Hey, there! Log in / Register

Possible weapon in war on gang violence at Theater District clubs: Online table reservations

Bijou owner George Aboujaoude says he is "very grateful" Boston Police quickly showed up outside his club early on May 17 - without that, a melee that ended with ten arrests, three guns seized and one officer in the hospital could have turned out far worse.

But at a Boston Licensing Board hearing on the incident this morning, Aboujaoude and club attorney Karen Simao said they're taking several steps to try to keep gang members - whom police blame for a good part of the roving brawl and all three of the guns - out of the club.

Simao said the Stuart Street club now requires people reserving tables to register them on a Web site and to supply the names of the nine other people they want to have at the table. Doormen check the IDs of people going to those tables against the site; people not in the database are not allowed in.

Simao said the club is willing to give the Boston Police gang unit a login to the online system so that detectives can pre-screen people signing up for tables - and then alert the club. "We can deny entry to people if we need to," she said, adding the club now also limits people to reserving just one ten-person table.

She added the club now stations 30 guards at the exit and on the street to quickly disperse club goers as they leave at closing time.

The board decides Thursday whether Bijou could have done anything to prevent the street fighting and, if so, what sort of punishment to levy.

Several Boston Police detectives attended the hearing to describe what happened that night:

Members of two rival gangs showed up at Bijou. Police and Simao said they didn't cause any trouble inside - although a club manager did phone police around midnight to make sure police would have details on the street at closing because "he didn't like the look that night."

Gang-unit officers were in the area, watching the crowds as area clubs got ready to close. Around closing, a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old, both with hoodies up over their heads, began making their way from across Stuart to the sidewalk in front of Bijou. A gang-unit detective saw them clutching at their waists - which might indicate they had guns - and radioed for help.

Gang-unit detectives said they are still investigating why the two guys showed up at closing with guns, but speculated they were summoned through a phone call from a fellow gang member inside the club, something like "So and so's here. We're going to need help, we're going to need guns or whatever."

Gang-unit detectives swarmed the two. The 16-year-old quickly submitted to arrest, but the older guy started struggling, drawing more officers - and a crowd of people, detectives said. Police estimate it took seven minutes to finally get him in the cruiser as more people flooded the area, many of them antagonistic toward police and holding their cell phones up to record the scene.

Then, not long after, the members of the two gangs, by now spilling out of Bijou, went after each other at Stuart and Tremont, breaking into a series of fights, as still more people arrived to watch as all the area's clubs let out. With officers now arriving from across the city, police arrested six more people.

Simao said that when club security guards saw what was happening outside, they stopped people from leaving the club, to avoid adding to the problem. Club goers "were surprisingly respectful," she said.

Unfortunately, police said, the club did start letting people out before they had the situation outside fully under control. Det. William Duggan, who said Bijou has always been very cooperative with police, said these people naturally stayed to watch the action. "That was then their focus, and their focus was on us," he said. "It's a very dangerous situation for both them and us."

Det. Vincent DiFazio said that as the crowd grew unrulier, he was on a median strip on Stuart with three guys, whom he ordered off - for their safety, he said. Two went, but one, he said, started arguing with him. "I'm a criminal-justice major, you ain't going to do shit," he recalled the guy yelling at him. The guy put his hands up and yelled, "You're a pussy, you ain't gonna do anything." As this was going on, more fights were breaking out, he said.

"There's a lot of defiance from the public," Simao said. "We see it with the police and we see it with the staff."

Neighborhoods: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

Interesting. Thanks for reporting on this!

up
Voting closed 0

Yep, this club sounds like a place I'd like to hang out - if I wanted to get caught in a crossfire.

What I find truly unbelievable however, are the accounts of people taunting the cops.

The police response (or lack thereof, w/r/t the taunting) is yet another example of what I have said here before: we just have better trained police than elsewhere in the country.

up
Voting closed 0

I don't think much of the clubgoers' behavior. But it's tough to get an accurate impression of how respectfully the police handled it when we only hear the story from the police and the club.

up
Voting closed 0

Having to provide identifying information for all members of a party = sure sign that this venue is a place to avoid.

up
Voting closed 0

I just want to ask the CJ major - while you are not "legally" required to get off the median, how is disobeying an officer's instructions helpful to this situation? From his perspective, what rights does he think are being violated that cause him to react insubordinately? I feel like we have a lot of people whose immediate reaction when being asked to do something is "You can't tell me what to do!" It doesn't matter if the instructions are meant to keep you safe - you're just being spiteful because - why not? I don't get it. If a cop is telling me what to do, I'll do it and ask questions later I don't need to exacerbate the situation trying to show someone their not the boss of me.

up
Voting closed 0

I would venture a guess and say someone was looking to be the next viral video star.

up
Voting closed 0

It doesn't have to be helpful, and in fact can be actively harmful. Most civil rights make life more difficult for the government, and that's by design -- you know, pesky things like the 4th Amendment. Assuming the officer wasn't giving a lawful order, this guy is under no obligation to move, and he may rightly view remaining there as important for its own sake: a right not exercised is soon lost.

If it had been me, I wouldn't have wanted to stay around anyways, but to each their own.

up
Voting closed 0

A bunch of armed cops and a bunch of possibly armed gang kids half in the bag.

Can't possibly imagine why cops would be yelling at bystanders to go home...

up
Voting closed 0

The officers want people to clear out so no one gets shot by an stray bullet. If you want to play the 4th amendment game in that situation, you are compromising the safety of everyone involved.

up
Voting closed 0

Right, I assumed he was not legally bound to move, but why wouldn't you move? That's my question. What rights are you exercising by not moving? I think it's your right to be a dick. Seriously. "Hey everyone, I have every right to be on this median while the police are trying to take control of a hostile situation. Cops are trying to tell me what to do, WTF!" Instead of thinking, bad place and time for me to be standing here, let me listen to this cop who is trying to clear the scene for the public's safety. Civil rights are great. Being a dick for the sake of being a dick is the worst.

up
Voting closed 0

The median is not in a crosswalk, thus, I find the defendant guilty of jaywalking. I fine him $1, as the law allows for a first jaywalking offense.

up
Voting closed 0

Very clever. They could even check names against warrants and cops can wait for them to show up.

up
Voting closed 0

Wouldn't that just be awful.

up
Voting closed 0

Would you?

up
Voting closed 0

Plenty of places will take a photo of your license or scan them. They can do whatever they want with that info and they give them to the police all the time.

up
Voting closed 0

That doesn't make it right, and it's barely different from AT&T giving all our phone records to the NSA. I don't like the idea of private businesses helping the government keep tabs on us.

up
Voting closed 0

Not at Johnny D's, not at the Burren, not at TT the Bear's, not at the Middle East, not at Toad, not at Lizard Lounge, etc. etc.

All these places have ever cared about is that the ID says I'm over 21.

up
Voting closed 0

Have you been a part of many gunfights at those places?

up
Voting closed 0

 

up
Voting closed 0

The only place I ever got shot at was at the old Astor Theater. After it premiered Exodus and The Ten Commandments, it was turned briefly into an after hours club.

Just picture an after hours club with white and black kids in this town right after the busing started. Of course the Boston Police had the notorious Tactical Patrol Force back busting heads all over town so it wasn't open long.

up
Voting closed 0

They mainly have older patrons who are less anxious about getting laid. Dance dumps, especially ones involving the young and feckless, are much more of a handful.

Friday dance night at Ryles here in Inman square is a smaller scale mess where there was gunfire a few months ago. Booze+ desire+ rejection =conflict.

up
Voting closed 0

That's about the second-last place (after Club Passim) where I'd expect such a problem in Cambridge. Do you happen to have a news article or other citation for that event? I'm curious now.

up
Voting closed 0

Friday night dance night close at 2:05 am is a noisy drunk hell puke of dance denizens including a lot of drunk men who didn't get lucky. Drunk women are oddly louder.

The owner's ass is covered by CPD, cause if the License Board ever got wind of it they'd yank the lucrative 2am close. It's probably a catered lunch trade deal or something. I know their ways.

There can be up to 6 cruisers if it gets really stupid and the patrons drive drunk back to wherever, somewhere east. The CPD focuses on getting them to go home, sensibly enough.

The lot where the gunfire happened can be seen outside my window.

But these incidents never/EVER show up in the city police logs while a minor wino scuffle in Central Square will.

It should be noted that all the other gin mills in Inman Square manage to get through Friday night without this horseshit.

up
Voting closed 0

If you aren't a raucous 20 something looking to snag another one for sex, it's a dumb and strange place to be anyway.

Assuming you are over 40, you end up looking like uncle fester wearing a lampshade at a college mixer.

Catering to the young, dumb and horny is the least viable gin mill strategy because of the complications and layering on some reservation ID drill is just about recognizing the general volatility of the constituency.

If the youth want to go through that tawdry dance dump ritual to gamble on getting lucky, let em fill out forms.

Somehow I suspect they won't mind your lack of participation.

up
Voting closed 0

Aren't drinking down the theater district.

up
Voting closed 0

No. But I also wouldn't want to go to any club that had a gang violence problem anyway.

up
Voting closed 0

"...many of them antagonistic toward police and holding their cell phones up to record the scene."

Seems to be linking together two things that shouldn't be linked together.

up
Voting closed 0