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No cheers for Bull and Finch over blocked exit

The chairwoman of the Boston Licensing Board had some simple advice for the owners of the iconic Beacon Hill bar: The next time a Boston Police detective tells them to move a bench away from an emergency exit, move it.

At a licensing-board hearing on Tuesday, Det. Kevin McGill said he told bar workers to move the bench away from the emergency exit off a first-floor function room but that when he returned for a followup inspection two weeks later, the bench was still there - as was a gate on the other side of the door.

"The bench is a couple feet high," McGill said. "It can be easily moved."

John Bradley, attorney for the Hampshire House Corp., told the board his clients didn't move the bench because, at first, they wanted to investigate whether that was the appropriate thing to do. He said the exit is off a first-floor function room that was not being used at the time and which is technically run by a different corporate entity than the bar. And to reach the exit, he said, patrons of the Bull and Finch would have to pass three or four other exits.

Board Chairwoman Nicole Murati Ferrer wasn't buying it.

"You just can't ignore the police and decide to do it on your own," Ferrer said. "How many fire have we seen with locked exits and people died? ... I suggest next time you don't ignore public-safety officers of the city of Boston, particularly police officers."

Bradley said the bar's owners have since agreed to comply with the police demand and to figure out how to keep the door as an emergency exit without it becoming a way into the function room.

The board decides Thursday what to do, if anything, about the blocked exit.

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