• SNUFFED OUT: To paraphrase a once-disgraced president, “you won’t have The Alta Café to kick around anymore.” The License Commission tapped the final nail into the club’s coffin last Thursday, ordering a cessation of business. Not a surprise to most and the café had already shut down at least a week earlier on its own. Unlike the commotion that has always seemed to surround the café, this hearing went quick and quietly -- approval for the shut-down came in a matter of seconds, without a word in protest from the owner, who didn’t appear at the hearing. William Breault of the Main South Alliance didn’t hide his pleasure in hearing the news when speaking to us this week. “This is a long time coming,” Breault said. “I think it will make for a much safer area.” Breault and other neighborhood activists have been pointing at the café for years as a dangerous location — a notion heightened by a couple of shooting deaths outside the club. Is he concerned about another business taking its place with the same bad rap? “They have a good License Commission there,” Breault says. “If somebody comes in there and applies for a license, I think they’re going to get a lot of scrutiny.”

• MOVIN’ ON OVER: Speaking of changes in Main South, Alta Café’s often alleged partner in crime, The El Delicioso (pictured) food truck, has also moved. The two businesses’ close proximity to each other and operating times — customers from Alta would often spill over to El Delicioso after the club closed in the wee morning hours — were often cited as the main reason why bad people were doing bad things at 2 a.m. on the corner of Main and Benefit streets. A mobile food vendor, El Delicioso has no set location, but according to late-night watchers, it’s been seen setting up shop on Park Avenue near State Liquors since leaving the Main Street/Benefit Street corner. He hasn’t been spotted there in the past week, though.

• WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN POLYESTER: The weekend theft of a sculpture from Elm Park was disturbing to art buffs and civic boosters alike. The work formed part of a 16-piece installation staged in the park by the Worcester Cultural Commission and was the most traditional of the show — a bronze sculpture of a Masai warrior by Fern Cunningham. It may be a disappointment for the thief, however, to learn that the piece is not made of real bronze, but rather a polyester composite with no scrap value. On the other hand, maybe the thief was interested in the art itself.

• SPLASH ON WATER: Another missing tooth is being filled in in the Canal District. Pete Tsigas of Café Neo confirms with us that he will be opening the old Club Car space at 64 Water St., across from the 86 Winter restaurant and the Dzian Gallery. The space, which has been plagued by a series of failed enterprises, will reopen as Cavodoro in “a couple of months,” according to Tsigas. It will be a bar and grill with international appetizers, open for lunch, and his plan is to install windows that open fully to the street.

• ON TARGET: The Worcester Regional Transit Authority has had its share of fiscal troubles over the past few years (it faced a $1.2 million deficit last year), but State Sen. Harriette Chandler says the authority is finally getting on track — at least from where she sits. Funding issues caused the authority to take a hard look at some of its lesser-used routes earlier this year and resulted in the elimination of those routes. Chandler told the Telegram & Gazette in 2007 that part of the WRTA’s problems were due to the fact that state reimbursements to the WRTA dropped from 75% to less than 70% and that the state was no longer backing loans the authority must take out to cover the time it has to wait for the reimbursements to come through. Chandler says this week that “significant changes” in how the state deals with transportation issues across the state is taking place. Chandler says with this year’s bond bill, the state is looking at changing the funding formula for the WRTA. With high gas prices and increased ridership on the WRTA, the state’s gaze is turning firmly on public transportation, she says. o

Noah R. Bombard, Allen Fletcher and Christopher Zimmerman contributed to this report.