have fun generalizing more, kiddo.

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In the Financial District you can't step out of your office without being asked for something, from someone.

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You on the other hand Scratchie should have a full time in state government responding to every stupid proposal by elected officials to prevent said stupid proposals from becoming reality.

It would save the Commonwealth HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS!

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Adam, are posts that call for killing others appropriate for this forum?

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...if they call for offing Mr. LaTulippe. Then it's ok.

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Don't read my comments if you don't like them. I'm not tricking you, they all say "Will LaTulippe" in plain French.

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... unfortunately makes it impossible to ignore your murderous rubbish.

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TITLE
USERNAME

CONTENT

See how you had to read the username before getting down to the content?

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... though aging -- can see (and read) more than line of simple text at once.

It's a shame someone as young as you are is so full of spite and anger at so many things.

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It's just what my mind does, man.

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are addicted? Right?

Just checking.

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Where we don't know that coke is bad for you. This is 2013, where the education and common knowledge exists that you don't put heroin into your body. Period.

They're addicted because they took it in the first place. That was their choice. Only time I've seen somebody do illegal drugs through coercion was when Wayne Brady told Dave Chappelle "this is not an option. If you do not smoke this, we have a problem."

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Will finally admits where his almost uncanny knowledge of the black community comes from!

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That Chappelle sketch was based on the movie Training Day, which was based on the Rampart Scandal, which actually happened.

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Self inflicted wounds are other peoples' problem?

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trollish, hateful, hacky trivia douchebags? Sounds way more fun to me.

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You know, Hitler did away quite early with all of the drug addicts ...

and people who were retarded ...

and people with various forms of autism ...

Why stop with drug addicts, Will, when we can rid society of "mental defectives" such as yourself?

(and my brother, and my nephew, and ... and ...)

See where this sort of "thinking" goes???

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Another super helpful comment by SwirlyGirl!

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Will does not disappoint when it comes to giving the correct perspective on life in the streets. An outlook on drug reform obviously gained from years of experience dealing with them on the mean streets of Vermont. Vermont, a state where the dealers stand out on the street corners of inner city Burlington, selling heroin to schoolchildren like the white version of "The Wire". They even have names for their product that you can hear the dealers yelling out like "Bernie Sanders heah" or "Get your Ben and Jerry's..Ben and Jerry's heah, y'all".

Our poor Will is still dealing with the trauma of having to step on all those clean needles on his way to school everyday. I'm sure that explains his attitude.

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I saw a dirty needle on North Beach this summer.

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Actually, heroin is a huge problem in Vermont and especially the Burlington area and there are plenty of black dealers (just like the Wire!) selling it. And the product does have names since the bulk of it comes from NYC or Holyoke (although there are sometimes dealers in the news from Lawrence or Boston). Just like Mass there was a huge problem with opiate pills (2nd worst per capita in the country) and when Purdue changed the formula of Oxycontin and Opana and the DEA made it much, much, much harder for doctors to prescribe other forms of painkillers most people have turned to heroin.

Which brings up the question for people like Will... what about people who started out on a legitimate prescription for painkillers and found themselves physically sick from withdrawal once the doctor was forced to cut their prescription because of DEA attention (this happens every day no exaggeration)? And the only way to not be sick is to buy heroin? It's pretty obvious from our standpoint that doing a drug like heroin is absolutely insane and stupid but you don't know what it's like to fall down that slippery slope or to be clinically depressed to the point of suicide and have substance abuse as your only outlet and the only way to experience happiness in life. I know you're just a maladjusted social retard who likes posting dumb shit on this website and I shouldn't take your comments seriously but maybe you could at least consider what I said.

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I'd have no brother. I would be really sad if he'd been killed when he was younger before he got to a place of recovery.

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I'm not usually sad when people die. I remember their good qualities warmly, but I honestly don't remember the last time that somebody's death made me sad. Living beings are supposed to die.

Like the Marathon victims, for example. My sadness is for their families who don't get to see them anymore. The emotion I feel about the actual deaths of the victims is more anger than sadness.

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Did you start out by crushing puppies?

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Is "crushing puppies" like slang for shooting H or something?

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There are dozens of countries that execute drug addicts ... and it doesn't seem to solve the problem. They just kill a lot of people.

Meanwhile, Portugal has legalized drug use, but doubled down on the treatment with pretty encouraging results.http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminaliza...

Addiction is a medical issue, not a moral issue. Full. Stop.

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I often do, but I didn't here. I don't think a drug addict should be executed. Rapes, murders, armed robberies...all executable crimes in my eyes. But not drug use.

What I proposed was exactly what it sounds like - legal open season on drug addicts. Some pillhead is breaking into a car? Film him doing it, then shoot him dead and bring him to a police station along with the evidence that he was breaking into a car, then ran away instead of claiming that it was his own car and that he lost his keys. Where the cops aren't looking, a citizen with a gun should be allowed to protect his community. That's not an "execution," that's shooting first, and asking questions later.

I mean, it's the "war on drugs," right?

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Vilgilante summary extrajudicial execution IS STILL EXECUTION.

Once again: where do you get ANY idea that this will solve the problem???

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Yeah, Will will definitely do some research and stop posting out of his ass. That's gonna happen.

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(high five)

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Decriminalizing heroin is not that answer, there are enough zombies walking around. Heroin addicts are more than likely arrested for the criminal activities they are involved in to support their habit, rather than possession. Addiction is not just a medical issue. In Boston, addiction is a lifestyle, glorified by some. There is a strong camaraderie among addicts, they go to meetings and network, make new connections and have more access to heroin. They sell suboxones to eachother, and steal from eachother when necessary. When one of their friends passes away from an OD they reminisce on "how good they were doing" " they're up flying with the angels" and of course "heaven has a new angel" Some truly want help and support, and commit to change. Others are never making the commitment to change.

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Hot Gus wouldnt put up with this!

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My parents got my brother a bike for Christmas from Hot Gus back in the 70s. I think they picked it up at Jeveli's.

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Hot Gus set up in front of the Mickey D's by the Liberty market in Central Square in the morning, then probably mosied around . In the afternoon I would see him at the bargain joint on Squire Road Revere , just after the rotary , kinda behind Sozio's.

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