Copyright dailymail
A Boston restaurant has taken down mugshots of infamous mobsters after celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey suggested they do so in order to make the dining room 'pop.' Savin Bar & Kitchen, located in the upscale Massachusetts neighborhood of Dorchester, was featured in an August episode of Ramsey's Secret Service reality TV show - a series that helps struggling restaurants get back on their feet and thrive. But during Ramsey's critiques of the Northern Italian-inspired restaurant, he and his producers decided it was a good idea to incorporate elements of the area's mobster past into the interior design. Specifically, Ramsey's team told co-owners Ken Osherow and Driscoll DoCanto to erect mugshots of Irish mob boss James 'Whitey' Bulger and hitman Stephen ‘The Rifleman’ Flemmi - something locals were not at all onboard with. Backlash quickly followed the restaurant's decision as several locals found the images so 'distasteful' and 'totally unacceptable' that they planned on starting a petition to have them removed for good. But the appeal, introduced by lifelong resident Donna McColgan, never saw the light of day after she realized just how many people were already behind her. 'Not everyone is tuned in to their community and the history of their community,' McColgan told The Boston Globe, referring to the area's significant Irish mob presence in the mid-1990s that created a violent history in the neighborhood. The image of Bulger really struck a nerve because the criminal savagely killed Eddie Connors, who owned Bulldogs - a restaurant that once operated in the same spot as Savin Bar & Kitchen and was a popular hangout spot for Boston's Winter Hill Gang - which Bulger led. Connors' son, Tim Connors, was extremely upset after hearing his father's murderer was being flaunted inside the eatery. 'It’s extremely disrespectful and distasteful,' he previously told the Globe. The younger Connors was just a baby when his father was fatally shot inside a telephone booth on June 12, 1975. He waited decades for his father's killers to be held responsible for their crimes, so when images went up of Bulger and Flemmi, it felt like a giant step backward for Connors' family. 'Absolutely they should take them down,' the younger Connors said, as his mother, the girlfriend of Edward Connors, Evelyn Cody, echoed his beliefs. Cody said when she heard the news she was 'sick to my stomach.' Bulger was convicted of killing 11 people, including Connors, in 2013. He was also found guilty of running a racketeering enterprise from the 1970s to the 1990s that involved a series of crimes, including drug trafficking. He was beaten to death by an inmate at a federal penitentiary in West Virginia five years later at the age of 89. Flemmi, now 91, remains locked up at an undisclosed federal prison after murdering 50 people. His earliest possible release date is May 4, 2218. McColgan said Ramsay, and the owners could have easily discussed the design idea with the Dorchester Historical Society, located just down the road from the restaurant, before hanging the distasteful mugshots up. She went on to take a dig at Ramsay personally. 'To have somebody from the UK come into a small neighborhood and not really do the proper research, it’s totally unacceptable,' McColgan told the outlet. Osherow, who said the images were put up under the direction of Ramsay's team, said it was never intended to upset the public. He said they have since been taken out of the frames and replaced with historical photos of buildings in Boston. But to him, the new pictures are not as intriguing as the mobster's photos. 'The old ones were like a conversation piece,' Osherow, who also owns Savin Hill’s Ghost Pepper and McKenna’s Cafe, stated. He believes the response to the display was blown 'out of proportion' and acted as 'an ambush.' But now that the business has listened to locals, he said he is happy the issue has been resolved. 'I’m glad they’re down and I’m glad this is behind us, but I felt like it was an ambush,' he said. 'I just want this whole issue to go to bed, to be honest with you.' The Daily Mail contacted Ramsay's team and Savin Bar & Kitchen for comment.
