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Chief wants to require police details at late-night clubs
By Shawn Boburg
Staff Writer
LAWRENCE — At least seven years before he turned his shotgun on a noisy, late-night crowd gathered below his bedroom window, Daniel B. Cotnoir complained to city officials and police about the booming car stereos and fights outside a nearby nightclub.
The decibel level only increased, neighbors said.
But yesterday, as the Iraq war veteran sat in jail on attempted murder charges for firing a shotgun toward a crowd outside his home, police Chief John J. Romero said he will propose that the city's largest nightspots be required to hire off-duty officers to prevent early morning loitering and mischievousness. He also wants bars' last call to be rolled back from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m.
The proposal, which needs the City Council's approval, would help address what Romero acknowledged is a growing problem — one that also resulted in the tragic shooting in April that paralyzed basketball star Hector Paniagua outside another nightclub.
"The bottom line is we need to ensure that when clubs let out, the crowds are dispersing," Romero said. "We have seen a trend and we were already taking steps to address it, but there are just too many clubs in the city and we can't be everywhere at the same time."
The city does not require any of the 79 nightclubs, bars and restaurants with alcohol licenses to pay for police details, Romero said. Some choose to, but Punto Final, the nightclub across from Cotnoir's apartment above Racicot Funeral Home, which his family owns, did not have a police detail Saturday.
The nightclub where Paniagua was shot, Jubilee, stopped paying for a police detail two weeks before the incident, Romero said.
Many of the city's bars and nightclubs close at 2 a.m. when they must stop serving alcohol, Romero said. He wants officers monitoring the larger ones Thursday through Saturday nights until an hour after their closing.
The businesses would have to pay detail officers between $37.50 and $42.50 an hour. He said he would discuss the proposal with the city attorney and Mayor Michael J. Sullivan before taking it to city councilors.
Romero also said he will lobby the Licensing Board to roll back to 1 a.m. the time that bars and clubs must stop serving alcohol, citing a spike in the number of late-night disturbances since the city pushed the cut-off hour to 2 a.m. last summer.
That would be welcome news to Bruce Reynolds, the owner of the service station where Cotnoir's two victims were standing after leaving Melinda's Restaurant about 2:30 a.m. Saturday.
Reynolds, 52, who has run the Longhorn service station for 29 years and has known Cotnoir since his childhood, said patrons park illegally at his station and blast their car stereos every weekend.
He said Cotnoir has complained to police at least twice a month as far back as 1998 and often attended Licensing Board meetings.
"I don't condone the use of violence, but I hold the city partly responsible for this," he said. "Hopefully, they will step up to the plate and fix this. I don't know if it takes someone getting killed."
Romero said his department took steps to address the problem before Saturday's shooting. Police patrols were recently increased on Friday and Saturday nights, he said.
