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Police: Woman injured in Arlington restaurant when drunk drives into it

Car in Arlington restaurant

Photo by Arlington PD.

Arlington Police report on an incident around 6:15 p.m. yesterday in which a car wound up inside Scutra, 92 Summer St.:

Arriving on scene, officers evacuated the area and treated a 70-year-old Arlington woman who was later transported to an area hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Following an investigation, the vehicle operator, Nick Martirosyan, age 57 of Arlington, was placed under arrest and charged with Operating a Motor Vehicle under the Influence of Alcohol (2nd offense) and Negligent Operation of a Motor Vehicle.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

I had interpreted "drunk drives" in the headline as a verb, not a noun + verb, so I initially thought the woman was the driver. Maybe put "a" before "drunk" to make it a bit clearer.

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Why just the other day a cyclist plowed into a restaurant like this and injured three people!

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Yeah, a very heavy cyclist riding a very heavy bike.

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Example #2491835 of why this city hates cyclists: You have to inject your agenda into literally every crevice of public discourse, even when blatantly irrelevant.

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The Minuteman bike path runs along the back side of these buildings, and has an impact on the intersection. Knowing that intersection quite well, both from the cyclist's and driver's perspective, it is entirely possible that vehicles slowing and stopping to yield to Minuteman Path users in the crosswalk on Mill St. resulted in the alleged inebriate misjudging and swerving to avoid slowing vehicles.

Also, when posters here accuse every single cyclist of reckless lawbreaking, it is important to note that cycling does not cause such mayhem.

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needs more cyclists.
Non-cyclists can't take a joke.

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Wow, yet again, another multiple-offense DUIer. And yet again, the Mass judicial system shown, but not exposed, for the joke that it is.

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What would you suggest the mass judicial system do differently to prevent someone from committing a second offense oui?

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...an actual punishment for the first offense, strong enough to totally de-incentivize the desire to get behind the wheel drunk again. Given the shocking number of multiple-DUI offenders on the roads, it's clear the punishments in place aren't working.

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1st offense oui's generally carry a year probation (up to 2 years), about $750 in fines (max $5k), a $65 monthly probation fee, and a 1 year loss of license.

All first offenders are entitled to enroll in the 24d program and have the 1 year loss of license reduced to 45 days. The 24d program is a 16 week course involving alcohol and driving education and will run you about $600 out of pocket. MADD and traumatic head injury victim impact presentations are part of the program.

The court imposed license suspension is separate from the rmv breath test suspension and can't run concurrently.

A second offense oui will require either a minimum mandatory 60 days in jail or a 14 day inpatient hospitalization at your expense (usually about $1k), and many other ramped up penalties and conditions.

Oui's have some of the lowest rates of recidivism of any type of district court case. You hear about the multiples because they are newsworthy. They're newsworthy because they're uncommon. Most people learn their lesson the first time.

Are you suggesting mandatory jail time for first offenders? We'd need to construct a new oui-only jail in every county of the state. At the end of the day, the morons who go out and do it again are going to do it regardless of what the punishment is. There's usually some underlying substance abuse and/or mental health issues that are far more powerful of a motivator than any law that's on the books. It's not a perfect system but Melanie's law has certainly made it better.

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1st offense oui's generally carry a year probation (up to 2 years), about $750 in fines (max $5k), a $65 monthly probation fee, and a 1 year loss of license.

All first offenders are entitled to enroll in the 24d program and have the 1 year loss of license reduced to 45 days. The 24d program is a 16 week course involving alcohol and driving education and will run you about $600 out of pocket. MADD and traumatic head injury victim impact presentations are part of the program.

Like he said, some actual punishment would be nice. How about mandatory one-year loss of license, no exceptions, for first-time DUI? How about mandatory jail time if you're caught driving without a license? Drivers in the Commonwealth have a license to kill, as has been demonstrated on UH countless times.

EDIT:

How about some more suggestions?

Hit someone with your car? Guaranteed that you'll be arrested and booked.

Injure or kill someone with your car? Guaranteed jail time, barring extreme extenuating circumstances.

Maybe some rules like that would turn Boston into the "pedestrian-friendly" town it claims to be.

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Stop protecting the worst drivers from the full cost of their mayhem and let insurers raise their rates. In the current system, these drivers are subsidized by the extreme surcharges on having a single ticket or a single accident in a six year period (most drivers).

Even if the Commonwealth won't get them off of the road, perhaps enormously expensive insurance (insurance at a fair, non-subsidized rate) will do the trick.

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Got any good links about the subsidies?

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There was a contingent fighting the vote to let restaurants serve beer and wine in Arlington that claimed that drunk driving would escalate - and that the restaurants serving alcohol should have to have off-street parking, too.

I'm glad this did not happen back then, even if it is likely (now as then) that this guy loaded up at a private residence or at one of the social clubs that had a full bar even before Arlington moistened up.

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Flaming swords flying through the air and spectators barely missing injury? A drunk crashes into and drives through a restaurant in Arlington and injures a 70-year-old woman in the process??

Is the world going nuts, or am I getting to be too crotchety?

I'm glad no onlookers were hurt when the flaming sword flew through the air.

Sorry that the 70 year old woman was injured by the drunk's stupidity. I'm glad the police arrested him. Here's hoping he gets his license pulled and gets put behind bars for awhile.

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We live in a metro area of, what, 3.5 million people? Two incidents do not a crisis make. Me, I'd be more worried about the Crimean Peninsula, but what do I know?

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Every phone is a potential news source. Every phone has a camera.

It is all as it has ever been - we just know about all of it now.

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Is the world going nuts, or am I getting to be too crotchety?

Twas ever thus. Take a deep breath and think of puppies.

(and just FYI, fire-spinner 'swords' aren't edged. Not that a few pounds of mis-tossed metal couldn't hurt someone, but the danger was probably about on par with a broken bat at Fenway.)

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Since Markk hasn't chimed in yet, I'll take his words in another forum and put them here:

More likely the allegedly intoxicated driver was disoriented by the double
jeopardy of new traffic island hazards on Summer Street at Grove and Oak
Hill that at least ought to be made more visible with permanent reflective
material about the leading granite edges. Better yet, remove remove the
ill-conceived islands. The driver should have instead been on a bicycle,
where riding drunk is legal in Massachusetts and erratic movements are
commonplace.

I think we will continue to see more protective posts, guard rails etc. in
the future to protect structures. They are required for fuel pumps and many
large retailers have added them in front of their stores.

Emphasis added by me.

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Grove and Summer is another half mile down - it could not possibly be related to this accident. Unless, of course, you are such a lousy driver that being confused by a very normal, but new roadway feature a half mile beforehand causes you to cross an intersection, sidewalk and parking area, and crash into a building.

Furthermore, there have been traffic islands at Mill and Summer, where this accident occurred, since before I lived in Arlington (going back at least 24 years).

Heaven forbid we actually blame the drunk person and hold them responsible for driving while drunk! And Dear God, protect us from NEW things in our environment because we can't possibly be expected to pay attention while we drive!

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Yes, in fact it appears to be about another incident involving a drunk driver not far from there last week as well. But, of course, MarKKK will say anything to attempt to deflect balme away from a motorist, as lame as his explanation might be.

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He probably just didn't see it.

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My two-year old really enjoyed the show of fire trucks and police cars when we crept by the scene (not rubbernecking, there just wasn't much room to get by.) I didn't know what happened at the time, and I'm glad there was on a minor injury in the end.

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