2 parties halted over picket threats

City convention organizers have canceled two of Mayor Thomas M. Menino's signature convention welcoming parties because delegations from Ohio and Michigan are refusing to cross threatened police picket lines at the events, even with a police union contract set to be announced today.

Planners preparing to stage Sunday night parties for delegations from Ohio and Michigan said officials from Boston's host committee notified them yesterday that the parties were off.

Police have threatened to picket the parties for months, but Menino had recently counted on an arbitrator's announcement of a contract today to convince labor-friendly states to ignore the demonstrations.

Several state delegations -- including California, the nation's largest -- have pledged to stay away from parties where police are picketing, and Menino said that as soon as today's contract is announced, he will personally call delegations, asking them to attend.

''If they don't [come], they'll miss a good party," Menino said.

Officials at the host committee, Boston 2004, initially denied that the parties had been canceled. But in a statement issued late yesterday, they said the cancellations were the result of ''the unfortunate situation involving the Boston Police Patrolmen's [Association]."

''Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Boston 2004, Inc. share the disappointment of all who have taken part in the planning of these events, including the businesses, community leaders and residents who have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to host these visiting delegations in their neighborhoods," the statement said. ''It is unfortunate that small, local, minority- and women-owned businesses must suffer as a result of circumstances beyond their control."

Party planners, facing vendor deadlines, had been pressing convention organizers to decide whether the parties were on or off. Each party was expected to cost $100 a person, about $30,000 for Ohio's party.

Michelle Sullivan, spokeswoman for the Boston Beer Company, which was hosting the Ohio delegation party at the Sam Adams Brewery in Jamaica Plain, said she was about to place a final order for lobsters, steamers, and corn on the cob for 300 when she got the call from convention organizers yesterday.

''We regret losing the opportunity to welcome the delegates," she said. ''We were thrilled months ago when we learned we would be hosting the party because [brewery owner] Jim [Koch] is from Ohio and the Sam Adams Brewery is in Cincinnati and we brew half our beer there. It was a great opportunity to introduce them to one of Boston's great neighborhoods and a company that has a big presence in the state of Ohio."

Dan Trevas, spokesman for the Ohio Democratic party, said the delegation will probably attend a union party at Florian Hall sponsored by the police and firefighter unions.

Michigan party officials yesterday said their delegation's welcoming party will be in New Bedford, not in Boston.

''It was canceled," Michigan party spokesman Jason Moon said of the mayor's party planned for the State Street Financial Center. ''We have 300 people RSVPing to a lobster clambake in New Bedford and we're excited to go. We are paying [for the party] -- with the help of organized labor."

Dusty Rhodes of Conventures, the company that planned the party, said she had already paid vendors when she learned yesterday the Michigan party had been canceled.

''Everything is locked, and loaded and committed," she said. ''The catering was ordered, the decor was done, the people were staffed, the deliveries were scheduled. At 2 working days out, your commitments are your commitments. The commitments have been made, and they will need to be paid, and I'm getting indications from the Boston 2004 committee that they're going to honor some of the commitments we have made to vendors, and hopefully all of them."

This week city officials have been suggesting that delegates can ignore picket lines because the patrolmen's association's contract will have been settled.

''If they have a contract, they're not picketing -- no one is moving through a picket line," said Merita Hopkins, the city's top lawyer.

But several delegation chairs said they're unpersuaded. California party chairman Art Torres said Tuesday that if for any reason police put up a picket line at his delegation party at the Franklin Park Zoo, he -- and the 500 delegates -- will honor it.

Minnesota party chairman Mike Erlandson and Nebraska party executive Barry Rubin said the same thing.

''You'd have to throw my dead limp body over a picket line before you'd see me cross one," Rubin said yesterday. ''A picket is a picket is a picket."

But some delegations yesterday seemed less sure of their positions than they were a week ago.

Less than a week after saying his delegation would boycott its party at the James Michael Curley house if police picketed, a spokesman for the Tennessee Democratic Party wouldn't say yesterday what his delegation's plans are.

Officials for the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association yesterday said no matter what happens today they will picket the mayor's delegation parties, together with members of the city's firefighters union and superior officers federation. Massachusetts AFL-CIO president Robert J. Haynes said that his members will also join the picket lines.

''We have five buses on order that will be taking police officers, firefighters, detectives, superior officers and any other unions to the mayor's venues across the city of Boston, where we'll be handing out a letter asking all DNC delegates to stand in solidarity and protest the mayor's disrespect and disdain for his public employee unions," said James Barry, legislative liaison for the patrolmen's association.

The police union will picket because the firefighters and superior officers are still without contracts, Barry said. They will also picket to protest the last-minute decision by the state's Joint Labor-Management Committee to force the patrolmen's association's contract dispute into immediate arbitration. Union leaders said after the decision that they would reconsider their pledge to not picket at the FleetCenter during the convention.

The arbitrator, Lawrence T. Holden Jr., spent much of the day yesterday trying to hammer out a negotiated settlement between the two sides. A state panel required him to produce a final decision by 2 p.m. today, but Holden can push back that deadline if he feels it necessary.

Yvonne Abraham and Rick Klein contributed to this report.