Photo by Maria Varmazis.
Efforts by the Dilboy VFW Post in Davis Square to stay open until it can build a new post hit a cinderblock wall Saturday, when workers hired by the adjacent Winter Hill Bank built a wall to permanently seal off the post's basement game room on orders of inspectors brought in by the state. Post members promptly indicated what they thought of the wall.
Club members say the inspectors came from the Boston Fire Department, but BFD spokesman Steve MacDonald said that whoever the inspectors were, they weren't from Boston: "We did not and do not go into other cities or towns to inspect properties. No Boston inspector was in Somerville at the VFW post."
Post officials said that on Veterans Day, in addition to being told the game room had to be shut permanently, they were given until Monday afternoon to submit plans for bringing their ancient building up to fire code or the state would shut it down. That could mean they would lose their liquor license and possibly jeopardize the proposed move into a new post building on another corner of their property.
The post had proposed dealing with code violations through construction of the new building - which a developer would build in exchange for permission to build 31 new condos on another part of the post's land - but the project has been stalled in an increasingly acrimonious battle between neighbors and the post.
