Lawyers want depositions from top city officials

LYNN – Attorneys representing bar owners in the fight against a citywide rollback of bar hours from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m. filed a subpoena Wednesday in an effort to hasten the process of obtaining depositions from key defendants.On Jan. 9, attorneys Frederick Riley and Joseph Dever requested the depositions of all three Licensing Board members, Police Chief John Suslak and Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr., but have yet to schedule a meeting with any of them.”They have said that they won’t present themselves until the judge (Maureen Hogan) makes a decision, but we are saying that that has nothing to do with the depositions,” he said. “We are asking to examine witnesses and they are delaying the process.”Hogan has not yet come to a conclusion regarding a request by the plaintiffs for a temporary restraining order against the rollback.If the request is granted, it would essentially prevent the city from enforcing the rollback until a final decision has been reached.In the meantime, a series of phone calls and letters have been exchanged between Riley and city attorney Vincent Phelan regarding the depositions, in which Phelan ultimately said he was unable to nail down a specific date.The subpoena is now requesting that the defendants comply with the deposition by Feb. 29 and that they be ordered to pay the plaintiffs attorney fees and costs incurred.Riley also said that he is requesting a court hearing on Feb. 12 at 2 p.m. for the court to order the defendants to comply with the plaintiffs’ requests for depositions.The need for discovery is directly related to the plaintiffs’ allegations that the Licensing Board violated the open meeting law and acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it voted to rollback bar hours, according to Riley.After conducting a thorough review of the reports previously produced, Riley said he found numerous inconsistencies between the reports themselves and the statistics cited by Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. and Police Chief John Suslak.”They are saying the rollback is necessary because of public safety, but in the reports, the Chief of Police’s main concerns in the city are drugs and gangs, and the Mayor’s reasoning is based on petty crimes,” he said.In addition, Riley said 361 police reports were not provided to the plaintiffs, but rather 226. Of those reports, Riley said 11 were completely devoid of any date and time information, 114 reports concerned incidents that occurred before 1 a.m., 82 reports concerned incidents that occurred between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., and 19 reported incidents occurred after 2 a.m.”The majority of the calls have nothing to do with public safety and are about missing cell phones and wallets,” Riley said. “So the basis of what they are saying then about public safety is fallacious and we need to examine the witnesses.”Riley also said that he thinks there was inappropriate contact between the defendants that would qualify as a violation of the open meeting law.