Chinatown

No wonder the two blow-ins were removed from the lobby of the DoubleTree Inn on Washington Street near Tufts Medical Center and deposited in the local hoosegow for the rest of the night.

Eater Boston dishes on Pigalle owner Marc Orfaly's online response to a customer who found herself disgusted with the pumpkin pie he served up on Thanksgiving. It's not pretty.

The Boston Licensing Board formally issued a "warning" to the Revere Hotel yesterday because three police detectives found the hotel giving guests a free glass of sparkling wine when they checked in on Sept. 6.

The warning has no practical consequences unless the hotel is found violating the statewide ban on free drinks again. Hotel attorney Dennis Quilty vowed that wouldn't happen because the hotel immediately stopped offering free drinks to guests after the police visit and said the hotel has started setting up the accounting system it will need to offer free drinks to guests.

Huh?

The Boston Licensing Board yesterday approved "bottle service" at Bijou on Stuart Street in the Theater District.

This being Boston, of course, a table of people would not be able to simply buy an entire bottle of liquor for the night. Instead, Bijou managers said at a hearing on Wednesday, a group would reserve a table and be assigned a tableside host, who would measure out and pour drinks - and then keep a running tab at roughly $10 to $12 a pop.

The Boston Licensing Board today ordered a six-day license suspension for Splash after police and fire inspectors shut the place down on Sept. 29 for serving minors and stuffing too many people inside. The board also ordered a separate three-day punishment for another incident of overcrowding in August.

At a hearing Tuesday, Lt. Det. Stephen Meade and Sgt. Det. William Mulvey said they decided to visit Splash's Saturday-afternoon fest after being contacted by the out-of-town father of an underage BU student who was aghast to arrive at her BU dorm to find her both drunk to the point of needing a medical attention and in possession of a $2,800 credit-card bill from the Kneeland Street establishment.

Six teens were arraigned today on charges they attacked a woman on an Orange Line train yesterday evening and made off with her cell phone. And after they were done, they exchanged high fives, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

The DA's office adds that one of the teens, Eric Thompson, 18, of Dorchester, was arrested at Transit Police headquarters in Roxbury when he showed up to help bail out the other teens - still wearing the same sweatshirt he allegedly wore during the attack.

According to the DA's office and Transit Police, the six went after a woman on an outbound train approaching Tufts Medical Center around 6:40 p.m.:

One of two men shot in a dispute over a seat at the LaGrange Street strip club in August remains in the hospital, "still suffering serious injuries," a police detective said today.

Det. Michael Talbot was testifying at a Boston Licensing Board hearing on the Aug. 8 double shooting at closing time. Steven Gayle of Jamaica Plain was arrested not long after the shootings.

As they did at a similar hearing before the city's other licensing board in August, Talbot and club workers said Gayle was a 2-3-times-a-week customer who had never caused any problems before he allegedly opened fire that night. They said Gayle shot one man in a dispute over a seat and then, when that man's friend grabbed for him, shot him as well. He ran out, pursed first by a doorman and then a detail officer from Centerfolds next door.

Talbot said club owner Nicholas Romano has agreed to city requests for making the club safer - including a ban on backpacks, hats and sunglasses, buying a wand to search incoming customers for weapons, turning the lights up at closing and not locking the front door a few minutes before closing.

The board decides Thursday what action, if any, to take against the Glass Slipper for the incident.

MBTA Transit Police report arresting a man they say "manipulated himself" in front of a woman at Tufts Medical Center on Oct. 6 when the woman saw him again last night at the Orange Line station.

Police say Juan Pena, 23, started his subway interlude on Oct. 6 by piggybacking his way into the station. Then:

[He] proceeded over to the victim with his pants unzippered and was manipulating himself. The female victim screamed and attempted to walk away from the male, however he followed close behind her the entire time masturbating. The victim contacted Transit Police and reported the incident.

Last night, around 8:20, police say, the woman entered the station and saw the guy on the platform. She immediately contact police, who, after she IDed him, arrested him on a charge of open and gross conduct. He's scheduled for arraignment today in Boston Municipal Court.

Innocent, etc.

Police are looking for three women they say scammed an elderly Chinatown resident out of cash and jewelry through a fable involving her son and a "miracle healer."

The incident bears some similarities to an April incident that also involved three women - who allegedly hypnotized another elderly resident into giving up $160,000 in cash.

Police say that this past Sunday, an elderly woman was approached by three women at Harrison Avenue and Beach Street:

But now Splash, on Kneeland Street, faces a Boston Licensing Board hearing on Oct. 23, the Daily Free Press reports.

A man who ran gambling dens on Edinboro Street, Harrison Avenue and Beach Street, and who employed aggressive muscle to beat up people who owed him money, pleaded guilty on Friday to an 11-count indictment charging him with running an illegal gambling business and using threats of violence, the US Attorney's office in Boston announced.

Minh Cam Luong, a.k.a. Ming Jai, 48, will be sentenced Jan. 14.

In indictments issued last year, Luong was listed as a ringleader of a gambling, drugs and prostitution ring that extended from Boston to New York. A wiretap caught Luong expressing his feelings about Boston:

Where the Japanese prefer sake, which is fermented from rice, Koreans would rather down soju, which is distilled from rice. That's now gotten two Korean-oriented restaurants in trouble with the Boston Licensing Board, because fermented beverages are allowed under their licenses, while distilled beverages - even with a similar alcohol content - are not.

Updated 6:30 p.m. with additional info from Boston Police.

Stanley Staco reports somebody in a white Jaguar fired some rounds at another car outside 274 Tremont St. around 3 a.m. Around 4:30 a.m., somebody caught up with the car on Washington Street in Roxbury, right in front of the B-2 police station, and opened fire, hitting its three occupants.

BPD brass, managers of the Wang Theater, the Charles Playhouse and the W Hotel and elderly residents of a Tremont Street building turned out en masse at a licensing hearing this morning to oppose Royale's request to increase its capacity from 770 to 1220, saying the area has enough trouble already with the club goers it has now.

Royale argues the increase would actually make the neighborhood safer because the concerts the new capacity would allow would get out an hour earlier than the current 2 a.m. closing time.

Royale, 279 Tremont St., is seeking permission from the city to expand its capacity from 775 to the 1,200 patrons its troubled predecessor, Roxy, was once allowed to let in.

The Mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing holds a hearing on the request on Sept. 5. The office slashed Roxy's maximum capacity to 775 in 2007 after a skein of violations, from overcrowding in the streets at closing to cases of assault and battery.

Royale's request comes just four months after Mayor Menino cited it and several other Theater District night as trouble spots he wanted to crack down on after the closing-time murder of a Revere man in a parking garage used by the clubs.

The Boston Fire Department reports a fire that started in a stove at the Ga Ga Seafood Restaurant, 25 Tyler St., went to two alarms after it was reported at 9:46 a.m.

The fire displaced 24 residents living in seven apartments above the restaurant and did an estimated $300,000 in damage - to the restaurant and six nearby businesses - the department says.

One of the two men shot at the Glass Slipper on LaGrange Street a week ago remains hospitalized in critical condition - and needed emergency surgery yesterday - a Boston Police detective said today.

Sgt. Det. Michael Talbot, other police officers and the owner and some workers at the Glass Slipper testified today at a hearing by the Mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing on the Aug. 8 shooting, allegedly by Steven Gayle of Jamaica Plain.

Adam Castiglioni reports on a BRA vote tonight to allow a 19-story hotel with 240 "micro guest rooms" at Stuart and Tremont.

UPDATE: Suspect identified as Steven Gayle, 35, of Jamaica Plain.

This morning, blood stains the sidewalk outside the Glass Slipper, a Combat Zone holdover on LaGrange Street, where two people were shot around closing time today.

NECN reports one victim was shot in the head, the other in the chest. The Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports a prosecutor from the homicide unit was assigned just in case.

The DA's office adds a suspect was arrested moments after the shooting and that he is expected to be arraigned sometime today in Boston Municipal Court.

The crime scene.

"America's Most Wanted" featured the case of the Army vet gunned down in the Theater District; report includes video of the fight in which Perez died and alerts us that Perez was shot in the back, allegedly by Peter Castillo, a Salem man who apparently fled Boston to New York and then to the Dominican Republic before police could catch up with him.

Soon, all that will be left are the ghosts.

Demolition crews are, finally, tearing down the hulking old Dainty Dot Hosiery building on Kingston Street, where Chinatown meets the Leather District and the Greenway. Once they're done with the 123-year-old building, construction crews will start work on a 26-story apartment building. So if you want to see a reminder of when the area was filled with clothing factories, you need to get down there soon.

More on the building's history - which started when it was erected after the Great Fire of 1872.

If Brad Kelly hadn't taken the photo, we never would have believed the new Revere Hotel on Stuart Street has a print of Joyce Kulhawik's disembodied hand. Or as Brad puts it:

From out of the void, the hand of Joyce Kulhawik reaches towards you. But, is it an invitation -- or a warning?!?

Copyright Brad Kelly. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

A fare-hike protest that began outside the Park Street T stop this evening ended at Chinatown station on the Orange Line, where 25 protesters held open the fare gates on the inbound side and cheered when maybe 10 people went through the open gates - although some pressed their Charlie Cards to the readers anyway.

Two Lynn residents were arrested today on charges they misled police and a grand jury investigating the way a Revere man was gunned down on Tremont Street in April.

Luis Sepelveda, 27, and Janice Hardy, 22, are both pals of Peter Castillo, a Salem man who went missing before police could arrest him on a murder charge, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

A Quincy man who allegedly told police he never goes anywhere without his gun made an exception in the Theater District Saturday night - and now he faces a criminal charge, and somebody out there has a free loaded semi-automatic weapon, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office says.

John Murrett, 26, was arraigned in Boston Municipal Court this morning on a charge of improper storage of a firearm, the DA's office reports.

Murrett has a license to carry his Ruger LC9 semiautomatic handgun, but when bouncers at Club Royale found it on him during a patdown, they refused to let him in the club, the DA's office says.