Pawtucket club fined, closed for four nights
Douglas Hadden 11/11/2004
PAWTUCKET -- Macondo Club, a nightclub at 242 Middle St., which is popular
particularly with Latinos, was slammed Wednesday night with four dark nights and
$1,000 in fines in a 7-0 voice vote of the City Council.
The club was ordered to close on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 19-20 and 26-27, and
fined $500 each on charges of serving minors and disorderly conduct.
Also the club, which has been required to have a firefighter and a police detail
officer on Friday and Saturday nights, was ordered to add a second detail
officer from 9:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Central Falls resident Robert Thibeault, the club’s license holder as Boson
Associates and owner of the property, said he would refer the penalties to his
attorney for appeal to the state liquor control administration as soon as he
receives them in writing.
The council, sitting as the Liquor Board, held a hearing on the club’s license
in which several police officers testified to underage drinkers, patrons
assaulting police, a 16-year-old girl found carrying a knife and a man taking a
golf club to cars in the parking lot and scores of patrons fighting outside.
One underage man picked up by police was back outside the club a week later,
testimony brought out.
At one point in the hearing, Assistant City Solicitor Frank Milos noted that
three people involved in one incident were all under 21 and admitted to drinking
in the club. "Is that an accident or a pattern?" he said.
But Thibeault, who has hosted numerous club operations in the building over the
years, and four-year club manager Greg Negron, of Pawtucket, said the
accusations were overblown and the problems mostly outside the club.
After the hearing they also questioned whether their club was being targeted
because its patrons are mostly Hispanic.
"For the past four years, I can count on one hand the number of times there’s
been incidences" at the club, Thibeault said to reporters in the hallway outside
the council chamber.
"I hate to say it -- it’s prejudice because the club is a Spanish club. It’s
prejudice against the Spanish people," Thibeault said. "To put another detail
officer, I would have to close," he said citing costs per night now of
approximately $150 per police officer and $180 for the firefighter. He also said
his insurance costs, in the post-Station nightcoub fire environment, have spiked
from $8,000 to $18,000 and installing required sprinklers will run $25,000 to
$50,000.
"You hate to say anything because you know they’re going to come back at you one
way or the other," Thibeault added.
Thibeault said problems often stem from people drinking in their cars, which is
why he doesn’t allow re-entry without paying a second cover charge. He said an
underage girl had gotten in when her 21-year-old boyfriend opened a locked rear
door from inside.
Negron said he has six or seven bouncers and a parking lot attendant to keep
order in the club, but club-goers from elsewhere will wait until his patrons
come out, "and then a fight will start."
But the council’s police liaison on licensing matters, Major Stephen Ormerod,
denied the club was being singled out because of who frequents it. "Many bars
have (police) details," he said. "Race or ethnicity has nothing to do with it."
On a Thibeault complaint that detail officers don’t check for underage patrons,
Ormerod said "it’s not our job to check IDs." As a Class B license holder (which
also requires serving food), he said the club can admit people of any age though
only serve alcohol to those at least 21.
"I understand their concerns," Ormerod said. "However, this is a lot of
extracurricular work for us, frankly. All we’re trying to do is, if someone’s
calling for a police officer at 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning, he’s not tied up
at a bar."
Ormerod, in an Aug. 30 memo to Police Chief George Kelley logging Macond-related
calls year to date, listed 5 fights, 7 dispersals, 4 assaults, 3 disturbances, 3
noise complaints and 10 responses at closing, often with several officers
responding.
"Of the 12 arrests that have been made there this year," he wrote, "seven of
them involved persons under 21 years of age at the time of the arrest."
Dist. 1 Councilor David Moran, who represents the area, during the hearing said
the owner and operator were "in denial" about the numerous problems logged by
police.
"I’m extremely disgusted with this establishment," said Moran, calling it the
worst he’s encountered in 13 years on the council. "The bottom line is these
reports do not lie. It seems to me the management and license holder are in an
extreme sense of denial," including that their legal responsibility extends to
what goes on outside the club.
Moran ticked off the golf club incident, the 16-year-old girl with a concealed
knife (two other juveniles were also involved that night, the youngest 15), the
fights. "Sheer negligence. I’m tired of hearing excuses. It warrants a stiff
penalty and it’s something that has to be done."
Moran said he was putting the operation "on short leash. If you step out of
line," he said, he will move to have the liquor license revoked, "because I’m
not going to take this anymore and neither are my constituents."
©The Pawtucket Times 2005
Source: The Pawtucket Times,
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13340672&BRD=1713&PAG=461&dept_id=24491&rfi=6
