Safety: Doing It Wrong.

Pub switches to plastic cups after death

The Lansdowne Street pub where a man was killed by a broken beer glass early Saturday morning will switch to plastic cups and nonglass bottles until a city licensing hearing next month, a practice Boston officials have used elsewhere to reduce injuries from bar fights.

I've got a better idea. Why don't we start arresting people who start and/or participate in bar fights, prosecute them, and throw them in jail? Attacking someone with a jagged beer bottle is assault with a deadly weapon - that's a felony with a penalty of up to 10 years in jail right there in the state of MA. Start locking these reprobates up - and keeping them in jail - and chances are pretty good these types of assaults will drop way off. Heck, at the very least the worst offenders won't be able to re-offend - because they'll be behind bars.

This being MA, however, we get England-lite bans on glass bottles and glasses. A freak accident with a thrown glass kills someone and the whole Boston bar scene goes crazy - rather than accepting that, yes, sometimes freak accidents happen, the bar is contorting itself into a pretzel to avoid being sued. If you're going to serve your patrons beer from a can in a plastic cup so you don't have to worry about glass, power to you. Me, if I'm going to a bar scene, I expect a little more than a college frat party, thanks...

MA: You're more likely to be relegated to plastic sporks and Tupperware cups here.

That is all.