Town closes Santa Barbara Pub
By Kate Daly Assistant Editor

Hudson - Citing repeated attempts to work with the owner of the Santa Barbara Pub at 17 School St., the Hudson Board of Selectmen voted, 3-2, to revoke the bar's liquor license Dec. 3.

Pub owner Joe Bairos has been before the board a number of times for various liquor license violations, and the bar has suffered increasingly stiffer penal- ties, including 30- and 45-day suspensions of the liquor license.

The last incident, which occurred Aug. 31 and tipped the scales against the Santa Barbara Pub, involved patron Duarte Cabral, who alleged that he was served alcohol and later was bodily removed from the bar, resulting in injury.

While other testimony, including that of patron Roger Cancio, who witnessed the Aug. 31 incident, contradicted Cabral's statements in the public hearing prior to the Board of Selectmen's vote Dec. 3, the charges were based on Cabral's complaint.

Attorney James B. Lampke, representing the town, said the bar and its owner violated state law and local regulations by over-serving a patron, assaulting a patron and, in the process, creating a disturbance. The board unanimously agreed that the Santa Barbara Pub was guilty of the charges.

"I think this board has been very compassionate and very lenient," Selectman Santino Parente said. "We've warned you and warned you."

Parente and Selectman Carl J. Leeber and board Chair Antonio Loura voted to revoke Bairos's liquor license.

"We have each time progressively increased the penalty," Leeber said prior to the vote. "Unfortunately, I don't see any other way to protect the needs of the people of Hudson."

Selectman Fred P. Lucy II offered a possible solution, since testimony in the public hearing suggested that Bairos was attempting to sell the bar. He suggested a five-month limit on the license, with increasing suspensions each month until the bar is sold or the deadline is reached.

"It's going to be easier, it seems to me, to sell with a liquor license," he said.

Lucy and Durant voted against the license revocation.

The move would take away the bar owner's livelihood, Durant said, and he could see no innocent parties in the Aug. 31 events that led to the charges.

According to Bairos's lawyer, Frederick A. Busconi of Framingham, Bairos will appeal the selectmen's decision, asking the Superior Court to temporarily vacate the license revocation, while simultaneously appealing the decision to the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission.