Some of the first people to buy pricey condos at the Natick Mall are suing to get their money back.

In a lawsuit originally filed in Middlesex Superior Court last month, but transferred today to US District Court in Boston, 11 purchasers of units at Nouvelle at Natick - which promised 24-hour access to the mall - said they never would have invested if they knew the place was about to go bankrupt and that most of the units would be sold at auction for a fraction of what they paid.

The unhappy condo owners charge the developer and its manager withheld information from them about the development's perilous finances. And they allege that when news of the impending problems hit the press as they were negotiating final sales agreements, the developers lied to them and said the condo project's finances were separate from the development company's, which turned out not to be the case.

The suit also charges that when the owners moved in, the building had no heat in the hallways, the elevators often didn't work, smoke detectors were covered in plastic bags, the postal service refused to deliver mail for a month and a sewer "injector" had no backup pump, which meant that when it failed, the garage filled with raw sewage.

BosGuy posts photos of the Apple and Steve Jobs-themed jack o'lanterns a Union Park Street resident carved and lit up last night.

A North End diner who didn't think the free meal he got in exchange for a restaurant's mistake was good enough got the place hauled before the Boston Licensing Board today - even though he's now refusing to cooperate with the board or police.

Trattoria di Monica, 67 Prince St., had to explain an incident on Sept. 4, for which they received a police citation for "assault and battery, employee on patron."

According to a police report, the restaurant messed up on an order. When the customer complained, the restaurant agreed to comp him the cost of the food - which he then proceeded to eat. When the waitress gave him a bill for the wine he'd also consumed, he refused to pay that and began yelling and said he would be satisfied with nothing less than a full apology from the waitress. When that didn't happen, police say, one of the Mendoza brothers who own the restaurant told him the whole thing was free and asked him to just leave.

He left, in a huff. Outside, he encountered another Mendoza brother, taking a cigarette break and began to yell at him and made "a disparaging remark about his mother." Then, the report says, the brother swatted him and hit him in the face and the guy called 911.

The Mendoza brothers told the licensing board today that up until his encounter outside, the police report was accurate.

Frank Mendoza, the brother outside, said that as the man was yelling at him, he was also poking him with a cell phone. Finally, the man suggested "why don't you go fuck your mother?" Mendoza said "at that point I slapped his hand out of my chest" - and then walked away, to keep from doing something he'd regret.

The Mendozas' lawyer, William Ferullo, said their mother, Monica, not only started the restaurant, she died there - in a fall down some stairs five years ago - so the crack was "a particularly sensitive thing to say."

BPD Det. Thomas McDonough said that after initially talking to a police officer, the patron told him "he didn't wish to pursue charges and wouldn't show up at any proceedings."

The board decides Thursday what action, if any, to take.

When the guy picked out several bottles of vodka and rum at Bradley's Liquors on Boylston Street and gave manager Steven Steinberg his Pennsylvania driver's license, Steinberg compared the photo to the guy's face, saw it looked just like him, then ran the license through a scanner designed to detect fakes. When the machine said the ID was real, Steinberg took his money and let him walk out - right into a pair of Boston detectives, who quickly determined the guy was not, in fact, 21.

Steinberg's lawyer, Stephen Miller, told the Boston Licensing Board this morning Steinberg was the latest student-ghetto victim of Chinese companies that now churn out fake US driver's licenses so realistic they come with embedded microchips able to fool some of the scanners used by local bars and liquor stores to keep kids from getting their hands on booze. For $200 or so, a student with a longing for liquor can get a license that even has his or her picture - no more relying on older sibling's IDs.

Newer scanners can detect made-in-China IDs, but relatively few places have them yet - and they cost $3,500 apiece.

Pennsylvania licenses seem particularly vulnerable, Miller said.

Steinberg told the Boston Licensing Board this morning the kid's ID checked out - the scanner said it was OK. Board Chairwoman Nicole Murati Ferrer said this shows why license holders can't just rely on technology - they have to try to size up the person with an ID by giving him the eye and asking questions. Steinberg said he did that - the difference this time was that the photo wasn't a near match - it was the kid's actual photo. "It was him," he said. "It was his picture, it was his face."

Boston detectives were doing inspections along Boylston in the Fenway following the Dropkick Murphy's concert at Fenway Park that night.

Bradley's attorney, Stephen Miller, said the store has since purchased one of the newer devices and now requires two forms of ID from all customers, not just ones with possibly suspicious IDs.

Last week, Miller's partner, Dennis Quilty, said the same thing happened at Punter's Pub on Huntington Avenue, where he said owner Steve Newman was fooled as well by Chinese fakes. "It's amazing. They're so good with the holograms, it's just unbelievable."

In that case, Newman got off with a warning from the board, which means he will only get in trouble if he gets caught again. Newman also purchased one of the newer scanners.

Ferrer, however, said she is concerned that because of the cost, bars and liquor stores are only buying one device. What happens, she asked, if the machine breaks?

Meanwhile, some license holders continue to get snared by students using the old fashioned method of obtaining a drink - using somebody else's license. Gordon's, at the Packard's Corner Shaw's, got in trouble because of a BU student who used somebody else's license - and who was stopped on Comm. Ave. by a detective who thought she seemed to be hurrying away from the store rather quickly with a 30-pack of Natty Ice. Although Det. William Gallagher said a quick eyeballing of the license convinced him it didn't show the young woman, the store manager said that, aside from the hair style, the woman on the license looked just like the woman he sold the beer to.

Symphony 8 on Westland Avenue, meanwhile, was done in by two women who presented licenses with birthdates 11 months apart, which by itself might not have been enough to prove anything, except they told a detective doing a spot check that they were twins.

The board votes Thursday whether to take any action against Bradley's, Gordon's and Symphony 8.

The Dorchester Reporter notes that Yoon sent out a city-council endorsement e-mail from his new aerie in Washington that doesn't mention fl.

Forget Wall Street and Whole Foods - this is important: A group of users of Google Reader are planning "a wake" outside Google's Cambridge offices at 5:30 p.m.

We'll be mourning together outside the closest Google office, in Cambridge, near Kendall Square, where perhaps a Google employee or two will briefly notice our useless grief.

Bring flowers or signs or memes or eulogies. Wear black if you can.

Google Reader is a service that lets you organize and read headline feeds from Web sites.

UPDATE: The all clear was given not long after State Police arrived.

State Police, bomb squad on scene at the courthouse behind Center Plaza, after a bomb threat was called in.

Three animal groups say lobster pots and fishing lines used off the Massachusetts coast are killing endangered North Atlantic right whales and other large whales.

In a lawsuit filed yesterday in US District Court in Boston, the Humane Society of the US, Defenders of Wildlife and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society demand the government do something to stop the deaths - several of which they say occurred after the National Marine Fisheries Service released studies last fall that lobstering and large-scale fishing offshore were not jeopardizing right, humpback, fin and sei whales:

Atlantic large whales are in danger of entanglements from [lobster] trap/pot gear because they feed and travel in many of the same areas as the Fishery operates. The risk of entanglement occurs year-round, though the risk may be greatest during the summer and fall, when both whales and the lobster gear are the most concentrated in the same area.

The suit cites similar problems with lines and nets from fishing boats in search of fish in the area offshore from Maine to North Carolina.

The Globe reports the mayor threatened the company that runs the city school-bus system he's thinking of pulling its contract because so many school buses are still showing up at school late.

Father Tim tweets:

Only in Hingham: When people run out of candy, they start handing out cash. Seriously.

Performance art meets politics in downtown Boston.

The Globe reports the store where the Hi-Lo used to be opened today instead of its announced Wednesday date.

That didn't fool Whose Foods, though. Patty Neal tweets:

The 20-something protestors at WF have a drum circle! The customers are shouting at them "We love Whole Foods!"

Where's Will Smith or Charlton Heston when you need them? Police weren't letting people in or out of the Dewey Square bank this afternoon when zombies had a die-in out front.

Poor Gumby. Gets on the Red Line and nobody pays him any attention, except for Courtney Burns, who took this photo.

Boston Police report arresting a 20-year-old Northeastern student who allegedly spent a good part of Sunday morning throwing stuff out of his third-floor Hemenway Street apartment:

On arrival, officers observed and located several items strewn about the ground including broken beer bottles, broken plates, broken dishes, pots, pans, a window fan, seat cushions from a sofa and a beer ball. Officers further noted a car windshield which appeared to have been damaged by one of the falling objects.

While still on scene, officers observed a white male, apparently unaware of the officer's presence, attempting to push a microwave out of a 3rd story window.

Officers observed the guy, too young to be host of a late-night talk show, to have glassy eyes, slurred speech and an unsteady gait.

Although he did have a sidekick - his roommate, who confirmed the stuff on the ground had come out of their apartment - police nonetheless arrested him on charges of willful and malicious destruction of property and disturbing the peace.

West Zone parent Steve Poftak considers the plan to move the Mission Hill K-8 School into the Agassiz in Jamaica Plain - shut last year over the anguished protests of Agassiz parents:

Allowing the building to be reused to allow a smaller, but currently more successful and popular school to grow also makes sense. (Although, it appears there are still some unresolved environmental issues that need to be addressed. And let's not let commandos use school buildings for practice ever again.)

The BPS faces multiple challenges – underutilized capacity in some places, excess demand for popular schools, and bricks-and-mortar assets that aren’t moving. It is painful and difficult to close some schools and uproot others, but it's exactly what the BPS needs to do if it wants to compete for students.

Boston Police report the arrest of Kendrick Clark, wanted for the September 22 murder of Shawn Flores on Abbot Street.

Boston detectives and the US Marshal's service took Clark into custody in a Raleigh hotel room, police say.