City vows crackdown on violence at Theater District clubs

The city licensing office has ordered an 11-day suspension of the entertainment license for Venu, following a November melee at the Warrenton Street club that took cops from across the city - and repeated shots of pepper spray - to break up.

The Boston Licensing Board - a separate state agency - could add even more time to the punishment following its own hearing today. Acting board Chairman Michael Connolly noted similar problems at Rumor, which shares the same building and owners with Venu, and said he's worried what would happen if two of the four large clubs in the area have violent outbursts at the same time, because Boston Police might not have the resources to quickly put down a multi-club disturbance.

"Boy, oh, boy, I'm more concerned than I've ever been, and I've been on this board for ten years, that this thing is just going to explode one night," Connolly told club officials. "Structurally, the concern goes well beyond any one establishment. A potential tinderbox exists there. This thing could just blow sky high ... if things get out of hand on any one night."

Boston Police and club officials agreed that an argument between two members of a birthday party near closing time on Nov. 29 rapidly spiraled into a series of violent encounters between clubgoers and club security staffers and police.

The violence began when club security tried to escort one of the yellers out a rear fire escape, but he grabbed on and refused to go and dared them to throw him down the stairs. His friends joined in. A police officer working a detail at the club radioed for help. A woman started elbowing a cop. More cops arrived. More fights broke out. Officers began using OC spray out of fear for their own safety - at one point, police say, an officer had to fire his spray twice at an angry group of 10 to 15 people rushing him and the fighter he was trying to subdue. By the time it was all over, every officer in District A-1 was on scene along with emergency reinforcements from the South End, South Boston and East Boston. Although police managed to quell the violence fairly quickly - and with no injuries - during that time, Charlestown, the North End and other parts of downtown had no police presence at all. Some seven people were arrested on various charges.

"This was one of the largest and most disruptive incidents involving unruly patrons which has ever occurred at any licensed establishment in the city of Boston," the Mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing said in its suspension order, handed down last week. The office said the club failed completely to control its clientele - and that the whole thing might never have happened if it had done a better job of checking IDs, since the person whose attempted ouster started the whole thing turned out to be only 20.

In addition to the entertainment-license suspension, the office ordered a reduction in the club's maximum occupancy from 325 to 275 and ordered that the club stop admitting new patrons at 1 a.m. and sweep the sidewalk out front to keep people from congregating there after that time.

Tom Montgomery, who manages both Venu and Rumor, acknowledged the Nov. 29 incident "was something that totally got out of control." But he called it "just a once in a lifetime thing, hopefully a once in a lifetime thing," that his security staff, "the best trained staff in the city" will work to prevent from happening again. Club officials say that in addition having the best security staff in the city, they are working on new training and security procedures - as well as replacing the current all-black security uniforms with jackets that have name tags and "SECURITY" written in large bright letters on the back, so that rowdy club goes realize they're not just jousting with other club goers when things get real.

The mayor's licensing office, however, expressed its doubts. In its decision, it noted the incident was similar to another outburst at the club in 2009 and said it no longer believes the club really can keep things under control. "The licensee has continued to repeatedly fall outside of requirements due to their own operating failures and due to the unruly behavior of their clientele. It is not satisfactory to expect that the city as a whole should continue to suffer in its need to ensure public safety and order, due to the continued operation by this one licensee that is outside of standards."

The decision notes that Rumor, with the same owner and security manager, has received 15 days of suspension for five separate incidents since 2008, as well as numerous warnings, for "incidents involving unruly patrons, assaults, overcrowding, admission of underage or previously barred patrons and repeated incidences of congestion and blockage by patrons outside the establishment."