The Good Time Emporium, which closed its doors for good this weekend, holds a hallowed place in the Boston Blotter hall-of fame. (This Bostonist will never forget the time that 200 patrons remembered the "reason for the season" with an impromptu Easter Sunday melee.) Were you expecting everybody's favorite go-cart/laser tag/assault and battery locale to close with a classy bow or curtsy? Good Time was not going out like that. Friday night, two drunkards......

Image of good times still available on Route 1 by GregMacKay from photos tagged "Bostonist" on Flickr. Somerville's Good Time Emporium is closing today. The future IKEA should be prepared for lecherous drunks and hostile youths. [Boston Metro] In totally unrelated news, Harvard’s Fogg and Busch-Reisinger Museums are also closing today for major renovations. [Harvard University Art Museums] Terrese Edmonds wasn't using her cell phone when her Green Line trolley crashed, but hundreds of......

Fun palace and Boston Blotter superstar the Good Time Emporium is closing as a direct result of IKEA's arrival in Somerville. Depending on whom you talk to, the Good Time Emporium was a source for genuinely clean family fun, or it was a breeding ground for Oddblotter incidents, such as the following: --Dudes who toted in two ounces of coke while leaving three rounds of ammo in the car. --Customers tangling with the police over......

-- Police have arrested a 17 year-old suspect in the February 16 shooting death of Brockton cab driver Edward Conley. The incident happened on Galen Street, a Brockton cul-de-sac. Police say that Adilson Neves bragged about the shooting to friends and gave a taped confession while in custody. Neves admitted that he had left a shoe at the crime scene, according to authorities. He was arraigned today in Brockton District Court and faces charges including......

Oh, it's been so long since Somerville's Good Time Emporium, your place for go-karting and miscellaneous misdemeanors, has popped up on the blotter. But a loquacious perp had a lot to say when police arrested him early on the morning of December 29. The Somerville Journal reports that, after going to the redemption counter, the perp tried to "grab a handful of tickets that were not his." When told by an employee that the aforementioned......

IKEA is already here, in Stoughton, but the blue-and-yellow behemoth might be moving even closer. The Somerville News reports that the Swedish store with the make-it-yourself furniture has applied to start construction in Assembly Square. The arrival of the store could mean good news (new jobs!) and bad news (ugly traffic). IKEA tries to be soothing, well-organized, and clever, but the long lines at IKEA and technical furniture difficulties tend to put individuals in a......

--A man was shot and killed yesterday afternoon in Dorchester on Nottingham Street. The 39-year-old man was a resident of the neighborhood and has been called "Jo Jo." A neighbor told the Globe, "In his heart, he was a good man. He cared." This is the 30th murder of the year. --Yesterday morning, the feds came down hard on the "Kendall Street Thugs," a gang operating out of Framingham. The twenty gang members are accused......

--The last thing we need, especially with a presidential election coming up, is for someone to add fuel to the flag-burning debate. On Thursday, someone in Natick destroyed a solar-powered trash container by stuffing it with American flags and setting them on fire. The person who did it must be trying to offend as many people as possible - the left by wrecking an environmental device, and the right by burning flags. We are all......

We've seen teenagers sneaking beer out of neighbors' garage fridges. We've seen people stealing the equipment used to brew beer. But we've never heard of a beer holdup. The BPD reports that a guy was walking out of a convenience store in East Boston with a 12-pack when another guy told him "to hand over the beer or something bad was going to happen." The victim figured a 12-pack of beer wasn't worth dying over,......

--Someone must've really wanted to get caught while robbing Central Variety convenience store in Somerville. While he was awkwardly diving over the counter, he shoved an 8-year-old girl and stole the money she was spending for milk. The perp received only a box of cigars for his troubles. And the surveillance camera captured all the gory details. We say, "Amateur!" This behavior splashed the perp all over last night's news, even beating out the fire......

--We thought all we had to worry about was guns! Well, the BPD had to round up a machete-wielding man yesterday. In Maverick Square, this person raced after his victim in public and actually made contact several times before police got there. The victim got lucky and is now in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. --A news bit we skipped in light of the meltdown at the Good Time Emporium: The BPD had to intervene......

The Good Time Emporium has a fascinating name, doesn't it? The Emporium has been the site of a coke bust, a fatal shooting yesterday, and a pepper-spray incident, which we'll get to in a minute. They don’t call it "New England's Largest Indoor Entertainment Destination" for nothing. --George P. Hassett of the Somerville News reports that a police officer had a bad time at Good Time yesterday morning when a drunken customer got hold of......

--Someone took the name of a Somerville sports bar quite literally when they brought in 46.7 grams (about 2 ounces) of cocaine into the Good Time Emporium. These fellas took the tagline of the Good Time Emporium – "New England's Largest Indoor Entertainment Destination" – way too literally. Somerville News reports that police officers swiftly took the two in, not just for the abundant white powder but also for the three rounds of ammo they......

Although the population of greater Boston probably doesn't think much about Assembly Square ("That's off 93, right?" "No, wait, it's off 28, isn't it?" Yes and yes), in Somerville it is ever on residents' lips and minds: "With but a few anchor mega-retailers," Somervillians muse, "a gleaming shopping Mecca might arise, nestled among humming highways and reaching into the wallets of Boston, Cambridge, Woburn, and - dare we say it - even Winchester!" It's......

If you are looking for something to do tonight besides watch "the last five minutes of The O.C." why not venture to Somerville and take in some alcohol and sweets? The Somerville Chamber of Commerce is hosting "A Wine and Chocolate Affair to Remember" which features local distributors and their samples of wines and chocolates. This second annual event is sure to satisfy whatever craving you might be having tonight...word on the street is that......