By Martin Finucane, The Associated Press
BOSTON (AP) - The mayor backed off his threat of banning alcohol from around Fenway Park during the upcoming World Series but more police will be inside neighborhood bars to make sure fans don’t get too drunk or rowdy.
Police said they would be prepared to make mass arrests if necessary.
“If we have to execute mass arrests, they’ll have buses and vans and tactical officers available,” police commissioner Kathleen O’Toole told The Boston Globe. “We need to send a very strong message to the potential troublemakers that we’re there in force.”
The Globe also reported that 70 additional officers will be on hand for World Series games Saturday and Sunday, citing to a police operational plan it had obtained.
After meeting for an hour Friday with about two dozen bar and restaurant owners, Mayor Thomas Menino backed down from a threat to invoke a rarely used state law to ban liquor “in cases of riot or great public excitement.”
He had considered the ban after thousands of raucous fans took to the streets after the hometown Red Sox won the American League championship. One college student died after being hit in the eye by police firing pepper spray into the crowd, and more than a dozen others were injured.
Instead, bar owners agreed to a series of restrictions, including not allowing patrons to line up outside to wait to get in, not allowing bars to become overcrowded or patrons to drink too much, and not allowing television crews to do live shots from inside bars. Authorities were worried that live television coverage of bar patrons encourages people to act out as they play to the cameras.
In addition, police will step up their presence inside bars near the ballpark and around the tourist hot spots of Faneuil Hall and the city’s waterfront to enforce the agreed-upon restrictions.
The bar owners, who agreed to the measures, are “part of what we’re trying to do to make sure the world sees Boston in a positive manner,” Menino said.
Bar and restaurant owners had expressed outrage when Menino first floated the idea of banning alcohol sales around Fenway Park, where the Red Sox will go up against the St. Louis Cardinals in a best-of-seven World Series that begins Saturday.
After the meeting with the mayor, Patrick Lyons, who owns several nightclubs on Landsdowne Street across from the ballpark, said, “We’re intent on having a good safe environment within the licensed premises” during the games.
“It was a great meeting. It was a very cooperative meeting. ... I think the outcome was a positive outcome and we’re working together to do everything to keep the public safe,” said Dana Van Fleet, owner of the Cask ‘n’ Flagon, a bar just outside the ballpark.
Both Lyons and Van Fleet blamed the disturbances in the streets on crowds who flock to the area, which is near a number of colleges, to celebrate after games, rather than patrons coming out of the nearby bars.
A number of local television stations contacted Friday afternoon said they had no plans to battle Menino on the issue of live shots from inside bars, with some saying they didn’t intend to do them for the World Series or never did them at all.
Lou D’Ermilio, senior VP of media relations for the national Fox network, said the network did do live shots during Game 7 of the ALCS, but would abide by Menino’s request.
“We have no problem complying with that request. What the mayor would like, the mayor will get,” he said.
The meeting followed the death of an Emerson College student who was hit in the eye by a pepper spray-filled ball fired by a police officer. Victoria Snelgrove, 21, was fatally wounded in the post-game rowdiness outside Fenway Park following the Red Sox’s series-clinching win over the Yankees.
Snelgrove, of East Bridgewater, was among 16 people hurt in and around Kenmore Square early Thursday morning as thousands of fans spilled out onto the streets to celebrate Boston’s win over archrival New York. She died after pepper spray was shot into the crowd and hit her in the eye.