Suspicious Doings at Boston Licensing Board

The Boston Licensing Board hasn’t permanently revoked a bar’s license in a decade, reports the Herald in a scathing expose of the three-member governor-appointed panel. The BLB has overlooked everything from a doorman putting a customer in a chokehold and a patron’s credit card being overcharged by hundreds of dollars at The Bell In Hand (which has amassed 36 violations since 2005) to a bunch of college students passed out outside McFadden’s (41 violations since 2005) after the bar was already on probation. Perhaps most egregiously, when downtown club The Roxy received a 30 day license suspension after a series of fights in 2006 and 2007, the suspension wasn’t imposed until a stabbing on the dance floor five months after it was issued. The BLB is appointed by the governor, but doesn’t issue annual reports or hold open meetings. It’s a part-time job, but members can earn over $100,000. The BLB is headed by Daniel F. Polaski. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because he was recently in the news for granting a liquor license to someone who had bribed disgraced former state Senator Dianne Wilkerson. The whole thing feels very The Wire: we’re just waiting to hear that Stringer Bell is on the board.

Bars Gone Wild: Licensing Board Looks Other Way [Herald]
Licensing Board Cloaked in Secrecy [Herald]
Roxy Given Second, Third Chances After Underage Party, Brawls [Herald]

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Suspicious Doings at Boston Licensing Board