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Sons of Boston bar manager says he was unaware bouncer, charged with murder, had a knife
The bar also did not conduct a criminal background check for Alvaro O. Larrama, 38, a manager said.
Daniel Martinez
A manager of the Boston bar where a bouncer allegedly stabbed and killed a former Marine last month told the city’s Licensing Board on Tuesday he was not aware the employee was carrying a knife.
Jason Kuczynski, manager at Sons of Boston in downtown Boston, told the board his employees are not allowed to carry weapons.
He also said he did not conduct a criminal background check on the bouncer, Alvaro O. Larrama, 38, who is now charged with the murder of 23-year-old Daniel Martinez, of Illinois.
Larrama has a criminal record that includes several arrests within the past five years for domestic violence charges, according to The Boston Globe.
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Kuczynski said he didn’t perform a check because Larrama was working at a neighboring bar when Kuczynski hired him in July and Kuczynski “thought that would have already been done,” he said.
Board member Liam Curran said he “might characterize that as willful ignorance.”
“Would you care to comment on how I feel about that?” Curran asked.
Kuczynski responded, “No comment.”
The board is now considering the fate of the bar’s liquor license following the March 19 stabbing.
Prosecutors have said on that day, police responded around 6:53 p.m. to a call reporting a stabbing on Union Street near Sons of Boston.
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Martinez, a Chicago-area native who was in town for St. Patrick’s Day festivities, was found bleeding from a stab wound to his chest, and was later pronounced dead at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Video surveillance from the area shows Martinez and a friend stood in line outside Sons of Boston, but walked away after they were denied entrance by Larrama, officials said in court last month.
A police account of the incident read aloud on Tuesday said Larrama then ran after Martinez with an unknown object and with his right hand extending towards Martinez.
Martinez raised his left arm “as if to block or fend off an imminent attack,” and struck Larrama in the head with an aluminum beer bottle, officials said. A fight broke out, during which Larrama was seen striking Martinez in his chest two times, according to the police report.
Bystanders intervened and separated Larrama from Martinez, and Larrama was led inside by fellow Sons of Boston staff, police said.
Larrama entered the kitchen and could be seen on camera in the bar’s basement washing his hands, discarding a knit hat and sweatshirt he was wearing, and turning his t-shirt inside out before he left through the bar’s rear exit, officials said.
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Kuczynski said Larrama approached him following the incident, and the two met in the kitchen. Kuczynski did not see any blood nor a weapon on Larrama, he said.
“He was telling me that he had gotten in a fight outside,” Kuczynski said. “Then a security member from a different restaurant [also came in] and said that there was a stabbing upfront, at which point I said to both guys, ‘I’ll be right back,’ and made my way to the front door and came upon the scene outside.”
Paramedics and police were already at the scene, he said.
Security guards from other establishments told Kuczynski Larrama was the perpetrator, he said. Kuczynski told a staff member to look for Larrama, but he was already gone, he said.
Patrick Russell, another bouncer at Sons of Boston who was working inside the bar that day, told the board he knew something happened when he noticed Larrama was not at his post at the front door.
Russell said he ran outside and saw the altercation being broken up.
“I came around and pushed [Larrama] back to our door to say, ‘Get back to work you meathead,’ and he ran inside,” Russell said.
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Russell remained at the door until the other doorman returned, he said. He then went inside and asked Larrama what happened, he said.
“He was like, yada yada yada, ‘I just got into a fight,'” Russell said. “I go, ‘I know, tell [Kuczynski].'”
Russell said he initially did not know the extent of the altercation when he told Larrama to go back inside.
“I didn’t even see fighting — nothing like that,” he said. “All I heard was arguing, pretty much.”
Board Chairperson Kathleen Joyce also asked bar personnel on Tuesday about a TikTok video that surfaced showing Larrama wearing a bar shirt on Union Street “shadowboxing” passersby.
Kuczynski was unaware of the video until last Friday.
“We don’t know anybody on our staff that was aware of it,” said Carolyn Conway, an attorney representing Sons of Boston.
Kuczynski confirmed he has since discussed the video with his staff and “conveyed how unacceptable that behavior is,” he said.
Both Kuczynski and Russell said Larrama’s alleged murder does not square with the man they knew at work who often spoke of his family.
Conway described the incident as “not foreseeable” for the bar based on its history with Larrama nor did “anything else gave us any kind of indication that this could happen,” she said.
“For all intents and purposes, he was a good employee,” Kuczynski said.
Last week, Martinez’s family announced its intention to sue Sons of Boston. The lawsuit, they said, will help them find answers about what happened to Martinez that night.
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“We will get to the bottom of this and we will do everything we can to ensure this type of thing never happens again,” the family’s attorney, Thomas Flaws, said.
Boston police have already seized the piano bar’s entertainment license, thereby revoking its right to host live music and karaoke.
Conway, at the outset of Tuesday’s testimony from bar staff, expressed the Sons of Boston’s condolences to the Martinez family.
Employees of the bar “are heartsick that this happened,” she said.
“We will always keep in mind that there was a tragic and senseless death connected with this,” Conway said.
The board is slated to vote on the bar’s liquor license on Thursday.
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