NEW BEDFORD, Mass.

Deal terminated between wind farm developers, town

A $4.5 million deal between the state and the developers of a proposed wind farm off Cape Cod to use New Bedford as a staging and construction site has been terminated, a sign critics say is more evidence the project is dead.

The Cape Cod reports that the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center issued a statement Monday saying the agency and Cape Wind “mutually agreed to end their lease agreement.”

In January, the state’s two biggest utilities pulled out of deals to buy power from the 130-turbine, $2.5 billion project.

A Cape Wind spokesman says the timetable for the project has changed and efforts are being made to bring the utilities back on board.

The president of a group that opposes the wind farm says Cape Wind is “failing.”

MANCHESTER, N.H.

Policy costs eatery 7 cents when birthday boy is 101

A restaurant’s policy to give customers a percentage off their bill on their birthday actually led to a 7-cent refund for man who turned 101.

Joseph Nelson, who celebrated a birthday breakfast at the Belmont Hall and Restaurant in Manchester on Monday, told WMUR-TV he never thought he’d live this long.

The restaurant’s policy is that customers get a percentage taken off the bill on their birthday based on their age. At 101 years old, the restaurant owed Nelson money.

Nelson ate scrambled eggs and ham, topped off with a piece of chocolate cake.

AMHERST, Mass.

Bars act to pre-empt another Blarney Blowout fracas

Six downtown Amherst bars are voluntarily delaying their openings this Saturday in an effort to head off the drunken rowdiness that marred last year’s Blarney Blowout celebrations.

Three of the bars are owned by business partners who started sponsoring the pre-St. Patrick’s Day event known as Blarney Blowout in the late 1990s.

Last year, during a series of parties on and near the University of Massachusetts campus, rowdiness led to confrontations with police and the arrest of more than 50 people. Fewer than half were UMass students.

Town Manager John Musante told The Daily Hampshire Gazette the bars have agreed to open at 4 p.m. rather than 11 a.m.

The university has also banned dormitory residents from having out-of-town guests this weekend.

NORTH PROVIDENCE, R.I

City asked to ease zoning to allow backyard chickens

North Providence is considering easing zoning rules to let some residents raise chickens in their backyards.

The Providence Journal reports that the proposed zoning change is largely the work of Timothy Thorp, a Brown University Web developer who says he wants to introduce his children to home-grown eggs and other aspects of chicken farming.

Thorp has assembled a petition with more than 200 signatures.

—From news service reports

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