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Sake could replace whiskey at troubled South Boston bar

The Boston Licensing Board votes tomorrow on whether to let the owners of Slainte on West Broadway sell their liquor license to a new owner who would replace it with an upscale Japanese sake bar.

Li Pei Liange wants to open the Station Bar and Bistro and turn it into more of an upscale destination location rather than a neighborhood hangout, his attorney, Peter Lim, told board Chairman Michael Connolly at a hearing this morning.

Last month, the board ordered Slainte shut for a week because of an incident in which a bar bouncer threw a woman down stairs and did nothing when a crowd outside began kicking her and her girlfriend - the second time in a year the board ordered a weeklong suspension. In June, 2009, a man was stabbed in the bar's parking lot.

Slainte took over from another bar that shut after a patron was stabbed to death. Going back even further, the location was a hangout for Whitey Bulger, who murdered at least one person there.

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Comments

If the six house was a different bar, they sure kept the same people employed after the stabbing. I always thought it was just a name change.

The bar was actually nice, but it was hard to get a crowd there. So they started up "Latin" nights, which well, doesn't go so good when the promoter is the guy doing the stabbing.

It really brought a lot of undesirables there from other areas in the city.

Not sure what they could do different. There's just not enough people down near Broadway to justify a mid-high level bar, which is what they spent renovating it. There's some new construction down there, but it's still spaced out, and more on the edge of an industrial area.

Still it was great because it was a really fun after work bar, and open till 2am if you wanted a late night stop..

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Slainte was a complete dump and failure of a bar. There are about 250-300 condo owners in a ONE block radius with at least an additional 100-150 rental units, all of which are high end and all of which were built from 2005 and on. I know, I live at 9WB. Everyone in this area has been DYING for a new upscale bar and restaurant (and grocery store - would you hurry up Foodies!) to patron. Thank god the Franklin Southie is there already. We all love the place, but it would be nicer to have another selection close by.

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I don't even know how to respond to this. I guess you're saying Slainte was beneath you? God forbid you actually go to a place where the regular blue collar neighbors hang out.

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I don't think he was saying the bar was "beneath" him, but that it was a dump, and dangerous. Not to mention, it's not like those blue-collar guys are all that welcoming to young, urban professionals.

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Anon sounds like they made a mistake moving to Southie.

It's a great neighborhood full of friendly people, but not if that's your outlook on things and the local.

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In response:

(1) Slainte is/was a dump and a failure and if something upscale went in there, folks who recently moved to the lower end part of the neighborhood would patron it. No one is going to apologize to you for the new arrivals in the lower end that are trying to build a neighborhood that locals abandoned decades ago.

(2) I've spent more time at Quencher and JJs on East Berkeley than you have at whatever dive bar you call home. Don't hate on folks that didn't grow up in "southie" when it was a dysfunctional, racist, drug-addled mess stuck in denial. I patron upscale, midscale, downscale, whateverscale businesses and establishments in South Boston, pay city taxes, vote, and donate to the local neighborhood association. I don't owe you anything and you certainly have no right to roll your eyes and play the blue collar card on universalhub.

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My god, this is epic. This should be posted on the wall in every bar in Southie, Eastie, JP, Charlestown and Somerville.

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It should,

I'm a YUP-ie, and I love southie just the way it is. The other posted obviously has never set a foot in any bar besides the one below his/her condo.

Guess throwing 400K of daddies money into a 500sq ft condo makes you bitter... sheesh.

Get out of the house and talk to some of those big, bad scary people from down the road. It would do you a world of good hun.

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Totally missed the point of the prior two posts.

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I don't think I did.

There's a bunch of pretentious assholes down around Broadway that think the neighborhood is just the people on their condo floor.

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Seriously - what gives you the right to say that? You sound like a jackass. What makes anyone down that way pretentious? The fact that they care about their immediate surroundings?

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