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Judge tosses lawsuit over length of South Boston parade and presence of gays and peaceniks
By adamg on Thu, 09/15/2016 - 8:23pm
A federal judge today tossed out the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council's latest legal effort to get the city to leave it alone and do whatever it wants with the St. Patrick's Day parade. But US District Court Judge Richard Stearns left the door open to a lawsuit over next year's parade.
In a ruling today, Stearns agreed with city attorneys that the council's latest lawsuit over the parade - which charged the city was violating its First Amendment and due-process rights to hold as long of a parade as it wants and to keep out gays - was kind of moot because what's done is done and the council is not alleging any present damages:
Crucially, the Council does not allege that it has applied for and has been denied a permit to conduct a future parade on its chosen route and with its chosen participants. Absent some allegation that the City and its officials have taken a concrete adverse action with respect to a future parade, any threat of harm at this point is conjectural.
The council had initially sued before this year's parade, demanding to be allowed to march its traditional route down Broadway and then to Andrew Square or, rather, traditional since the time the council sued the city to shorten the route.
Stearns granted a temporary injunction that said the council's rights outweighed city concerns about terrorism and drunken revelers milling about and the parade went down the longer route.
Then, last month, the council amended its request to ask for a permanent injunction - and to demand the city not threaten to pull city services if the council stopped letting LGBT and peace groups march. The council's new complaint alleged that Mayor Walsh himself threatened to withhold those services otherwise.
Stearns' ruling today was in response to the amended complaint.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Council's amended complaint | 910.96 KB |
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Comments
Time to move the parade downtown.
no one in south boston wants the parade. The parade is for 4 groups of people:
1. townies that got priced out to the south shore.
2. 20 something bros that got priced out to dorchester.
3. HS school kids from the burbs
4. college kids from allston/brighton.
of course there are a few remaining towneis (few hundred at best) that want it but with 33,000 people in SoBo...the majority of us do not want it here.
MOVE IT!
- the original sobo yuppie
And you bring what
SOBO, tells me your not even from the city. You bring nothing to the table. You bought maybe a condo. You have a party in Southie, you maybe meet a person of your dreams, move out to raise your children.
Politicians now move walls for you and you don't even know when a local election day is.
No I don't live in Southie but I know the city and your not deserving enough to call it home. You suck
Well, I do live in Southie.
Have for 10 years. We either go somewhere for the day, then spend the later part of it cleaning up garbage on our street. 'OR' Stay home and send pictures to 311 of people pissing on our street. It's truly a wonderful, cultural experience.
The parade sucks.
Hands down.
Case closed.
Well, I live in Southie too.
Well, I live in Southie too. Have done so for all my life. My family happens to enjoy the parade. We have a lovely gathering with traditional food and music. We don't need alcohol to celebrate. Too bad all those beckys and bros and suburban youth spoil the enjoyment of the day. I think all the bars and liquor stores should be closed for the day and all backpacks checked at Andrew and Broadway stations.
Geez...
you are worse than the yuppies who don't want the parade at all....
And I live in JP
A parade is 1 day. I have at least 1 parade if not more (honestly I don't count them) right in front of my building. Big whoop - it's a city and parades are an active part of it.
Get over it.
And since I feel the need to one up you, try dealing with idiots that think they can pee daily on your building. Just 2 days ago I yelled at one guy as I was getting out of my car. Shockingly he zipped up and walked away, pissing and moaning (verbally).
Again - it's the city and there's always something when you're in amongst many others. And before you tell me to get over my issue? I am over it. Every day is a new adventure. :)
Different strokes
While JP very may well be a vuvuzella filled, urine soaked paradise. We're talking about Southie.
Which
Which is still part of our city. Get over your one day bellyache.
Call your city councilor
and demand they put port-a-johns along the route. this is something I have NEVER SEEN at the St. Pats parade in my 17 years in Boston, and which would alleviate the pubic urination problem. I used to live in Southie, on E St. about 50 yards from Broadway. It was nice for me and my friends when having a party on the parade day, but yeah, the whole hood smells like piss the next day. Every business has a "No Bathrooms" sign in the window. What are people supposed to do? Even if they aren't getting drunk they still need to facilitate the ability to urinate for the throngs of people mulling around Southie.
I really, REALLY don't get this.
Go to Hempfest on Sunday and observe the banks of porta-johns.
Any concert on the Esplanade? Copley? Porta- johns.
Drunk parade for tens of thousands of people along a route rife with bars? NAH, let 'em piss on the street.
GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER BOSTON. Lookin at you MAHTY.
This is common sense.
Philly holds the Mummer's day parade on Jan 1st which is MUCH bigger on a MUCH longer route, the people are arguably more drunk and rowdy (can openly drink on the street that day, so much more civilized than us) and the place doesn't smell like piss (well, anymore than it did already) the next day because there are Porta-johns EVERYWHERE.
It's not rocket science.
Who pays?
I suspect in the cases you're talking about, the sponsoring organization pays for the portajohns. Your beef is with the All-Hetro War Vets, not the city.
City Council and/or Mayor
could compel them to pay for them in order to have their precious parade. City cleans up, DPW removes trash/debris. Property owners (i.e. taxpayers) have their lawn (wait, Southie, concrete patch, sorry) pissed on.
SOMEONE needs to provide them. Vets or city. Bitching to the city might actually get something done. The vets could give two shits about what anyone else thinks about their parade, as has been demonstrated time and again....
I totally agree that
I totally agree that portapottys should be put out along the route.
Should be a combo of the businesses, neighborhood association, sponsors, and the Vet org paying for them together.
Why?
I am a business owner on Broadway. Why do you think that I should have to pay for them?
I don't even want the parade. Typical of you and America's thought process, pass the buck to someone else.
Because the neighborhood
Because the neighborhood association and main street associations that you probably belong to support the parade. And because it will make you look really good.
We don't have these problems for our parade in Eastie because it isn't a nationally recognized parade. With that recognition (through good and bad things) comes a lot of extra people who need to pee. Also, if a business puts up a sign that says "No Bathrooms" even if you have one, then that is a great reason to have that business chip in for a portapotty. It keeps the neighborhood cleaner, people safer, and holligans out of your business.
Sorry if I annoyed you, but things have to change.
Had no idea I represented all of America's thought process. I probably should be thinking bigger thoughts.
You pretty much have it covered
I live on the east side where the parade loops around, so basically surrounded by roaming groups of out of town drunk teens and early 20's for the entire day. It cracks me up when people who dont live in Southie and don't have to put up with the trash, urination, defecation, drunk vandalism, and lack of public services for the day, have strong opinions about keeping the parade exactly as it is. 500,000 parade attendees and 30,000 residents. Who in hell would want 470,000 drunk outsiders in their neighborhood? Any volunteers from Braintree???
I don't live in Southie, but,
it seems that having ports-potties along the parade route is an idea whose time has come. That would not be an end in itself, but it would go a long way towards at least alleviating the problems of drunkennesss and the aftermath of pissing and puking in the street(s). Another solution, however, would be to ban, or at least curb the availability of alcoholic beverages during the parade.
I vote to move you
The _______ out of Boston you troll.
"priced out"
"townies that got priced out to the south shore"
That's a funny way to describe people fleeing to the South Shore once black students began getting bussed to their schools. Such affordable communities down in the (fourth generation) Irish Riviera.
Now it's just the neighborhood for people who are priced out of the Back Bay but still need a racial makeup more akin to the suburb they're from.
And I'm shocked someone hasn't thrown a fit that you referred to someone not from Charlestown as a townie.
St Patricks Day Parade
You MOVE I am a lifelong south boston resident I have watched the parade since I was a child. I Love the parade and all it represents. Now sixty years later I have to listen to rude spoiled little rich kids tell us to move a lifelong tradition that has deep meaning and Pride.Maybe you can tell your parents and the polititions what to do but the rest of us will fight to always keep the St Patricks parade here in South Boston. Amen
Sorry to break the news to you
but the fact that you lived in Southie your whole life, gives you exactly the same rights as any other person who lives there. One vote.
No damages?
What about the threat posed to western civilization?
I thought parade organizers
I thought parade organizers (of any parade) invited groups to march in their parades. If that's not the case, what's stopping any group from demanding to be let march in any parade?
You thought wrong
the parade organizers are geriatrics, they aren't out there scouring the country looking for groups to invite. They get applications, then they make decisions. It is that decision making process, and what influences it, in a parade that makes use of public resources (eg rerouting busses, taking over main streets for hours, police, fire etc", that is in question.
I know that another Boston
I know that another Boston neighborhood parade organization sends an invitation each year to the sporting organization to which my kids belong. Since every parade makes use of public resources, should the decision making process of who marches in any parade then be examined and overridden if thought necessary? If so, who makes that decision?
How Unpatriotic
How Unpatriotic to want excluded a group of people for what ever reasons. Boston Allied War Veterans Council's get over thing the South Boston Parade is privately own by you. South Boston Parade is the People's Parade/ ""The Bostonian Parade". Consider it a degree of eminent domain.
Boston is not the same as the times of Boston busing, we are culturally enriched, and diversity aware. If you don't like how are Boston teams would like to see the parade and get out
I commend Mayor Marty Walsh for standing his ground against all those who wants to be stuck in the 70s. It's time to move forward we were Progressive state and progressive City.
Anthony, I get your viewpoint, but PLEASE...
...consider a readthrough or two to tighten up the grammar and punctuation. It's actually difficult to read what you've written in several places and I suspect many readers just bail and go on to the next comment.
Oral History Interview of John Wacko Hurley and Molly Hurley
Oral History Interview of John Wacko Hurley and Molly Hurley
Interview Date: October 8, 2003
Interviewed by: Robert Allison, Suffolk University History Professor and
Joseph McEttrick, Suffolk University Law School Professor
http://www.suffolk.edu/documents/MoakleyArchive/oh-019_transcript.pdf
What did John Wacko Hurley do serving in the military?
Equal Treatment
Yet, on Caribbean Festival parade day, and the night before, one can drink and use drugs in public, disturb the peace all day and night, and the police are ordered to leave you alone. The bars are not ordered to close early. Liquor stores have no curfew. There are always at least three murders and violent assaults that take place, yet the city never gives anyone a hard time about this parade, who's organizers pay nothing to the city for services connected to the parade. Why is this parade a sacred cow but the St. Patrick's Day parade always subjected to scrutiny by city officials? And yes, the police are told to not enforce the law at the Caribbean Festival. Ask the guys who attended the roll call.
If you are going to make
If you are going to make comments like that, it would be good to put up some citation supporting your statement.
Also, have you ever watched the mess that is downtown Boston on the 17th? I had a bird's eye view once from the 4th floor above State and Congress and was shocked that people did not get run over. There were no police whatsoever taking care of any the situations that were happening and the liquor was flowing to whoever had the money to pay for it. None of the bars closed early.
I'm from Ireland.
I'm from Ireland. Trust me - the wanting to exclude the LGBT folks is not an Irish issue. Please don't confuse these muppets with Irish people. It's 2016 - move the F on already!
Interesting..
most people I know that are from Ireland want nothing to do with South Boston. i wonder why?
Cool story bro.
I'm from the USA and I speak for USAians on all topics.