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From the Boston Globe:

An unidentified man fell to his death from an outdoor staircase at a Brighton residence early yesterday, and city officials said the building's owner will be cited today for not securing the structure.

Michael F. Grant Jr., 35, will be served with notice of an "unsafe and dangerous" violation for not properly securing a metal spiral staircase at his home at 89 Dustin St., according to the Inspectional Services Department.

Sounds reasonable, right? Not so fast. This is Meninostan we're talking about.

A few paragraphs later we learn that Mr. Grant had previously asked the City of Boston for permission to complete some renovations on the house, including the stairs in question.

Complaints from residents about renovations to the house prompted the city to issue Grant a stop-work order about seven months ago, Timberlake said.

At that time, a city building inspector determined that Grant had not obtained the proper building permits. The staircase was among the infractions, Timberlake said.

Grant then applied for a building permit, which was denied.

So, here we have an honest, hard-working citizen being cited by the city for having an unsafe staircase, after having been denied permission to repair it.

Hence, the title of the blog.

Also from the Globe article:

It was unclear why the victim climbed the staircase, which went up the side of the house. Grant told a city building inspector yesterday that he did not know the victim. "I'm told he didn't know who he was," Timberlake said of Grant.

Hmmm...a guy climbing up the back staircase of someone else's house at 2:00 in the morning? Yeah...I wonder.

Tom Menino: Keeping the city safe for criminals since 1993.