Pittsfield Licensing Unhappy With Heavily Redacted Reports
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Licensing Board continued a hearing on Monday, saying its work was being stunted by heavily redacted, "almost indecipherable" police reports.
The show cause hearing was for two disturbances at Thistle and Mirth that occurred on Jan. 7 and Jan. 13.
The first incident was an argument that took place outside of the West Street restaurant and the second, which prompted a referral to the Licensing Board, resulted in a window being broken.
Board members felt that the reports provided by the Police Department did not allow them to make a well-informed decision because there were too many censored words. Knowing that it had been an issue in the past, Chairman Thomas Campoli requested to have responding officers present at the meeting to fill in the gaps.
To his disappointment, those officers were not in attendance.
"In advance of these hearings we get reports and those reports were so heavily redacted they were almost indecipherable, so that's a problem for us," Campoli said. "Because we have to make a decision here and with respect to these reports that are blacked out such that it is very difficult, it makes our job almost impossible."
He reported speaking to members of the Police Department about this in the past but saw no change.
After a brief review of the first incident, member Kathy Amuso interjected to ask that the hearing be continued until March.
"For me, I think it would be beneficial to Thistle for this to wait," she said.
Attorney Ethan Klepetar, representing co-owners Joad Bowman and Austin Oliver, said they would like a resolution as soon as possible.
"We are confident that the record will show that the licensee did everything appropriately," Klepetar said.
"They had security at the door, they call the police immediately as soon as something happens, cooperate with the police, shut the premises down, and have done everything that they could possibly do to make sure once something happens that it's taken care of appropriately and to take action to not allow it to happen again."
While the board's consideration was appreciated, he pointed out that both owners were present at the meeting to explain what happened.
Amuso stressed the importance of having police and licensee testimony so that the board does not make an adverse decision.
"We want to get the full information so we can make an educated decision," she said.
Board member Richard Stockwell said if a potential license suspension is on the table it is important to "cross all the Ts and dot all the Is."
Lt. Matthew Hill clarified that the first incident, which was described as "large scale disturbance" of verbal arguing outside around 12:45 a.m., would not have brought Thistle and Mirth to the Licensing Board.
"They are only here because of the proximity of the two instances and the severity of the second," Hill explained.
There is an ongoing investigation into the incident that led to property damage.
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