The city has revoked Sons of Boston’s entertainment license, saying the pub where a bouncer is accused of stabbing a patron did not have the necessary “safety and operational plan”.
“All entertainment licenses owned by the licensee are SUSPENDED INDEFINITELY, effective immediately,” read a letter from Mayor Michelle Wu’s Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing to the Causeway Union, which owns the bar.
SOB, as the bar is colorfully nicknamed, is in the bustling downtown area of bars along Union Street – and became the scene of a crime last weekend. Alvaro Larrama, a 39-year-old father of four from East Boston, is accused of stabbing 23-year-old US Marine Daniel Martinez there after the pair appeared to get into a confrontation.
Larrama, who worked as a bouncer at the bar, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Martinez, who was in town from Illinois and celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with a Marine Corps pal on Saturday night.
After the initial investigation of the crime scene, the Boston Police Department’s Licensed Premises Division returned Wednesday to report violations at the bar, eventually saying the facility had armed security guards without prior board approval and “permitted a disturbance leading to.” resulted in the licensed premise becoming a focal point for police attention.”
At that point, police wrote, they confiscated the entertainment license.
Entertainment licenses are separate from those for spirits and food. The most basic entertainment license includes “the use of a radio, a portable audio device that inputs music, music by electrical or mechanical means, background music, or a CD player,” according to the city’s website, so music-related entertainment is now prohibited there. The next tier of the license is “up to five TVs,” so that’s out too.
Nobody answered the phone at the bar Thursday night.
The Mayor’s Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing — MOCAL — which is chaired by Licensing Committee Chair Kathleen Joyce, although the two bodies are technically separate, wrote to the Bar Association a year ago that MOCAL was “the submission of a safety and operational plan and a diversification plan” from the business.
After the fatal stabbing, “the division has become aware that the licensee has not submitted a safety and operational plan,” Joyce wrote.
“Licensees have an obligation to conduct their activities in a way that does not interfere with public safety and order, and they must operate in a manner that protects their customers and members of the public from disruptive behavior, criminal activity, and health and safety risks,” she continued away.
If the SOB wants the license back, they must come up with a plan that includes a discussion of security training, procedures for customer interaction and de-escalation, and “police investigation cooperation training.”
