UPDATE:
MAYOR BHALLA ON TOP OF PUBLIC SAFETY
Fingers crossed that all stay safe tonight.
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LEPRE-GONE?
These Hoboken police statistics for 2017's Leprecon were collected by hMAG:
GA just strolled over to my neighborhood bar, Willie McBride's, which opened at 9AM.
It's windows are plastered with "Zero Tolerance" signs, and two huge fellows were standing outside. No lines yet, just two youthful Lepers decked out in green regalia inquiring on buying a pass.
Send any photos, Leper-tales my way. I will update later with my own observations.
MAYOR BHALLA ON TOP OF PUBLIC SAFETY
At 4PM or thereabouts, Mayor Bhalla addressed about 250 Hoboken and Inter-Agency officers preparing to depart for tour for next shift of today’s LepreCON duty.
Fingers crossed that all stay safe tonight.
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LEPRE-GONE?
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| Where have all the LEPERs gone? (Long time passing...) |
GA took these photos this afternoon on Washington Street.
Anecdotally.... wow. The streets in midtown were mainly LEPER-free. No lines outside of bars that I passed. No crowds inside, either.
I spoke to several cops standing on Washington street corners, asked them how this Leprecon compared with last year's (so far). The consensus was, much quieter than last year. One cop noted that this year the LEPERs were concentrated by the PATH station and along First street, since some of the lower Washington Street Bars were closed. He also noted that the popular Hoboken bars Black Bear and Talley Ho had voluntarily closed. The cop predicted that the LEPER-swarm may drift further uptown; it is a wait-and see. But as of this afternoon, the cops said it was much calmer than normal, a lot fewer people, and so far, so good.
So far! It ain't over till the fat lady-LEPER sings!
FAKE NEWS ALERT!
This is the FAKE NEWS being spread on the toxic horseshit website:
The Mayor is here. In Hoboken. Today.
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| The Bhalla Family today |
He was at City Hall earlier today, took his family out to lunch for his wife's birthday, and has a meeting with the police this afternoon for a status on events.
Why would "Hoboken Resistance" resist vetting the accuracy of his facts?
Not only is it FAKE NEWS, but its doubly offensive since Mayor Bhalla had a death in the family and rearranged his plans in order to be in Hoboken all day. The funeral is tomorrow, and the family is flying out at 10 PM. He'll be gone less than 24 hours, and back to work on Monday.
All it would have taken is a phone call to get the facts straight.
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| Police ministering to a drunk LEPER at Hoboken's Leprecon bar crawl circa 2016- credit Hoboken Patch |
Yes, it's a CON-day in Hoboken.
And it's falling one week after Hoboken's ABC board imposed harsh penalties for bars' SantaCON tavern sheets- 5 suspensions closing them today, and one license revoked (for incidents on September 4, December 4 and December 16).
In a statement issued by the Mayor's Office last week:
"...the State of New Jersey Attorney General’s Division of Alcohol Beverage Control has agreed to send 12 to 14 State ABC detectives to Hoboken [on Leprecon]. Along with Hoboken Police ABC detectives, they will be monitoring establishments to ensure compliance with all ABC regulations, including not admitting underage guests, not overserving patrons, not exceeding capacity, and other health and security regulations."
Today's big question today is, what difference will the efforts of the Mayor's Task Force on Public Safety, the Mayor, Hoboken and state ABC detectives, and those stiff ABC board penalties make today, compared with last year's Leprecon?
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| The Mayor's Task Force on Public Safety includes Police Chief Ferrante, Provisional Fire Chief Crimmins, Police Capt. Pasculli, Police Sgt. Kucz, Police Sgt. Montanez, Health Officer Frank Sasso, Battalion Fire Chief Buoncuore, Fire Captain DiVincent, Business Administrator Marks, Corporation Counsel Aloia, and Environmental Services Director Pellegrini. |
These Hoboken police statistics for 2017's Leprecon were collected by hMAG:
- 477 calls for service yesterday, up from 432 in 2016
- Hoboken Volunteer Ambulance Corps transported 28 individuals to the hospital, down from 35 in 2016. None seriously injured.
- HPD issued 31 City Ordinance summonses, down from 54 in 2016. Most of the violations were Drinking in Public, with a handful of Public Urination and Criminal Mischief complaints.
- 11 arrests yesterday, down from 15 in 2016. Two were for Simple Assault, two for Obstruction of Justice, two DWI, four Disorderly Conduct/Fighting and one for Resisting Arrest.
- Zero officers were injured yesterday, down from two in 2016.
- Zero complaints against HPD officers, for the second year in a row.
GA just strolled over to my neighborhood bar, Willie McBride's, which opened at 9AM.
It's windows are plastered with "Zero Tolerance" signs, and two huge fellows were standing outside. No lines yet, just two youthful Lepers decked out in green regalia inquiring on buying a pass.
Send any photos, Leper-tales my way. I will update later with my own observations.
My guess .. not much as closure of other bars has resulted in obvious overcrowding of the ones that decided to stay open such as Texas Arizona or Biggie's as a result of our Mayor's unilateral decision ; other bars (Black bear - Tally ho ) have made a hard "voluntarily" decision to remain closed for today mostly due to the fear imposed by their local government.
ReplyDeleteIn such a young town .. that attracts young people not just from Hoboken but most importantly from outside of Hoboken on days like these .. you need to work around and together with local bars , not the opposite; if you don't know your demographics then go to Montclair or other suburban town .
HOBOKEN is NOW a real banana republic with knee-jerk actions and reactions from our Mayor ; yes quality of life of Hoboken's residents is a huge issue but I'm sure there are better ways to address this ..with more help from law enforcement , with more presence .
There will always be young people and just like an angry teeenager .. you do not tackle the problem with a teenager-like solution , you back off .. and think .
Interestingly if you look a bit deeper into history, at least in Latin America, politically involved (American ) officials including the CIA , with conflicts of interest , lobbying , falsehoods and family ties have been directly involved in creating this type of banana republic environment.
"the United Fruit Company relied so heavily on manipulating land use rights to maintain their market dominance causing a number of long-term consequences for the region.
The directors of United Fruit Company (UFCO) had lobbied to convince the Truman and Eisenhower administrations that Colonel Arbenz intended to align Guatemala with the Soviet Bloc.
U.S. officials had little proof to back their claims of a growing communist threat in Guatemala; however, the relationship between the Eisenhower administration and UFCO demonstrated the influence of corporate interest on U.S. foreign policy. United States Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was an avowed opponent of Communism, and his law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, had represented United Fruit. His brother Allen Dulles was the director of the CIA and a board member of United Fruit. United Fruit Company is the only company known to have a CIA cryptonym. The brother of the Assistant Secretary of State for InterAmerican Affairs, John Moors Cabot, had once been president of United Fruit. Ed Whitman, who was United Fruit’s principal lobbyist, was married to President Eisenhower's personal secretary, Ann C. Whitman"
Doesn't this sound familiar to you ? It starts sounding like Hoboken's current city hall !!
HobokenedOut, thanks for the history. You really are an erudite fellow. I must disagree with your opinion, however.
DeleteCalling the actions of the Mayor's Public Safety Task Force and ABC, plus Transition Team recommendations (made up of Hoboken residents), plus the public meeting held by the Council Subcommittee on Public Safety (attended by your partner), all of this was truly collaborative from the top down -- the OPPOSITE of how Banana Republics govern. Out of 133 liquor licenses, only 5 were suspended and one revoked. That is a SMALL percentage of businesses impacted, AND those businesses were responsible for a disproportionate amount of disorderly conduct. Don't you believe in accountability?
I'm kinda surprised you have taken this POV, since you are in the business of saving human life. Did you know that the patron flung out of 1Republik almost died in surgery? His brain was hemorrhaging. I understand the poor fellow has permanent brain damage. The city did not end Leprecon, they have put the bars on notice to clean up their act. And you oppose that?
Read the charges from the December 4 complaint:
https://grafixavenger.blogspot.com/2018/02/defusco-took-2600-from-1-republik-last.html
umm...actually, most city residents hate what the cons have become and fully support the actions of the ABC in suspending licenses. the mayor made this con crackdown a major part of campaign and the people voted him in based on that platform, so they obviously agree with him on the matter.
Deleteone thing you conveniently overlook: 130 liquor licenses in the city, five bars suspended for repeated problems. i suck at math but that's probably 95% of city liquor license holders are responsible business owners who do a great job and are supported by the residents of hoboken, and 5% are problem places that are being penalized accordingly. why do you equate the irresponsible 5% of city bars as representative of the entire hoboken bar/entertainment scene? that's BS.
btw, why should we care about appeasing young people from outside of hoboken who come here on a con day? city businesses do fine on any given saturday. if bars can't stay in business without income from a con day, then maybe we have too many bars in town and need come culling. despite what some people apparently think, no one has a god-given right to run a bar in hoboken.
also, how is something a "knee-jerk reaction" when the cons have been a problems for years? nothing knee jerk about it, most people are saying "it's about time."
face it, you're the one who's out of step with what the people of hoboken want. you speak for a minority of residents.
I believe in accountability.. from what I know the security guy was owned by a third party security firm so he wasn't directly employed by the bar owner .. I wonder what other bars use this security form and if this has been assessed .
Deleteknowing that these issues recur weekend after weekend , there should be more police presence , they should be riding bikes or one of those 2 wheel devices all over hoboken on weekends or special days ; it is an unfortunate and sad outcome needless to say with more than one person being responsible ; had been more and rapid response from law enforcement maybe this could have been prevented .
I wonder where were this person's friends , what triggered his attitude , were there drugs involved and could they explain maybe partially the brain damage or erratic behavior ? , what kind of training these 6'5 bouncers get +-how many are required per establishment , etc... so many questions that come to my mind.
The only way to completely prevent this would be to avoid alcohol anywhere in Hoboken which would be impossible to achieve .. anyways .. I think that at least for events like this , maybe they should involve technology and include barcode bracelets so anytime you buy a drink you get scanned and you can monitor and limit the amount of alcohol on a specific period of time .
Maybe open some public restrooms or more port-a-potties near problematic areas (better than having people urinate on the streets ) .. I saw some in Amsterdam .
Anyways, for these type of events banning some places will not make a difference, it probably should be an all or nothing approach .. I hope I'm wrong but young people couldn't care less if one or two bars are closed .. they will go to a friend's house , pre drink and then go over to whatever bar is open and saturate them making them potentially more dangerous .
Hobokened Out, please read the Dec. 4 2017 report linked to above. The circumstances before, during and after the incident are laid out very clearly.
DeleteOne more thing that's important to note: not a single of 11 bars penalized so far have contested the ABC Board's decision and penalties. Not one. They accepted the charges and the penalties. In the past, bars have contested the ABC's findings. So, what does that tell you?
I think HO cares more about his bar crawls than anything else. That tells me more than enough to not care about his opinion.
DeleteShut up DOR I am not supporting bar crawls but a combined and smart effort if they are to happen .
DeleteI read the report .. it seems as a customer hit another customer ( not sure if that was Juan but I assume it was ) with a ceramic plate ; again , I assume from all I read that that was the trauma Juan suffered that caused him a brain bleed .
My take is these places are loud , if people are yelling at each other this yelling and cursing may go unnoticed, someone hitting another person with a ceramic plate can take 3-4 seconds even before a real (warning sign) altercation happens so not sure if something could have been done at that time to prevent the damage .. if the brain bleed happened due to another situation , it is not clear to me from that report.
I do not understand much of the legal language used however the medical description of the event is very basic and can't really make much of it .
Again , I'm going back to small changes to improve safety , I don't know if all bars have a red button , a string they can pull or some immediate alarm mechanism that can trigger a police officer to come right away and not having to be on the phone during emergency situations .
if the issue at 1 Republic seems to be more of the timing (or willingness ?) to call law enforcement that's a different story .
And btw , last summer , this blog made fun of Defusco missing a council meeting .. as one of his friends , a young 34 year-old adolescent psychiatrist was losing his fight to pancreatic cancer .
People make mistakes and often times talk to much before all the facts are out . Just putting it out there to reflect .
For the record, Hobokened Out-- if I gave DeFusco crap, and I believe I probably did, at the time I did not know the circumstance you speak of. The same cannot be said for "Hoboken Resistance."
DeleteI believe that report said the injured fellow asked for help, asked for medical assistance, and was ignored, just left lying on the ground. Its all in there.
The bar crawls have been a massive problem for years and we do not want them to happen - we want them to go away. It is past time to talk to them or whatever. They have been operating recklessly for as far back as I can remember and that is one reason why I almost never go out in Hoboken on weekends - it is a shit show. So stuff it if you can't handle the fact that your bar owning buddies have to learn to behave or lose their livelihood. It is past time the city bent over backwards to accommodate them and the trouble they attract.
DeleteAs for DeFusco, I thin the man is a moron, a moron who has sold out. If you consider him a friend and support him even after reading through his campaign filings, then I think you need to do some serious soul searching b/c you sir have some serious issues.
The idiot who wrote that comment about Ravi being out of town "corrected" his post but doubled down on bashing the Mayor for leaving town tonight despite knowing the Mayor' family is attending the out of town funeral of a close relative.
ReplyDeleteWhat a Giant a-hole. Truly Sad!
You mean "Reform Resistance" knows that Ravi is attending a funeral, but wrote he is "gallivanting" anyway?
DeleteI am reminded of Beth Mason's attacks on Peter Cunningham for attending his father-in-law's funeral, and missing a council meeting. Boy, these people have become everything they hated.
So "Reform Resistance" thinks Ravi is gallivanting to his family member's funeral? I never want to talk to that guy ever again. He really sucks.
Yes - he has become everything he used to hate. That is the irony of the whole situation. He created his site b/c of what his predecessor became - and look at him now.
DeleteA victory for Hoboken - it can't be seen any other way - but I'm sure it will.....
ReplyDelete