"Bar staff says Toronto fans tore away Bruins mural" by Gal Tziperman Lotan | Globe Correspondent, September 23, 2013
As soon as the Canadian bachelor party stepped onto the landing between the second and third floor of the Greatest Bar, they took issue with a mural depicting the Bruins’ playoff win over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“One kid gives the mural the finger,” Greatest Bar general manager Jimmy Ferola said Sunday, reviewing security camera footage. “Like that’s gonna do anything.”
Some in the group of about nine men tugged at the mural, loosening a strip about a foot wide and 7-feet tall. As the men left, security footage shows, one tugged at the strip again and another pulled it completely off the wall, crumpling it into a ball, and carrying it out the door of the bar on Friend Street near the TD Garden.
“Never has anyone gone out of their way to destroy a wall-sized mural,” Ferola said.
After reviewing security footage Saturday, bar employees identified the party bus the men traveled on, Ferola said.
Ferola said the company that operates the bus, the Bustonian, identified the men as tourists from Toronto in town for a bachelor party. A driver found the crumpled mural strip on the bus, Ferola said.
He said the company has offered to help the bar get reimbursed for the damage. The Bustonian could not be reached for comment Sunday. As of Sunday afternoon, the bar’s owners had not received an estimate for how much it would cost to repair the mural, which originally cost $10,000.
The bar’s managers would like to be paid for the damage, but Ferola said an apology from the men would be worthless.
This vandalism, he said, reflects poorly on Toronto fans.
“I don’t know what it is about Toronto, but I certainly wouldn’t want to visit,” he said.
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