City's Rat Discrimination at its Worst

While many argue about the discrimination in this city, this ideology is also affecting the vermin in the city sewers as well. As many shocked restaurant patrons came to find out last Thursday, rats do not add to the ambience when inhaling a filet mignon on Newbury Street. Louis J. Antonellis, a local labor union guy for Electrical Workers Local 103, decided he had had enough with the Capital Grille after fighting with them for four months. So to get his point across, he opened up a shopping bag and dropped three white lab rats onto the dining room floor. Antonellis then ran out onto the street and was chased by a few of the valets until being caught by B.U. police a few blocks away. While the diners weren’t too happy about sharing their dinners with rats, the animal lovers out there can calm down; the rats were captured by the waitstaff and are currently residing in a Roslindale animal shelter until they get adopted.

Yet if you travel over to the North End right now, the rat problem is being handled with a bit more force. Giant wharf rats are out in record numbers and are being poisoned left and right to keep them away from the tourists and cannolis on Hanover Street. While we’re sure that the Big Dig isn’t helping with moving the rats from underground onto the streets above, the city also blames an increase in trash for the growing rat problem. (Did we mention that these things can be over a foot long?) The city has started laying poison pellets all over the area to keep them at bay.

So what have we learned about all this, kids? Well, if you are a high society rat on Newbury Street, you get captured and given to a good home. If you are a wharf rat down near the docks, you’re poisoned. Sounds a bit like a Dickens' novel, doesn't it?

A white rat that could have been eating at the Capital Grille last week; photo courtesy of Flickr user lulusteph.