A very sad death of a 20 year old. It was at a party celebrating the end of a semester. He fell off a three story deck. Underage drinking was involved. Four men will be at district court next week on summons related to serving alcohol to minors. It part of a crackdown by the police and district attorney. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/12/25/student_killed_in_fall_from_balcony/
They should have paid attention to afterschool specials that had this scenario played out a dozen times.
huh? Why is this such a huge deal every time it happens? People are stupid, end of story. We don't have to preach about underage drinking, because, let's face it, being drunk was not the root cause of this.
There is also another problem that occurs all too frequently here in Boston. We have a lot of old three deckers. They have wooden balconies that are old and prone to deterioration. So beside the party atmosphere, the condition of the balcony will also probably be brought up for review.
...? Seriously? You think the entire city of Boston's balconies needs to be inspected and approved cause some collapsed? What about the four and two story buildings?
There was a balcony collapse in Chicago in the summer of 2003 that prompted city-wide inspections of a large number of balconies. So, yes, it's a possibility that there may be an increase in inspections/citations over the next few months. Whether or not it's made anything safer... it still doesn't prevent people from doing stupid things.
actually, wdlove is probably right. I went to college outside of Boston, and the apartment my friends and I lived in was great, but falling apart. We had a back porch with one area that protruded out off the main porch and was only supported by beams (as opposed to the main porch which was supported by the downstairs apartment)....when we had parties we were fairly responsible and limited people to 3-4 at a time on the porch area there for that reason...old wood and new england winters don't mix so well, and adding drunk people is a bad, bad idea. So while being drunk was certainly a major cause, old ****** buildings aren't helping any.
Since when is a 20-year old a minor... However, if they were letting minors attend and drink at a party with drunk college students -- they deserve to get slapped with that, plus serving alcohol to underage drinkers.
In my first year of university all the boys houses had their balconies (concrete, built into the house itself) locked off whereas the girls houses had free access to theirs. Looking back on it...it was a good idea. AppleMatt
Sounds alot like this situation . . . http://ottawa.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=ot_death20040223 Same ingredients: -Alcohol -Students (engineering, male) -Balcony
This past Fall Mayor Menino sent out his city inspectors out in force. They showed on TV some of the deplorable conditions that students were living. The landlord were given a specified amount of time to bring the apartments up to code. The landlords thought that because of the housing crunch and since it was students, that they could get by. The Mayor put some tough standards on them.
they should head out to waltham, my place wasn't that bad but i know friends who stayed in some weird and crappy apartments...places that barely qualified as living situations, literally hallways in old buildings that were artificially partitioned into "apartments"
They should find the people that serve alcohol to people 'under 21', and award them all medals for helping us purge the world of stupidity. More oxygen for the 'normies'.
Serving alcohol to college student is almost as good a purge as giving beer and guns (or some Snap-on tools and a lift kit) to rednecks.
The sad part is that the unscrupulous landlord comes away with this unscathed. There is just not care or feeling to what they are doing. It's the law abiding landlord that is overburdened by regulations.