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Cops shutter 2 U. Darby bars they've made 200 calls on this year
At the Cheers in TV-land, you could always find Cliff, Norm and Frasier at the bar.
At the Cheers in Upper Darby, where police have been called 135 times this year alone, authorities said that they found a different kind of regular on the bar Saturday night - cockroaches.
"When you stood in there, the cockroaches were running around right on top of the bar," Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said. "It's the dirtiest, filthiest place I've ever been in my life."
Saturday night, Upper Darby Police, along with 30 officers from the Sheriff's Department, the Liquor Control Board, the Parole Department and the Health Department closed two "nuisance" bars - Cheers, at 69th and Market streets, and Sean Og's Irish Pub, on West Chester Pike near New Street.
Township police, whose headquarters is located directly across the street from Sean Og's, said that they've been called there 75 times this year for a variety of fights and disturbances.
Sean Og's was also the site of the beating of a man who was stomped while unconscious, a crime that was caught on camera last Saturday.
A mother and son were arrested last week in that attack, but two of the alleged attackers in the video remained unknown until a witness identified them on Saturday.
In a fortuitous turn of events, just hours before the raids, police found those two men - Marcus Gillis, 22, of Regent Street near 67th, in Philadelphia, and David Howell, 27, of College Avenue near West Chester Pike, in Upper Darby - in front of Sean Og's, where they were arrested on assault charges, Chitwood said. "These guys were just icing on the cake," he said.
Authorities raided Sean Og's about 11:30 p.m. and shut it down for health-code violations, police said. Just a half-dozen people were inside at the time of the raid.
Shortly thereafter, authorities raided Cheers, where about 50 people were patronizing the bar.
Of those, four were cited for underage drinking and eight were arrested on drug violations or warrants stemming out of other jurisdictions, Chitwood said.
"We found drugs on the floor and drugs on the patrons," he said.
Police have been called to Cheers this year for reasons ranging from drug rip-offs at gunpoint in the bathroom to a double shooting and assaults, Chitwood said. The bar was shut down Saturday for unfit, dangerous conditions and liquor violations and roaches, he said.
"My concern is when you go to two locations over 200 times, that's a significant problem - that means they're criminal enterprises and should be shut down," Chitwood said. "Unfortunately, from my experience, we close them but that doesn't mean in two or three days they're not reopened again."
