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After punching a bowling-alley manager, man attacked EMTs who asked him why he was standing in the middle of Northern Avenue, police say
By adamg on Tue, 07/23/2019 - 11:06am
When the manager of Kings, 60 Seaport Blvd., asked Graham Atkinson to leave the establishment's bar around midnight on April 24, he became irate and punched her in the stomach - and then used an umbrella to smack a bouncer who came to her aid before fleeing, the bowling alley's lawyer and police said this morning.
As officers were responding to that call, they got another alert about a man standing in the middle of Northern Avenue, around the corner from Kings, tussling with EMTs, according to a police report, read at a Boston Licensing Board hearing this morning. The hearing was called so Kings could answer a police citation for "patron on employee assault and battery."
The man, who turned out to be Atkinson, had been alternating between standing in traffic, flailing at cars and just lying down in the middle of the road, police said. EMTs, responding to another call, had to stop because he was blocking their way, and got out to see if he needed any help, police said. According to the police account of the incident, Atkinson shoved the two EMTs, then tried to get into the back of the ambulance.
When officers arrived at Northern Boulevard, Atkinson tried going after them as well, according to the report.
Atkinson was charged with assault and battery,assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery on an EMT, and assault and battery on a police officer.
Kings attorney Dennis Quilty said the manager had decided it was time for Atkinson to leave because "just seemed to be off in a lot of different ways."
Police say Kings staff cooperated fully with police.
Both the manager and bouncer declined medical attention.
The board decides Thursday whether Kings could have prevented the incident and, if so, whether it deserves any punishment.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Kings at Fault?
Why isn't this anyone's fault but Atkinson himself? He's an adult of legal age to drink. It's pure luck when someone gets crazy luck this. On any given night there are tons of people getting completely drunk in city establishments. The vast majority of them make their way home without punching anyone. We all know enforcing liability on over-serving would result in major changes to our drinking culture.
They may not be at all at fault
The hearing is called to determine whether the establishment could have prevented an incident or had any blame for it - and for better or worse, the city rule is that a license-holding establishment gets cited for all incidents. If that board determines Kings could not have done anything different (and it sure sounds like they did everything right), then the board will vote "No Violation."
And then?
And promptly apologize to the establishment and reimburse them for the legal fees and staff time they spent participating in this particular guilty-until-proven-innocent exercise, amirite?
And that would be a bad thing?
"We all know enforcing liability on over-serving would result in major changes to our drinking culture."
Sorry, establishments have a responsibility to the general public -- these people could wander out into traffic or worse, get behind the wheel. If this person was over-served at Kings they have to be held accountable.
Not to mention, this was a
Not to mention, this was a Wednesday night... how does he still manage to have a job?
Establishments have some legal responsibility to ensure
that they're not over-serving customers. In Massachusetts, bars and restaurants can be held to some level of liability if they are deemed to have done so, especially if the drunk patron causes injury to a third party.
This is why many bars are required by their insurance carriers to enroll employees in Training and Intervention Procedures for Servers.
I Totally Get it
I'm saying that in practice, over-serving is routine (what defines over-serving anyway? It's not scientific), what Atkinson did is not. It's as if we all understand that a huge chunk of people go to bars to get destroyed... but clearly it's still better for business to over serve and risk a potential Atkinson rather than enforce preventing people from getting drunk in the first place, especially at a packed bar on a weekend night. It's very difficult to shut someone off until of course they do something wrong.
Is there bowling at that
Is there bowling at that location?
Not clear he was drunk
From the description of his actions, it sounds like he might have been mentally ill, with or without also being drunk.
Can't he be both, like Earl
Can't he be both, like Earl Warren?
that
or a prescription drug interaction
waaay back in the day, i was given asthma medication that made me legit hallucinate and i thought the bathroom tiles were flying off the walls
turns out they mislabeled my pill bottle