Éirinn go Brách

 
Tom Kelley:  Faithful "domestic" to Miss Emily, and her lead pallbearer

Growing up on Crow Hill in Amherst in a single parent Irish Catholic household a couple generations ago, St Patrick's Day was more than a spring milestone--and much more than simply a day to wear green, or an excuse to consume beer for breakfast.

It was the only time I ever remember my mother hosting a formal party for friends, family and neighbors, and one of the few times the Kelley household looked more than presentable for an entire day and night. 

My mother always accented the positive traits of being Irish:  loyalty, gifted storytelling, determination, hard working, although stubborn was a trait that could go either way.  One of my favorite sayings I heard often enough was "get their Irish up," meaning to anger.

So I've always tried to use St Patrick's Day positively.  In 1991, over a ten consecutive year date with Mt Washington for the grueling bike race in late August, St Patty's Day commenced the first formal day of road training.  Over the following five months, and thousands of miles logged, I could count on one hand the days missed being in the saddle.

Five years ago today (2007) I started this blog to reestablish my voice.  I had lost a bet with an online Anon commenter on Masslive Amherst Forums (2004) about whether Amherst Regional High School, after the monumental national pounding they were taking for scheduling a performance of "The Vagina Monologues," would actually happen (it did).

I also resigned my monthly column after 14 years with the Amherst Bulletin because Editor in Chief Jim Foudy censored me from writing a follow up column (the first had sparked an international debate) on that same shameful incident.

Since founding, I have shed light on the truth--especially in places where powerful forces wished it stay hidden, given voice to the voiceless--when they spoke the truth, broken countless stories, and led the charge on a dozen important crusades.

A 19th century journalist using 21st century technology.

You may have noticed the sudden appearance of advertising last week.  Although my traffic reached a point of commercial viability years ago, I held off selling ads because I did not want to deal with the natural conflict of interest that oftentimes hamstrings newspapers--especially now with print ads down dramatically. 

Do you hold back investigating/reporting a story because it shines negative light on one of your few remaining advertisers? 

For instance, I'm tempted now to make a snide remark about Gazette reporter Scott Merzbach grilling Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Tony Maroulis to elicit negative feedback about McMurphy's and Stacker's embarrassing "Blarney Blowout" bar promotion last Saturday.  But, Tony's an advertiser (who, hopefully, has a sense of humor).

Last year, this special holiday marked my most important milestone of all:  giving up alcohol.

The painfully slow demise of my health fitness business combined with painful arthritic degeneration of my joints combined to overwhelm my fine tuned sense of control.

I thought I could not live without my business or being able to kick people in the head on an almost daily basis.  Soon enough, I thought I could not live without consuming 10 beers a day.  Now I live without both.

Because I came to realize the ultimate truth:  I can't live without my family.

May those who love us love us. And those that don't love us, May God turn their hearts. And if He doesn't turn their hearts, May he turn their ankles, So we'll know them by their limping.

Blarney Blowout: Unintended Consequences

McMurphy's Uptown Tavern 9:45 AM

The Select Board last night, sort of, addressed the Public Relations nightmare caused by the "Barney Blowout," one of the more juvenile celebrations hosted in downtown Amherst.

In fact, it used to be called "Kegs 'n Eggs" but came under such criticism two years ago for boorish bad behavior that they simply changed the name rather than the behavior.

Call me a prude or a cranky old reformed drunk, but I have serious problems with a downtown public promotion that encourages heavy drinking before noon.

Especially when that production abuses Irish heritage.

Email back story

DUI Dishonor Roll

Every day in America, another 27 people die as a result of drunk driving crashes

While incidents of Party House revelry will, mercifully, decrease rather dramatically over the next three months now that our #1 industry is on hiatus, the more dangerous by-product of alcohol abuse, drunk driving, will probably not let up all that much. Sadly.

For instance, neither of this past weekend's arrested "college aged youth" show up in UMass, Hampshire or Amherst College people search, although they could very well be friends who came to visit a student.

 If I had to pick a clear cut winner between the two, it would easily be Briana Howell.

Click to enlarge

McMurphy's 1:20 AM early Sunday

 Even though she was bagged at 1:23 AM, the location at East Pleasant/Chestnut Streets means she just drove through town center, and oddly enough at that time the town was packed with kids getting out of the bars and waiting for their $1 slice of pizza at the best little pizza shop in the state, Antonio's.

Antonio's 1:18 AM early Sunday

But Kurt Russavage would still be a close second, since his time of arrest was 11:14 PM on a Friday night ... when even us old  fogies might still be on the road.

A stitch in time...

 APD in riot gear. Townhouse Apartments 3/10/12 

Even the Amherst Bulletin is aroused!

While the $10,000 state grant to the Amherst Police Department for party control, compared to their $4 million annual operation cost may not sound like much, it comes at a critical time for our beleagured officers of the law:  Spring.


Although, considering the level of drinking and debauchery on display this past weekend for the "Blarney Blowout," they could have put it to good use a little sooner.
McMurphy's, Stacker's Saturday 3/10/12 10:45AM  Tommy Devine vid

But with that other day of debauchery--the Hobart Hoedown--looming on the near horizon, APD could use all the extra help they can muster.  Too bad the  Amherst Fire Department, equally overburdened by party revelry, could not benefit by a temporary grant (or permanent increase in staffing).

AFD & APD respond to ETOH (passed out) student 3/10/12 4:00 PM

By Any Other Name

After a brief emergency meeting this morning at an undisclosed location the Amherst Select Board and Town Manager invoked Executive Order #19, a rarely used provision of the Amherst Town Government Act that allows the Executive Branch to do pretty much anything it wants.

One of less controversial decrees hatched at the secret meeting will change the name of the town from Amherst, where even the h is silent, to Salk -- where every letter is pronounced.

After 254 years of snarky remarks about the town being named after Lord Jeffery Amherst, the (bastard) father of biological warfare, and in a ritualistic bow to karma, the town will now be renamed after Dr. Jonas Salk, the researcher who came up with a polio vaccine. 

"Since education is our #1 industry, it's only fitting we rename our little college town after one of the greatest researchers in the history of science," said Select Board Chair Stefan O'Keefe. 

In keeping with the altruistic principles of Salk, who responded to a gotcha media question about patent ownership with ""There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?", the town will lease the Cherry Hill Golf Course to BlueWave Capital for a 5 megawatt solar energy farm.

Former golf course now guaranteed to generate profits

All proceeds will go towards funding research to find an HIV vaccine, the last project Dr. Salk was working on.

A Secret Documents Request also reveals via meeting minutes that the Select Board sold Amherst Town Hall to local developer Roberts Barry and the Business Improvement District for $10 million.

Amherst Town Hall to become "Townhouse On The Green"

Plans are to renovate the former seat of government to a mixed-use development with retail on the bottom floor and student housing above.

 "Since the Blarney Blowout downtown was such a success last month, this will help make next years' event even BIGGER" said Douche' Drinker, manager of McMurphy's Uptown Tavern.

Drunk Driving Clarification

Christopher Dalkas, age 22, stands before Judge John Payne this morning

In what is perhaps the first Driving Under the Influence case brought to a Judge since District Attorney Dave Sullivan suspended use of Breathalyzer results in upcoming trials, Christopher Dalkas accepted a standard 24D disposition plea, available only to 1st time offenders.   

Dalkas will lose his license for 45 days, pay $650 in fees/fines and be on probation for one year.  

 Count 1 standard 24D disposition, Counts 2&3 "dismissed", Count 4 "not responsible."

Amherst police arrested Dalkas in the early morning hours of April 16th for speeding on his Harley Davidson motorcycle on Amity Street in town center, where he was clocked at 55 MPH (more than twice the speed limit).  

Dalkas was unstable on his feet, smelled of alcohol, had blood shot eyes, and slurred speech.  He failed the Field Sobriety Test miserably, losing his balance four times and missing the turn on the "Nine Step Walk and Turn" exercise, and pretty much could not hold one leg up for the "One Leg Stand."

In response to the usual question "Have you had anything to drink?" he admitted to the classic "two beers" at McMurphy's Uptown Tavern in town center. 

The Assistant District Attorney did mention at the very end the Breathalyzer result of .11%, but since then the DA's office has issued the following statement.  According to Steve Gagne:

"The moratorium that we announced regarding the use of BT evidence was focused on cases scheduled for trial, but the case that was resolved via plea this morning in Belchertown highlighted the need for clarification re: cases being resolved by way of plea.  We have since advised our prosecutors to omit any reference to BT evidence during pleas, and to proceed instead on non-breathalyzer evidence (which there almost always is in OUI cases)."

Story of the Year 2013

 APD, State PD and UMPD gather at west entrance to Townhouse Apartments

The war on off campus student rowdyism took a serious turn during 2013 and that turning point was the Blarney Blowout, Amherst's version of the Mardi Gras or Florida's Spring Break -- only seasoned with a tad more violence.

As usual good weather was a contributing factor but by far, marketing was the #1 reason for the out-of-control debauchery.

Downtown bars -- most notably McMurphy's and Stackers -- used social media to hype the "Blarney Blowout" promotion, a bait and switch name change from "Kegs & Eggs" which had drawn sharp criticism over the previous ten years for promoting bad behavior i.e. drinking in the morning.

In 2012 the Blarney Blowout had contributed to awful visuals in the downtown and an unusual strain on public safety, including an incident where a drunken college aged male hit on an 11-year-old girl.  The Select Board used their bully pulpit to chastise the pernicious promotion, but as the town's Liquor Commissioners did nothing to penalize the offenders.

So it should not have been too hard to figure out , even if you don't have sitemeters, that the Blarney Blowout, March 9, 2013 was going to be bad day for civility.  Really bad.

The promotion started at 11:00 AM (my first published report was 11:07 AM) and all eyes were focused on the downtown.  Meanwhile crowds, mostly dressed in green,  were gathering at Townhouse Apartments in North Amherst where violence had erupted the year before.

 Entire quad taken up by revelers

The crowd grew to over 2,000 taking up the entire quad and beer cans (some of them full) and snowballs started to fly.  A young woman in the center of the mob passes out from too much alcohol (ETOH) and AFD is called.

 Note UFO

When police and EMTs try to get to the young lady lost in the crowd the mob became uncooperative.  Objects now started flying in their direction. Public Safety personnel retreated after pulling the young woman from the crowd.

ETOH female (age 17) loaded into the ambulance under police escort

Over the next few hours, under the influence of a lot more beer, the crowd would only get surlier.  Vandalism starts to take place.  APD had put out an SOS after the incident with the ETOH female, with many State Police and UMPD officers responding to the call -- all of them dressed in riot gear.

A little after 5:00 PM they uniformly moved in, quickly dispersing the huge crowd while making six arrests.

Moments after police dispersed the unruly crowd

At the following Select Board meeting irate members -- particularly Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe -- blamed UMass for not putting out sternly worded emails to students and parents before the weekend.  UMass -- via a Letter to the Editor from PR guru John Kennedy -- blamed the town for allowing the promotion.

Of course the Select Board, unlike previous years, had not given the bars permission to open early that day and since advertising via social media is protected by the First Amendment there is little they could have done prevent the promotion.

But the acrimony led to UMass announcing it would donate $40,000 per semester so AFD could run two extra ambulances on weekends; and more importantly, the disturbing incident convinced the two major powers that something structural needed to be done.

 Chancellor Subbaswamy addresses Amherst Town Meeting 5/15/13

For the first time in history a UMass Chancellor came to spring Town Meeting to champion town/gown relations.  The $30,000 warrant article (matched by $30,000 from UMass)  to hire a consultant passed, leading to the formation of the Town Gown Steering Committee, a heavy hitter group of top UMass and Town officials that mirrored the ultra successful Safe & Healthy Neighborhoods Working Group.

The SHNWG formulated a Rental Registration and Permit Bylaw, the most important legislation passed by Town Meeting in a generation, and a direct outgrowth of last year's "Story of the Year".  

The Town Gown Steering Committee finished up a Request For Proposals a few weeks ago and will continue to meet after the consultant issues a report.

After all, implementation is the key. 

Beer and Art and Human Rights. Oh My!

Apparently all the alleged recent violations in town are driving the Human Rights Commission to drink. 

It's one thing for a Select Board or well known Town Meeting member to tweet about having a beer (or two) downtown after a typical contentious night of Amherst Town Meeting, but quite another for an offical town committee to set a public meeting with beer on the agenda.

Especially considering all the problems our little college town endures because of alcohol.

Yes, the Amherst Brewing Company is a sterling example of a business that does alcohol correctly.  And they are far from a rowdy youthful watering hole -- aka McMurphy's or Stacker's.

But still ... 

Fourth Watch

 Amherst Town Center 1:15 AM  McMurphy's Bar, Antonio's Pizza

Last night -- or I should say early this morning -- all five of our ambulances were busy dealing with ETOH (passed out drunk) students, four police cruisers (probably all the on duty ones we had) were at the scene of a drunk driver who had driven around concrete barricades, up on to active railroad tracts becoming hopelessly stuck ... when a call came in from South Amherst for an "unresponsive baby with difficulty breathing."

 Around Midnight APD dispersed a large crowd of unruly students from Phillips Street

Amherst Fire Department had to send a fire engine from Central Station and wait for one of our ambulances already at the hospital to return back to Amherst, thus causing a delay.  Obviously if our first responders had the personnel and equipment needed they could keep delays to a minimum, increasing both safety and peace of mind.

The last 12 hours should serve as yet another wake up call.  Town officials need to act quickly and decisively.  Our police and fire department's are understaffed.  And somebody is going to die.

Over the past six consecutive years, through sound fiscal management, the town has had an end-of-the-year surplus of just over $1 million.  A quarter of that would go a long way to solving staffing problems with our beleaguered first responders.

Tax exempt UMass, the second largest landowner in town, also needs to step up and help fund the professional providers who react to emergencies their students create.  Ditto Hampshire College.

Alcohol abuse is an epidemic that needs serious attention.  Anyone remember that UMass student motorcyclist  on his way back to campus last April only weeks before he was to graduate, slaughtered by a wrong way drunk driver on Rt 116 in Hadley?  I'm sure his family remembers!

DA Sullivan and State Police need to set up yet another high profile DUI roadblock in town before Halloween.  Senator Stan Rosenberg and Representative Ellen Story should file a bill making it a crime (or at least a civil offense) to be in an automobile with a drunk driver and not report it to authorities.

 Car stuck  on railroad tracks near Amtrak Station

I noticed the passenger of the drunk driver who drove his car onto the rail road tracks checking his smart phone while watching his drunk friend being escorted away.

 Jack Thornton. You drink & drive, you go to jail

Maybe somewhat sober people would think twice about getting in a car with a drunk friend if they knew they could be held responsible. Kind of gives new meaning to the slogan, "Friends don't let friends drive drunk."  And as one of my favorite twitterian's pointed out, "Especially on railroad tracks!"

When I told one of the cops I was live tweeting from the scene early this morning he asked, "Is anybody listening?"  God I hope so.

Arrested for DUI and trespassing on RR property:
Jack Thornton, 23 Bennett Rd, Gardner, MA, age 19

#####

AFD member picked up the slack after I went to bed and posted to Facebook photo of all five Amherst ambulances parked at Cooley Dickinson hospital at 3:00 AM:

####Amherst Fourth Watch live tweeted####

Party night of the semester?

10:30 PM Hobart Lane checkpoint

With all available APD boots on the ground including both Captains and the Chief, reinforced by five state police and one k9 unit the town is under control.

Anyone trying to enter Hobart Lane for the mythic "Hobart Hoedown 2011" has to cross a police checkpoint and if their names are not on the tenant street list someone who lives in the apartments must come down to vouch for them (In the hour I was there many quickly turned away.)

The bars in downtown Amherst are not turning any students away, however.

11:00 PM McMurphy's
Stacker's Pub

Blarney Blowout Busted?

Last night Town Manager John Musante "updated" his bosses, the Amherst Select Board, on important "quality of life" issues that give the town a horrible name, namely party houses like the one at 186 College Street (owned by individuals more interested in profits than peace) and party businesses--McMurphy's and Stacker's--only interested in keeping the taps flowing via irresponsible, juvenile promotions like "Blarney Blowout".

And while it sounds like Musante is taking the responsible parties to the woodshed for a much needed spanking (metaphorically speaking of course), since those discussions are private, we may never know.


Excuse the buzz in the background. Amherst Media seems more interested in TV than Internet feeds

Blarney: Overly Optimistic Update?

Today's Gazette (note Police Chiefs happy expression )

So the Gazette does pretty much a long form story on the Blarney Blowout prominently placed front page above the fold and forgets to mention the number one contributing factor to the mayhem over the past three years:  It's the WEATHER, stupid!

In 2012 when the event first caught everybody's attention (and probably was the first time "Blarney Blowout" was actually used as a title) there were no major riots but general mayhem all over town, the temperature was in the 40s.
  
In 2013 when there was a riot (6 arrested) the temperature was in the high 50s.

In 2014 when there was a major riot (58 arrested) the temperature was in the low 50s.  

So I take little consolation in the Gazette telling us how prepared everybody is this year.  After all last year two days before the most riotous Blarney in history they posed Town Manager John Musante in front of McMurphy's downtown bar telling us how prepared everybody was.

Gazette 3/6/2014 (two days before the Blarney to end all Blarney's

And we know how well that turned out.

The previous year, just after the major riot in North Amherst at Townhouse Apartments, they ran a headline about how great things went in the center of town. 

So here's the scoop.  If it's cold and miserable on March 7, 2015 then Blarney Blowout will be a thing of the past.  If it's sunny and warm -- God forbid hot -- then officials should consider mobilizing the National Guard.

#####

Today's Bulletin carried inside the Gazette

And since today is "pick on the Gazette day" the weekly Amherst Bulletin stuffed inside, once again shows how timely a weekly newspaper is (sarcasm)  with a banner headline about UMass banning Iranian grad students. 

As you probably heard by now (or can see on the front page of the Gazette above) UMass surrendered on that stupidity quicker than the 1940 French army.

Another hectic weekend for APD

1057 North Pleasant Street, Amherst @ 6:45 AM Sunday

Saturday night as the witching hour fast approached, a half dozen squad cars and the large transport van (referred to as a "paddy wagon" way back in the day) converged on the center of Meadow Street directly in front of the main entry to Townhouse Apartments, where students had been congregating all night long--fueled by warm humid air and beer.

Like Old West cowboys, APD herded the massive crowd of students away from Meadow Street--which by then had become impassable to cars--back into the confines of the sprawling apartment complexes that consists almost entirely of UMass students.

Then they turned their attention to the large house on the slummy side of Meadow Street with all the cars parked on the lawn, which had been attracting overloaded taxis for most of the night--contributing to the gridlock on Meadow Street.

As the officers moved as a unit towards a side entrance where a few residents were still milling about I heard the clang of an empty beer can ricochet off the road at their feet.

This congested, claustrophobic--dangerous--scene of too many students and too few cops was replayed on Phillips Street, Hobart Lane, and upper North Pleasant Street between 10:00 PM and 1:00 AM. With students crossing those roads freely back-and-forth in droves, I'm amazed there were no people vs car incidents.

Meanwhile, back in Amherst center McMurphy's and Stackers had lines of young people waiting to get to the bar, while next door a friendly crowd formed in front of Antonio's Pizza, happily chowing down. Cell phones chirped, a street musician played the xylophone and an incessant car alarm was almost drown out by the cacophony of loud conversations coming from consumers all along the busy street, looking for something to do.

Just another late Saturday night in our little (college) town.

374 North Pleasant Street, Amherst @ 6:40 AM Sunday