WESTFIELD – The License Commission voted last night at a special meeting to revoke the license of an Elm Street bar popular with college-aged patrons following a three and a half hour hearing at which testimony was presented by members of the Westfield Police and Fire departments.
The motion for revocation of the bar license of Buck Pond Enterprises, which does business as Tommy D’s and is owned by Gaelaneo (Tom) DeNardo, was followed by a second motion to make that revocation an immediate action, requiring DeNardo to turn in his bar license today.
The Commission heard details of four incidents, finding that DeNardo was in violation of both state liquor and local liquor laws and regulations in three of those incidents based on the information provided by police officers and a Deputy Chief Patrick Egloff, the department’s fire prevention and arson investigator, who testified last night before the commission.
Two of the violations involved disturbances which began inside the bar and escalated into assault and battery incidents when the combatants were escorted outside, resulting in an 18-year-old Springfield man being charged with simple assault and battery in one incident and two city females charged with assault and battery and disorderly conduct. One of the women was also charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, a shod foot, when an officer responding to the disturbance observed her kick another female being held on the ground by her fellow assailant.
The third incident occurred after police and firefighters responded to a smoke detector alarm in the bar when a motorcycle gang was holding a birthday party for a member who brought his motorcycle into the bar, then apparently braced the front tire against the stage and burned the rubber of the rear tire into the dance floor.
The hearing became very personal, not just for DeNardo who accused Capt. Michael McCabe of fabricating a follow-up report intended discredit DeNardo, but also the License Commission members.
“I feel like I’ve been played,” Commissioner Christopher Mowatt said. “I’m tired of hearing ‘I can’t do any more’ or ‘it’s out of my hands’ (from DeNardo), the point is it need to stop. This is where we are and it’s not getting better.”
Commission Chairman John Gaudrault said that the commission members see a pattern “that when Tom is not at his establishment, it is unsupervised. I am a businessman and I am pro business, but when you have a liquor license there are restrictions and regulations for the protection and safety of the public.”
“This establishment is not being run correctly, it is not what we want to see in our town,” Gaudrault said. “We, as a commission, have to keep establishments in line so (as) not to allow someone to be seriously injured.”
Commissioner Edward Diaz said that “I don’t believe that anybody is out to get Tommy and I agree that his patrons often mistake his kindness (for weakness).”
Diaz said that the training and operational protocols for dealing with disturbances have been insufficient and that DeNardo has not held his staff accountable for actions that often just resulted in moving combatants from inside the bar to the sidewalks outside.
“I feel that we were not treated fairly here tonight,” Gaudrault said. “That it was not a smoke bomb (as DeNardo and his staff asserted, but rather the motorcycle being operated inside the bar that triggered the smoke and heat detectors). It has to stop before someone is injured and the city, this commission, is at fault.”
“I think we have had enough professional persuasion to give us the tools to make a decision in the best interest of the safety of our citizens,” Gaudrault said.
Mowatt then made the motion to revoke DeNardo’s license, with a second from Diaz.
“We have never had to do this,” Mowatt said. “It is painful to change a person’s life.”
