Cited by a People's Republic commissar for putting in a backyard skating rink:

I did know there was no building code permit required for playground equipment, and that's what they're considered in Toronto.

UPDATE: A more alert reader (see comments below) notes the fines were dismissed. Dear Globe: Don't get us all outraged and then stick an important fact like that at the very end of the story; sheesh, whatever happened to the inverted pyramid?

Suspect has a hangdog look.

Watertown Police are looking for a man and woman - and dog - for at least 13 daytime burglaries of apartments in local buildings:

Suspects are a male & female team with a dog, dog has been involved in at least three breaks. They are possibly using Buick type station wagon vehicle.

• More details and photos of the dude.

The mayor's office reports inspectors swarmed the areas around Ashford and Linden streets this week and found 40 serious code violations in 25 buildings.

City officials launched the inspection blitz in reaction to last month's Linden Street fire that left one BU student in critical condition with head injuries after he jumped out of a window to escape the flames.

Among the violations found in buildings on Gardner, Ashford and Wadsworth streets: Non-functioning or missing smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors, faulty heating systems, rats, illegal basement and attic apartments, blocked exits and too many students.

"We will not allow landlords to take advantage of students by neglecting their properties and putting people at risk," Mayor Menino said in a statement.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports city officials have started looking at changing a section of the city zoning code that prohibits backyard chickens and offers an exclusive interview with one of JP's bootleg chicken ranchers, who only talked on the condition she be identified by a pseudonym.

Last year, you may recall, a pioneering Roslindale resident was ordered to banish her chickens outside the city limits.

A student at UMass Amherst is making a federal case out of the way the school promptly expelled him as part of a new crackdown on rioting after sporting events.

In a lawsuit filed yesterday in US District Court in Boston, Cullen Roe charges the expulsion violates his 14th Amendment right to due process because officials ordered him out without even the disciplinary hearing he says is required by the school conduct code.

Cullen Roe was one of more than a dozen students arrested during a melee after the Patriots lost the Super Bowl on Feb. 5, on a campus where such rioting has become a rite after major Boston sporting events.

In his complaint, Roe denied being one of the troublemakers. One plainclothes campus cop, however, claimed that as police moved in to quell the disturbance, Roe yelled "Fuck the police!" and "Bring it on!"

Roe says he was ordered to a dean's office the next morning, given a letter expelling him as "an interim restriction," and told to vacate his dorm room by 6 p.m.

Roe says the expulsion also represents a breach of contract - the university is failing to provide him the education he has already paid it for - and a violation of a state law that requires seven days' notice before expulsion from a dormitory.

In addition to being reinstated as a student, Roe is seeking unspecified "compensatory damages" and legal fees.

The suit says Roe is a resident of Plymouth County.

Fenway Pastoral has started chronicling chicken references in stories about the Red Sox.

The Chelsea Record reports on impending work along Marginal Street that will mean both a new park and an expanded giant salt pile. Some of the old tanks' structure will be reused as shelters and design components of the new park.

Spatch reports on an extensive experiment with Java on a server. And TNT.

Our own Ron Newman reports the Pier One in Porter Square is being replaced by a Walgreens, right across the street from a CVS.

Drawing via BRA. Compare to the present space.

Historic Boston and Roslindale Village Main Street are proposing to turn the long-dormant substation at Washington Street and Cummins Highway into a combination winter farmers' market and event space.

At a meeting tonight, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, which purchased the large brick building several years ago from the MBTA, gave tentative approval to the plan, in which the two non-profit groups say they will raise a total of $1.2 million for the required rehab of the structure - starting with $550,000 they already have on hand.

The winter's farmer market would complement the existing summer farmer's market in Adams Park across Washington Street.

• Inside the Roslindale substation - Photos from last spring.
• More details on the project and other projects approved tonight.

Right now, we've got a boatload (well, for Boston) of foreign dignitaries flitting around, leading to all sorts of motorcade spottings and resulting traffic tieups all over the place, from Harvard Square to the Bank of America building downtown. The prime minister of Vietnam is in town. So's the prime minister of Ireland. The speaker of the House of Commons in the UK is about as well - as is our former speaker of the house, who granted, probably doesn't get flags on the cars in his motorcade, but still.

On Birch Street, the wine shop is next to the cheese shop.

A Suffolk Superior Court jury today convicted Charkeem Hyatt of firing into a closing-time crowd outside Packy Connors on Blue Hill Avenue in 2009.

Prosecutors said Hyatt had gotten into an argument with a guy outside the bar on July 17 when he pulled a gun and started shooting - hitting not just the other man, but three women who had nothing at all to do with the dispute, one hit in the back as she sat in her car waiting for friends. Police shut down Blue Hill Avenue as they swarmed the area to hunt Hyatt and the bar lost its license for several days.

The jury convicted Hyatt, now 22, of three counts of aggravated assault and battery with a dangerous weapon as well as on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of a firearm as a second offense, unlawful possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony and unlawful possession of ammunition.

He is scheduled to be sentenced next week.

The Boston Licensing Board today approved a request from the Russian Benevolent Society, 14-20 Linden St. in Allston, to serve dinner seven days a week.

The society, originally set up as a private club, had been open to the public Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. The board's amendment to its license means it will be open the other four days of the week as well.

Paul Berkeley, president of the Allston Civic Association, said his group was concerned that the society was slowly morphing into a nightclub or bar in the middle of a residential area.

Society attorney Richard Vetstein denied that, however, saying the society had no desire to change a license restriction that requires that liquor be served only with food.

In fact, pairing liquor with food is "a Russian ethnic tradition," he said. "They don't drink straight (liquor), contrary to popular belief."

In addition to the new hours, the society wants to convert an existing garage in the building into a dining room to handle private parties of up to 30 people.

The Boston Licensing Board today approved a request by Pollos a la Brasa el Chalan in Day Square to extend its closing time from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Even the mayor's office, which normally opposes requests from restaurants to stay open that late, supported the request, saying its 405 Chelsea St. location is in the middle of a commercial district, that its owner had shown a commitment to not causing problems and that it serves good food to boot. District City Councilor Sal LaMattina and at-large councilors Ayanna Pressley and Felix Arroyo also supported the later hours.

The pollo place has been open since 1997.

NorthEndWaterfront.com reports on their latest efforts to gain more space for the school.

Matt goes to his first Democratic ward caucus - held at the West Roxbury Pub:

Folks kept coming in as the big hand passed 12 on the clock, while city councilors (I counted four) circulated around the room, shaking hands and working magic. I made my way to the far back corner, where I found a place to stand between the end of a long table and the back exit. Admittedly, I wasn’t introducing myself to people. Being in the guts of Boston’s fabled Democratic party machine was overwhelming me, and I was admittedly distracted by a combination of the cultural value of the room, an almost total lack of any but white people, and little bets I was making with myself about who would start smoking first before everyone pulled out their packs of Pall Malls and began the process of tobacco-curing the entire delegation.

Also, he discovers Anna's Do-Nuts.

Fager (l) and Neto.MBTA Transit Police report arresting a Fall River woman yesterday on charges she and a pal stole catalytic converters from cars parked at commuter lots in Sharon and Attleboro - less than a month after she and her husband were arrested for allegedly stealing catalytic converters from cars parked at South Shore commuter-rail stops.

In fact, Tina Fager was due back in Plymouth District Court today for a hearing on the January charges.

According to Transit Police, Fager and Jamie Neto were under surveillance by officers investigating converter thefts when pulled over on 95 south by Exit 3 in Attleboro arouned 6 p.m. yesterday. Police say they were in the same car Fager and her husband Dennis were in when they were stopped in Hanson last month. Unable to make bail, Dennis Fager remains behind bars.

Police charge Fager and Neto detached three converters in Sharon and one in Attleboro and that they were nabbed with a Makita cordless saw, a map book with the locations of several MBTA commuter stations circled and four catalytic converters.

Innocent, etc.