good afternoon thank you all for joining us we'll give just a moment to make sure that everyone uh has cleared from the waiting room and it's connected to audio so that they can hear us it appears that everyone has joined and is connected so good afternoon this is an administrative hearing before the Mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing today is Thursday June 6 2024 this hearing is being conducted pursuant two temporary amendments to the open meeting law that is what allows us to meet virtually this hearing is being recorded and will be posted to the city of Boston's website we are joined today by the executive director of the Mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing Kathleen Joyce and director of operations Rebecca Fu there is one item on this afternoon's agenda I will read the item in to the record I will then ask who is present on behalf of the ly who is present on behalf of the Boston Police Department and whether there are any other individuals with firsthand knowledge of the alleged incident who wish to testify after that I will swear in all parties and the police report will be read into the record the lcy or their representative will have the opportunity to make a brief statement followed by questions from the executive director all testimony will be limited to only those individuals with firsthand personal knowledge of the alleged incident the item before the entertainment division this afternoon is game on Fenway LLC doing business as game on located at 82 Landsdown Street date of the incident April 18th 2024 premise hosting an 18 plus event without notification of the Licensing Division in violation of rule F of the division's rules and regulations who is present on behalf of the lcy dannie can you hear me we can hear you oh thank you very much it's Dennis quilty uh my signals indicating I'm muted but as long as you can hear me and I apologize I have only phone service I have no internet um Dennis quilty representing the appc the uh leny with me afternoon totina corop Pines who's the risk management uh specialist for the Lions group and Vinnie Lombardy of uh of the Lions group and game on thank you and we do see Miss corpin and Mr already on the screen and we can hear you just fine uh who is present on behalf of the Boston Police Department s detective William Gallagher T to Hernandez if needed thank you are there any other individuals with firstand knowledge of the alleged incident who wish to testify can you all please raise your right hand do you s to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth I do I do do thank you Sergeant detective Gallagher if you could please proceed with the police report yes good afternoon I'll be reading me Boston police incident report that I wrote on 418 2024 at 10:45 p.m. s detective gallaga detective Eddie Hernandez assigned to the licensed premise unit conducted a license premise inspection of game on 82 lown Street this inspection came about after a local College alerted the Boston Licensing Board of an 18 plus event being hosted at game one the local College voiced its concerns after an incident two weeks prior where one of their under 21y old students fell and sustained a head injury while inside the premise College went on to report that their underage students have reported being served alcohol inside game one on previous occasions prior to detectives inspection they checked with the Boston licensing board as to whether the licensing board had been notified of the event and they were not as detectives enter the bar they observed the line of youngl looking patrons that identified as under 21 detectives spoke to the person in charge Mr Isaiah Moore who was unaware of the requirement detectives were informed by some of the greeters at the door that they had booked the event Mr Moore was informed by detectives that he could not admit any under 21 year olds and at that time Mr Moore decided to shut down the event Sergeant tective gallager Mr Moore fored Mr Moore that once he had cleared the premise of the under 21 year- olds he could reopen for a regular business of 21 plus as a result what was observed Sergeant gag issued license premise inspe notice number 021 064 for premise hosting 18 plus event without notification boss licensing board Mr Isaiah Moore signed for and accepted the notice that's all we have thank you attorney quilty would you like to address the alleged incident if I may I just have one question for uh detective s detective Gallagher if I may you may and and that is um are your uh inspection notice indicates the management cooperated so when you brought this to their attention they were fully Cooperative at that time yes sir thank you sir I have no further questions like me to address the incident uh yes green thank you and neglected to say hello to the executive director and attorney green and Miss flu so good afternoon everyone thank you for allowing me to do this by phone um the situation here uh director is that the staff the event staff affiliated with game on booked this event without having any discussion whatsoever with the game on leadership and the game on management Etc they had absolutely no idea this event had been booked under the offices of gon and the Lions Group by the marketing people without any discussion whatsoever with management staff CA Mr Lombardi or anyone not an excuse it happened this is not a policy of the establishment or the liones liance group rather and it's a horrible horrible mistake which we're very apologetic for uh we did not know literally until the detective came I mean apparently the uh College reached out to the BPD we we did not know that these flyers were distributed around campus apparently what you what led to the group you know converging on the establishment um we have subsequently reached out ourselves to the college in question being of student affairs uh and to other colleges and universities in an attempt to uh notify them as to who the Personnel are if there's any such incident like this in the future uh they were quite um pleased that we did reach out in this manner and and and took the responsibility for the situation this we want to make it extremely clear the division that this is not our policy we do not undertake an 18 plus events but everybody up and down the entire organization was aware of this and familiar with this apparently at this particular event it was done through event staffing and again the day-to-day operational people management and control Personnel had no idea thing had been approved and allowed as we come before you today the only thing we can do is apologize uh and tell you that this is a a a longterm business in the city of Boston we out control and operate too many establishments to be doing foolish things like this and you can be assured that it will never happen again this was a total fake and just a total Mistake by these marketing people and the fact that they basically HIIT it from uh you know the management staff is just unacceptable and multiple people have been disciplined for this uh breach of protocol so again we apologize and you can take it on the word of everyone involed here from the leny point of view that this will never happen again and complet controls have been put in place with persons being told they must deal with Mr Lombardi Miss corant uh Etc before any such event like this even considered again our apologies but we literally have nothing um other than to say we have reached out to the school and other schools in an attempt to get in front of this and attempt to say here these are the people if you ever see this again please contact one of us we're the people that run the business and we will make sure that it doesn't occur again we're we can only offer our apologies I don't know Miss Corp or Mr Lombardi anything else to offer uh I think Dennis you've spoke sorry Vinny I think Dennis you've spoken for us uh and conveyed our our sentiments um again uh going forward when events are being booked um if anything looks questionable it needs to be brought to my attention or Vinnie Lombardi the Vice President of Operations attention we had a wonderful conversation with the dean from BC um introduced ourselves uh talked a little bit about the policies and what what we bring what each of us represents from the Lions group and that going forward if they um any anything like this similar to this particular situation uh shows up being advertised on their campuses they have all our contact information to call us um and we will put a stop to it we don't believe that it will happen again because we have disciplined uh members of the events team as well as members of the management team at game on um but yes going forward uh we have now an open line of communication with uh the dean from BC we're creating other open lines with some of the other colleges like be in northeastern so that if they see anything like this being advertised on their campuses that they can reach out to us first and we can get a handle on it and put a stop to it and I I would just add Madam director that had that relationship existed and had the the dean of students reached out to the leny the event would have been canceled before it ever occurred and I think the good news going forward is that having those relationships in place will ensure that the College knows who to deal with at the location and other locations that that Lions manages and operates so that these things would be cut off before they ever they ever occurred hopefully that's the best news of all thank you and I would like I would like to apologize as well too and I'm I'm still upset about it today and and the teams know uh this um and I I have to take responsibility uh for the company and I do have better protocols in place it is good to have the open line of communication um but this is it's it's not who we are I've been with the company with 23 years and I'm I'm just embarrassed and you know I'm sorry and uh we this like I said this this is not going to happen again thank you very much I we will'll see if there are any questions exec director Joyce any questions for the licensing thanks uh thank you all for your explanation and taking responsibility for it I just I do have a couple questions so the event staff that you're referring to who do they who do they report to uh management at game on management Lions group how does it work right well when they when they book oh I'm sorry my apologize go ahead oh uh when when they book when each each each venue has has their own set of people it's a big part of you know business uh for our industry in general and they should be meeting with uh The Operators on uh on you know once a week you know to go over all the EOS go over the parties and understand the whole thing we also have a director in the liance group that oversees them um they should have been more diligent of going into into into it she should have been more diligent so she she will now and then you know so there there are layers of it you know as far as the marketing of this party I we have a sorry so it sounds like the events team reports to a director in the Lions group overseas those sorts of bookings okay and then who reviews the bookings now is it the director oversees it in the in the GMS of the locations are are involved because they they understand it's the situation we have you know they're responsible so and uh in the um at the beginning um someone mentioned Isaiah Moore was he so he was the event staff he's a security he runs a security okay he owns a security company so he's not really an employee directly of the L no no no he's an employee he he runs the security team at gameon okay so he's like the head security at gameon apologize all right um so the manager here game on how long has the manager been there Ricky has been Ricky has been the I he's been with game for a long time he start as a bender probably 14 years he's new into the management role um and I I think again that's that's probably what why felt to the cracks he's new his director at the time uh was away um that would be Joe Hicks um it's just I'm not still I'm still not sure how this this happened that's fine I'm just trying to get an idea so Ricky who's the manager that was um on that night how many hours a week is he there he's probably 50 hour okay um and then we have as the manager record here Ryan Jones is Ryan still the manager of record no ran Jones is not the manager of record unfortunately um and again Ricky has been as as Vinnie said Ricky has been with game on in different different levels uh for about 14 years and initially we we've had a lot of trouble trying to keep um I've I've made several attempts in in over the years to amend uh the managers of records and every time I try to do that the person that's going to be it ends up either leaving or getting terminated or what so then we have to wait until someone else takes his place um I was prepared to submit uh a manager of record changes having Ricky be listed uh both on the liquor license and entertainment license and I was ready to do that and then this happened and technically I'm not sure exactly what we are going to do with Ricky going forward okay um we need to this this this situation is a various situation a very serious situation um and again as jennis has stated and Vinnie has stated and I am breating that the events team the management team all had a serious uh have been reprimanded seriously for everything for for this whole thing um um and uh before we go forward in making someone a manager of record we need to actually do some more due diligence and make sure that these people are actually able to um take on the seriousness of that role and actually sorry just in reviewing your licenses they currently don't match Jason Nicholson is listed right now as uh the manager of record on your liquor license and Ryan Jones is on the so yes so right both need to be yes I understand all right thank you uh thanks Danny no the information you've shared today is very helpful I can see that you've taken um intermediate um measures to correct it but I'm want to see if Rebecca has any other questions before we move on um I do not have any other questions thank you anything further uh d D nothing um just wanted to see if any of the um licens premise unit has anything they want to add man they they were very Cooperative that night uh they ended the event right away uh they they were they're professional they were I don't know if uh Ricky was there that night we did not see him Isaiah Moore was a point Conta that night it was an off night and uh it uh I I'm sure it won't happen again there are no further questions then that uh will draw close to this item the executive director will take this matter under advisement and will issue a written decision that being the only item on the agenda for this afternoon that will adjourn this hearing so thank you all for being with us and enjoy the rest of your day thank youone thank you