Somebody’s daughter in a short black skirt is passed out in an alley off Commercial Street. At the edge of Faneuil Hall, an almost vertical woman challenges a man to a fight in front of the Hong Kong restaurant – home of the infamous scorpion bowl. And something bad is brewing at Kitty O’Shea’s on State Street where police and bouncers are giving the bum’s rush to a stocky guy with a bloody head and a shredded shirt.
Behold the grandeur that is Boston’s downtown night club district on a recent Saturday night.
Somewhere in this sea of backward baseball caps, skimpy tops, and sausage vendors lurk serious public policy considerations. What do these under-30 patrons think about Boston’s 2 a.m. closing time for bars? Is that too early for a world-class city? How do they get home when the city’s public transit system shuts down an hour before the bars do? Efforts to elicit answers collapse when a rumor starts that the middle-aged man with a reporter’s notebook is horror writer Stephen King. No autographs, please.
Still, there may be a glimmer of hope for nightclubs in non-residential areas of the city. Daniel Pokaski, chair of the Boston Licensing Board, says that the board, which regulates alcohol and food licenses, might “look at’’ requests for extended hours on a “structured basis.’’ That’s not terribly specific. But it’s a start in a city where the topic can stir up more trouble than a scorpion bowl.
