Falmouth Selectmen reduced its suspension of the Cape Verdean Club’s liquor license this week from 60 days to two weeks after conducting its second hearing related to several parties that have taken place there leading to noise complaints, fights, a stabbing, and a police officer being injured, according to the Cape Cod News.
At the beginning of November, the board voted to suspend the license for two months, but the action became nullified after it was discovered representatives from the Cape Verdean Club had not picked up the certified letter until after the hearing.
“You have to show they had notice of the hearing before you can go forward,” Falmouth Town Counsel Frank K. Duffy Jr. said. Before this week’s hearing was conducted, he said, Constable James M. Crossen delivered the hearing notice by hand to Cape Verdean Club representatives.
“This doesn’t happen very often,” Mr. Duffy said, noting that if selectmen did not re-hear the case this week, the Cape Verdean Club could have appealed the decision to the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission because they were not given proper notice.
At the root of the problem, Falmouth Police Chief Anthony J. Riello said, have been incidents that have occurred over the past two years, which his department has responded to and which have gotten increasingly worse. Since February, he said, there have been four parties that stood out that he briefly highlighted. The last took place in October, he said, in which Officer Andrew Loewen suffered a broken nose while apprehending a suspect who was involved in a fight outside the club.
