| Attempting to keep Valparaiso & Porter County officials honest since "The Great Popcorn Festival Fiasco of 2005" |
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| Valparaiso City Government Website | Porter County Government Website |
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Friday, October 7, 2005 was highlighted by a city hall meeting of some of the parties concerned with the
excise raids at Popcorn Festival 2005. In attendance were:
Please forgive me if I butchered the spelling of any of your names. Mayor Costas opened the meeting with some brief comments regarding the "White House incident" at Popcorn Festival 2004, indicating that a commission had been formed to investigate the problem. He further stated that the commission determined it had been an isolated incident that required no policy changes. He went on to say that he wanted to work to be sure that the events of the 2005 festival were not repeated and set the tone for the meeting to be geared toward avoiding problems in future festivals. Chief of Police Michael Brickner indicated that prior to the festival, in the planning stages, there had been some questions and/or confusion on the part of the Popcorn Board regarding temporary permits for the festival. He contacted IEP for advice and subsequently issued permits to each of the three establishments that applied for them. I did not catch the time frame in which this occurred but was under the impression it was one or two months before the festival. It was clear at that time that IEP would be present in some numbers at the festival as they have been at most festivals in the past. Jason Evans of Buffallo Wild Wings he realized he made a mistake in the way he served alcoholic beverages in the outside area and wondered if State law required that the IEP officers to shut down all alcohol service at his establishment or if that was at the officer’s discretion. Bruce Leetz of North Coast raised the point that the Indiana Code regulating Alcohol was 400 odd pages of legal mumbo jumbo (my words, not his) that are confusing at best and impossible to follow completely, if only due to their vast numbers and complexity. He also pointed out that in spite of this obvious problem with the regulations and the presence of IEP at previous festivals, never in 27 years had the festival been raided or bars/clubs shut down. (Sounds almost like a precedent, doesn't it?) The discussion to this point raised three main questions that drove the remainder of the meeting and literally caused the state government types to circle their wagons and obfuscate. 2. What kind of latitude or discretion was available to IEP officers in the performance of their duties on that day? 3. Why was it necessary to completely close down the establishments (or in one case close the alcohol service) when only one or two minor violations were found and a simple citation or correction of the problem would have been more appropriate? After several minutes of discussion about the second and third questions, the IEP and ATC officials ultimately skirted around them. They failed to give a clear answer (or even an unclear one), became defensive, then aggressive and finally changed the subject. They did eventually admit that officers had a fairly wide latitude in the way and the extent to which they enforced the law, although no specifics were given. Basically, they didn't want to admit to anything. The discussion continued as the representatives from North Side Tap, Roger & Wendy, questioned why IEP found it necessary to close down entire operation, when only the outside was in minor violation of the tomb of Alcohol Regulations mentioned above. (I.E. although the license was in place but the specific authorization letter from the IEP was not. This was a gray area they used to nail the American Legion as well.) The response from Valpo Fire Department, ATC and IEP was underwhelming. After much hemming and hawing, it went something like this: Upon closing down the outside, the IEP officers were leaving the scene to move on to their next set of victims when they witnessed a fender bender just north of the intersection of Poplar & Calumet. They responded to the accident, called in the Valpo PD and controlled traffic until VPD arrived. After that the motivation gets a little murky. At first, Officer Taylor stated that in the course of dealing with the accident, he observed the situation inside the bar through the front window and the western section appeared to be very over crowded, creating an "unsafe situation." At that point, both Roger Gengo, Wendy and I all objected. I had been sitting in that section at the time, watching the whole a thing and it was only sparsely populated. The moment we objected, Dave Heath of the ATC became aggressive and stated something to the effect that if we were going to accuse and criticize the officer there was no reason to continue the conversation. I turned to him and said, “I am here to get to the truth,” then turned back to Officer Taylor continuing, “and that was not the truth.” At that point, Taylor did the “Liar’s Shuffle” (You know the one. The liar shuffles his feet, wrings his hands, looks down, around and anywhere but at the person he lied to.) I knew he was lying before that, but the shuffle confirmed it.
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So then he changed his tune. “Oh, I, er, well…” He
said he had heard offensive language and rude comments
coming from the general direction of the North Side
Tap. He decided they were being directed at him (probably
true but since when is that against the law?)
and it got under his thin skin. He looked and saw
that there were people in the bar, had a fantasy that
the place must be over-crowded and called in the Valpo
Fire Marshall.The Fire Marshall arrived on the scene. He went through the bar and counted some 330 people (the legal seating capacity is 425). Not having the legal means needed to close the bar, he did another test (no doubt at Taylor’s request, they were quite chatty). He determined that he should be able to go from the entrance to the back bathroom in under two minutes. This would supposedly indicate if the aisles and halls were too congested for safety. He made it in one minute and one second, well under the mandated two minutes. We never did get a definitive reason as to why IEP closed the bar (it seems like the Fire Marshall would have been the one to do that if indeed it was over crowded), but it seems clear that the IEP officers couldn’t handle being called names by justifiably angry patrons and took out their frustrations on the bar business by closing it. It is unclear why Fire Chief Nondorf was present at the meeting. He stated he was out of town when all this went down and had no first hand knowledge. His Fire Marshall apparently did not brief him well as he was unable to tell us anything other than that he was there to answer questions on topics about which he knew nothing. There was, however, a resolution of sorts. The Mayor and representatives of the ATC and IEP committed to holding a meeting with all affected parties 60-90 days in advance of the next Popcorn Festival to be sure that the management of every bar and club has the proper information and permits to avoid this sort of “inconvenience.” Bruce Leetz of North Coast volunteered the meeting room at his facility to host the event. I’m not giving anyone a pass here, but no real answers were obtained regarding whom, if anyone orchestrated or arranged the raids. While there are a plethora of rumors flying (and you can find most of them in these pages), no solid evidence exists to show that Mayor Costas, Chief Brickner or any other Valpo official directly had a hand in the situation. Naturally, this could be a Bill Clinton style smoke screen, so if anyone can provide physical or written evidence, send me a photo or copy and I will gladly post it here and get it addressed. However, whatever the case, I will give Mayor Costas credit for responding to the situation in the open and taking action to correct it. At this point I am inclined to believe this was an IEP action, possibly in response to some contrived or perceived indiscretion against the IEP or ATC on the part of one or more city officials. Taylor’s apparently false comments to NST employees about Mayor Costas’ role in the raids could easily be construed as an indication of this. The IEP apparently adheres to a rather loose standard of professional conduct. While they may appear very official and proper in the performance of their duties, personal whimsy evidently dictates how and when they perform those duties. (E.G.: At North Side Tap, IEP Officer Swallow refused to produce his credentials, pushing past several employees, nearly knocking one of them off her feet and into a fence. That’s just uncalled for.) The economic impact of this action is not fully known, but, none-the-less, undeniable. The people who work the Popcorn Festival look at the wages & tips earned this day as sort of like a Christmas Bonus. It comprises part of their expected annual income. The IEP and whoever else was involved in these raids should be made to atone for this effect in some way. All in all, I felt that our questions and comments were largely stonewalled or redirected. When confronted with questions and facts, the IEP and ATC officials aggressively responded that they did not have to tolerate accusations or criticism. When caught in an outright lie about what he saw through the windows at NST, Officer Taylor clammed up and stopped responding. He also categorically denied saying anything to incriminate Mayor Costas. (The ATC guy got irritated about my questioning him on that one too.) Under both the 5th and 14th amendments, our U.S. Constitution guarantees all of us the right to "Due Process" of law before being deprived of life, liberty or property. the 14th amendment goes on to specify that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privilages or immunities of citizens of the United States." Income and future income are treated by Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) and the IRS as property. That's why GAAP sets down rules for quantifying it and the IRS taxes it. The State of Indiana (among others) have enacted laws which allow alcohol agents to walk in to any alcohol serving establishment, search it, and shut it down, all with no requirement for any "Probable Cause", warrant or court proceeding. Further and ever worse, Indiana has entrusted the enforcement of their unconstitutional laws to individuals who cannot be trusted to do so within the confines reasonable behavior. Unfortunately, with laws like the RICO and Patriot acts, to name only two, at their disposal, law enforcement has very wide latitude in which to operate (even outside the boundaries originally prescribed by said laws). Couple that with some minor changes in word definitions and the so-called “Rule of Law” (which translates to “Documented Fascism”) and you have a very effective police state. That about does it. If anyone has information they would like to add, please drop me an email at Rick@Valparaiso Contrarian.org. As for my feelings on this fiasco, two words come to mind: "Fuster Cluck". |