Theater District club acknowledges outbreak of guys swaggering around the joint with lit-up bottles of champagne

The Boston Licensing Board decides Thursday whether Bijou, 51 Stuart St., deserves any sort of punishment for the way BPD detectives found "numerous male patrons swigging champagne from 750-ml bottles - glowing 750-ml bottles - as they strolled around the club on New Year's Eve.

Bijou co-owner George Aboujaoude and attorney Karen Simao acknowledged the violation of state law - which requires champagne only be consumed with food - and in glassware - and said club managers will redouble their efforts to keep people from just taking champagne bottles from their tables and walking or dancing around.

But they said managers face an uphill battle, because these are not just any champagne bottles - they are "luminous" champagne bottles, lit with an LED that makes the bottles really stand out, and people just want to flaunt them all over the place, they said.

"Culturally today, this seems to be a thing that's happening," Simao said. She said the problem was probably "increased ten times" on New Year's Eve.

Board Chairwoman Christine Pulgini asked why, if it's an issue, the club couldn't just ordered plain old unlit champagne from its distributors. Aboujaoude said the problem is that distributors now reserve the unilluminated bottles for the restaurant trade, but told Pulgini he would ask.

Simao said this has become "an ongoing problem throughout the city." Sgt. Det. Robert Mulvoy, however, said, "I really don't see a rampant amount of this."