Last Friday night at 11 PM, Councilwoman Ashley McCarthy, sent me photos of teenagers openly drinking in Christopher Columbus Park. They also left their crushed cans of beer on the ground just feet from trash and recycling containers, adding insult to injury.
When Ashley started snapping photos of the teenagers, they scowered away. There’s no way to tell if these kids are from the North End or if they came in from the suburbs for a lively night in the city.
We do know, however, it takes a village to raise a child, and we think it’s important that the community knows this is happening. If they are drinking to the point of impairment, they can cause serious injury or worse to themselves or others. This is a real danger for our community.
We have informed the park rangers and requested that there be more patrols on weekend nights. If you see kids drinking in the park, please call the police and have them handle the situation.
Tania Green is a Councilwoman of North End/Waterfront Neighborhood Council (NEWNC) and Chairwoman of Public Safety and Crime.
Thank you! Will do.
Oh, they must have changed locations. These groups usually congregate down the No. End Park & Bocce
Court & Slide Park, and there wasn’t one cop in site. The feast bring in a lot of teens from out of town &
they flock our parks & hopefully this year the cops will do something about it.
this only foreshadows of what is coming every weekend over the next month of a half. to say the teenagers were out of control last summer would be huge understatement. the police need to crack down on these teenagers during the time. the feasts should really have to pay for police details to camp out on the baseball fields and behind the hockey ring. no feasts, no unruly teenagers.
the Feasts do pay for Police Patrol
Hi everyone,
If you like, please identify the spots where you notice kids during the feasts, and I will bring this to the Police Safety meeting in early August. Thx!
thanks tania. unfortunately, the police no exactly where these teenagers congregate. too often, however, it seems like the police do not care.
Blaming the Feasts is NOT THE ANSWER !!!!!!!! City Hall wants to make this area a First Class City ???????? Well, these are the side effects we would have to deal with!!! Extending the late night time to 4:00 am license for drinking???? Great Idea !!
Guess what~~these people including the Mayor, do not LIVE HERE !!
When these young adults do come into this area~~~ they don’t even give a thought to where they will be urinating~~~~they just do it in our doorways !!! Or when they get stinking drunk and fall into the ocean~~~whose fault is that ?? Saint Anthony’s ???
Ever hear the saying~~~SUMMER IN THE CITY ?????? Yes, the Feasts are an added draw.
The Feasts are NOT A NEW FEATURE in our neighborhood !!! How come there were no major casualties in the years gone by ?
From what I can tell these are underage drinkers, hence the reason they are not in bars. The 4am license Im sure comes with problems, but I dont believe this is a result. This goes on all summer, but admittedly during feast season it gets worse. Last year I saw North End neighborhood kids as well as kids from surrounding areas. I was there when they cops were called and the kids scattered pretty quickly, no one was caught or held accountable.
Agree janet,this northend is Out of control, especially down this end,the rose Kennedy Greenway is littered with garbage after a Saturday night,and the homeless people are sleeping out there and bathing ,yes bathing in the fountain. …..where is the cameras?where are our police men?who is even monitoring these area at night???any body know???it’s really bad…..
Popular places that kids drink in the summer:
– behind skating rink
– Langone park and ballfields
– Eliot School playground (Charter St at the Prado)
– inside the Christopher Columbus playground
– the Gassy
– Now Christopher Columbus by sprinklers
Any help getting attention to this would be appreciated. We beg for police patrols every summer to no avail. Usually, the police walk slowly towards one area if they see kids, sending them running through the streets to another one of these locations.
They also scatter if they see a police car approaching. We observed this last year during the weekend of St. Anthony’s Feast (not blaming the Feast) when a huge crowd of teenagers were hanging around the Battery Wharf Hotel. Police were notified but when they saw/heard the police car approaching, they immediately scattered.
The FEAST !!! there are no feast with stands as of yet and there were none, when these people were drinking in the park. You don’t need a feast to have kids drinking. Get your facts straight and again, if you live in the area, you should know that. The Police just need to crack down hard, to make sure people get the message. Come in the N.E. to enjoy and if not, maybe a few citations would do it.
The issue is one of enforcement. It has always been and will always be an issue of enforcement. Of which there is next to none.
Christopher Columbus park needs enforcement of Boston’s existing rules and ordinances. Don’t play loud music above city noise ordinance level (70 dB for those who care), don’t scream into microphones while performing in the common areas, don’t shoot up heroin in Marriott’s bathroom (yes, Virginia, that’s exactly what happens here after dark, those of us leaving in Commercial Wharf have the privilege of first row viewing of these freak shows). Simple, eh? Not so much. Until and unless the existing rules are enforced, and enforced consistently, things will be getting worse. It’s not about the Feasts. It’s not about anything other than simple and consistent enforcement. Don’t enforce the rules and watch it degrade. Than wring your hands and spend 10x as much to try and clean things up.
Friends Of Christopher Columbus Park, for example, are working very hard to make the park a nice and welcoming place. But it appears that the park, more and more, is attracting people whose sole purpose is to make a quick buck and bother the residents of surrounding building. If these visitors can’t be considerate to others, they need to be removed. Today, a few hours ago, two people actually got stabbed on Boston Common. Is that where we are heading?
PS. Tania, if there is a way to contact you to discuss this, please, please let us know. Things here are truly getting out of hand and no help is forthcoming from the City so far.
I get tired of people blaming the Feasts for the behavior of young people who have zero respect for anyone or anything. Law enforcement ? gimme a break what a joke.Has anyone noticed what Revere Beach has become as a result of these punks & thugs? Lay off the Feasts their part of our tradition & culture.
I called the cops a few times last year,nothing ever happened, but this year it is way worse…I fear something bad is going to happen in this northend.Its a disaster waiting to happen…
I have used 311 for parking violations the past few months with great response. Not only at the time but noticeably increased general patrolling and fining of the area as result of repeated reports. If you haven’t, I suggest you download the 311 app and send in reports of violations in our parks.
I know feasts have been going on for years & most of the original No. End residents enjoy them. To each his
own. I do feel the feast bring more chaos to the No. End & this is nothing new. I don’t think it is right for
residents to have to lose parking spaces & be inconvenienced with noise & trash. I think every feast should be
held in the No. End Park & I am sure most members of these associations would disagree, because this is how
is has always been. Lack or Enforcement has been an on going problem in the No. End for years, and I don’t
see any City or State Officials, along with the Police doing anything about it. Money the Root of all Evil is
still running the show.
FYI…the event that caused all the trouble in CCP this time around was a rap concert at TD Garden, not a North End feast. The same thing happens whenever there is a Government Center event that attracts a younger age group. BPD assigns extra patrols at these venues for crowd control, but neglects to increase the policing in our neighborhood. Drinking alcohol and smoking anything in our parks is against the law 24/7 and should be reported whenever it occurs with a call to 911. If BPD gets enough complaints from concerned residents, they will respond.
Maybe they will find where someone didn’t pick up after their dog.