What Happened At Vlora On New Year’s Eve?

For the past few days, we’ve been eagerly following the strange story of New Year’s Eve at Vlora. On Tuesday, WBZ reported that the restaurant had quite the police incident during its festivities. The police were called after midnight to respond to a possible sexual assault. When they arrived, they found the metal grate down over the door and the whole thing was locked with an exterior padlock. When the police managed to get in, they allegedly found a plethora of illegal activity, including alcohol being served after hours and drunken employees. Police say that when they tried to speak to Vlora’s owner Aldo Velaj, he threw a punch and a bartender drew a knife. Representatives for Vlora say that the doors were locked because “they had fired a disgruntled employee that night.” The licensing board is meeting today to discuss whether or not Vlora’s license should be revoked.

Although, clearly, the only people who know what happened at Vlora on New Year’s Eve are those who were there (and if you were, in fact, one of those people, you should feel more than free to email our (confidential) tipline, these allegations are troubling indeed. We would be sad to see Vlora shut its doors, if only because it’s Boston’s only Albanian restaurant, it’s well-liked and we’ve been very much looking forward to spending this upcoming summer getting very well-acquainted with their watermelon-feta tidbit.

What do you think? Should Vlora be shuttered?

Vlora [MenuPages]
Vlora [Official Site]
Padlock, Knife Lead to New Year’s Fiasco in Boston [WBZ]

[Photo: Albatour Guide]

What Happened At Vlora On New Year’s Eve?