HUDSON COUNTY HAZARD: The nightlife in my adopted hometown of Hoboken has generally been pretty safe and worry-free, so long as you don't drink too much, and are able to avoid the throngs of roided-up ex-frat boys, multiple-gold-chain-clad dirtbags, and anorexic Tara Reid wannabes. But an incident earlier this month underscores that any old night on the town has the potential to end quite tragically.
According to the Hudson Reporter newspaper (for which I've written in the past), on the night of February 1 a 22-year-old man got into a scuffle with another man (also 22) outside of the Cadillac Bar on Newark St., was punched in the temple, knocked unconscious, and left on the sidewalk outside the bar. He never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead six days later; the second man has been charged with reckless manslaughter.
One of the more shady aspects of this story is that Cadillac Bar had been forced to close for the entire month of January, and paid the largest fine of its kind in Hoboken history, due to multiple Alcohol Beverage Control Board violations- and the fatal assault took place on the first night it reopened after the suspension. According to a city spokesman quoted in the Hudson Reporter story, Cadillac Bar and its two neighbors (Boo Boo's Bar and the Clam Broth House, both owned by Cadillac's owners) had been found guilty of 15 ABC citations in three years, for such violations as "allegedly serving minors, serving intoxicated individuals, and allowing brawls to take place on the premises" (emphasis mine). The bars are also on the same block as the River Street bar, where two years ago then-Penn State quarterback Rashard Casey was arrested for assault after beating up a white off-duty police officer who was at the bar with a black woman.
Perhaps most shamefully of all, last night my friends and I walked down Newark Street across from Cadillac Bar on our way back from the PATH, at about 3AM, and the bar was open! If this bar was closed for 30 days for liquor control board violations, shouldn't it have been shut down again (for another 30 days, if not permanently) after there was a fatality?