urbanSTL

Doug wrote:Sweet. Well basically don't go to Shiver.

Could you repost the story of how you were an ass but still couldn't figure out why you got tossed out?

One thing I bet we could all agree on:
The ownership and management at Lure sucks and is the cause of all this mess.

General disclosure and observations from a constituent resident:
1. I live Downtown and chose to live here.
2. I’ve lived here long enough to remember before Lucky’s was on the street. Hell, I remember Velvet and Galaxy, and I still miss Lo.
3. I am by demographics a “yuppie” but fit more as a rough mix of Mad Men and Social Distortion.
4. I loathe pop collars and conspicuous consumption, and I hate big brand labels.
5. I’ve been the only non-black employee of black-owned, black-operated companies before and can understand how discomfort and perceptions play out without understanding.
6. Just as much, I made close friends to this day who otherwise I wouldn’t have.
7. I like hip hop nights and have attended these before. Personally, I’d prefer pre-1998 rap. In bars, I prefer juke boxes.
8. I like the bars, clubs, lounges, taverns, public houses, breweries, wine bars, speakeasys, and tequilerias found in Downtown and want them to stay.
9. I loathed the Trupiano family’s ownership of Lucky’s, and now Lure.
10. I don’t want kids under 21 going into the bars Downtown.
11. I am annoyed by the loud stereos in cars but loathe the choppers infinitesimally more.
12. I’m damn impressed with seeing a restored ‘82 Olds Brougham with 22” wheels rolling in front of me.
13. I believe NLEC is a bigger pain on the neighborhood than Lure.
14. I expect bars that allow smoking to have smoke-eaters. I do smoke.
15. I very much prefer police to the Guardian Angels. I saw both outside Lure on Friday night.
16. I’m not threatened by the clientele at any hip hop nights, although I’ll call a really fat girl in tight clothes fat.
17. I appreciate Doug’s insight and candor, and respect his opinions, even where I disagree.
18. Ditto Loftman for his passed-out white guy at Copia comments.
19. My name’s not Chad.
20. Posters here are not those being idiots on the stltoday.com comment section; of that I think we can all be content.
21. Saint Louis has much to overcome, as does the entire nation, with the subjects of race, socioeconomics, and political separation. But, we can’t settle all that with Lure.

For clarity on the quote attributed to me on page 16, I just know what I saw through personal familiarity: a guy representing affiliation through signaling for a known gang. Other than that, I wrote about people dressed ugly. It was not in a way to reflect on race, nor socioeconomics, but on style.

My agenda is only to live on a block where shootings don’t take place on a semi-regular basis.

Doug, I do have a question to clarify/understand your perspective:
You’ve said in your posts on page 16 that you’re a socialist white male. Did I read that right? If so, then could you see that maybe you are seeing racism where perhaps it doesn’t exist, at least to the degrees inferred previously in this thread, in order to inadvertently posit on a personal philosophy? Is it truly the racial aspect or more the socioeconomic constructs that have the root of your attention?

For disclosure, I’ve dated two socialists (one a full communist), and I’ve noted this trend to them before. I’m asking this in honesty to better understand your points of view and know how to best reply my ideas to you for better discourse. If it is socioeconomics, then I’d really enjoy that conversation to be talked out but under another topic as it may be distracting here.

From Seattle:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l ... fe03m.html

Seattle City Council OKs closing-time tickets
By Sara Jean Green

Seattle Times staff reporter

In an effort to help Seattle police tame unruly bar patrons as they spill out of the city's bars and clubs at closing time, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed an ordinance Monday that would allow cops to write tickets for fighting, making threats and creating noisy disturbances.

The ordinance still needs to be vetted by the state Department of Ecology, which reviews all laws related to noise, a process that typically takes 90 days, according to Newell Aldrich, legislative assistant to Councilmember Nick Licata, who sponsored the ordinance. It will also have to be signed into law by Mayor Mike McGinn, who has thrown his support behind the measure, Aldrich said.

Officers could begin writing the $100 tickets by November, Aldrich said.

The idea for the ordinance originated with a nine-member nightlife committee formed by the City Council in late 2007. Members issued a series of recommendations late last year, Aldrich said.

"This was their No. 1 recommendation," Aldrich said of the committee, which included three neighborhood representatives, three members of the city's nightlife and music industries, a noise expert, a representative from the state Liquor Control Board and a member from the Seattle Police Department.

Dubbed the "meathead ordinance" a catchall phrase for the stereotypical bad behavior officers regularly encounter when bar patrons spill onto sidewalks just before 2 a.m.” the measure would be enforced between midnight and 5 a.m.

While the intent is to focus on problem neighborhoods such as Belltown, Pioneer Square and the University District, Aldrich said the ordinance will apply to all areas of the city that are zoned for commercial uses. Issuing a ticket for noisy behavior, Aldrich said, would be less time consuming for officers than giving a warning and then taking action only if the noise continues” the current requirement.

Under the new ordinance, people who rev motorcycle engines, incessantly honk car horns, or scream and carry on in loud voices could be cited.

Fighting, or "mutual combat" where two parties punch and kick each other but don't harm anyone else or cause property damage” isn't currently against the law, Aldrich said. Under the new ordinance, a ticket could help break things up, even in situations where officers don't have clear-cut victims and aggressors.

"This being a civil procedure, part of it is prevention, too," he said. Tickets could help, he said, "sort of in defusing a situation before the pepper spray comes out."

ttricamo wrote:

Gone Corporate wrote: 3. I am by demographics a “yuppie” but fit more as a rough mix of Mad Men and Social Distortion..

I don't know you, and I apologize for the call-out, but this is the lamest attempt at sounding cool I think I've ever heard. You may go all Cyrano de Bergerac on me for pointing it out but I couldn't resist.

Nope, I don't feel called out. That was less about trying to be "sounding cool" than being self-descriptive: middle-age guy who works very hard and has a strong disdain to current pop culture and trends. While I'm supposed to be going into the yuppie bars and living the "I wish I was on Entourage" lifestyle, I'm likely to reject it for something more low-key and punk. Or: less Lucas Park Grille & Pepper Lounge, more Tin Can and Borracho.

Back on topic: the Trupianos don't know how to manage a bar, and I look forward to a new group in there.

Gone Corporate wrote:Back on topic: the Trupianos don't know how to manage a bar, and I look forward to a new group in there.

This is what it all comes down to. Doug can scream "ITS RACISM!!!" at the top of his voice but the real problem is that the people who own and operate Lure have absolutely no concept at how to run a popular nightclub.

If some simple steps would have been taken, along with some consideration of the nearby residents, all this drama would not have occurred.

Gone Corporate wrote:While I'm supposed to be going into the yuppie bars and living the "I wish I was on Entourage" lifestyle, I'm likely to reject it for something more low-key and punk.

We would get a long great...nothing like walking into a bar and hearing The Stooges blaring in the background. Noise is bliss.

Perhaps I am overly sensitive to issues of race, however I can't help but call racism when even something as normal as the O'Fallon Rec center brings racist comments. And you shouldn't think they are isolated to County folk. The same goes with this issue as people called for profiling or a million other discriminatory practices. My concerns are for public safety but also so that African Americans are able to enjoy downtown without being under a higher level of scrutiny simply because of their clothes, ride, or because they're hollering at women (something any straight male with a pulse will do). I am sure there are those that believe closing Lure is the solution, but there are those who also believe this type of club shouldn't be downtown or controlled to the extent that the area does not become majority minority. These people stereotype hip hop as a driver of crime and/or want gentrification. So it's not everyone on this forum or those living downtown but I doubt petitioners can say it does not exist when racism has been expressed here and other places already.

My biggest peeve, I think, happens to be the backlash over this issue and that this stuff goes on with great frequency in other areas. Yet they do not receive the same level of attention on the institutional agenda. I see that as racism insofar as African American areas are expected to be dangerous, therefore crime tolerated by the larger City and Region, or it's their own internal problem to solve. If this happened on MLK no one would do anything because whites don't live there and white girls aren't visiting from the County. But when crime comes into white areas, especially those which are highly valued, the full force of the Police and City Hall comes crashing down. I don't call that equity but race based discrimination. The same practice which created this environment which propagates crime.

Critics of my argument say that African Americans should or must organize and fix it themselves. This racist assumption holds that they don't care or aren't trying -- again essentially the urban African American loves living in squalor surrounded by drugs and guns. In fact many don't as the middle class has largely left these areas -- a process for the very wealthy (at least as I've read in LA) which began even before the Fair Housing Act. How should the community simply "fix it" when the majority of residents are below the poverty line? They need money and what are the options? I would like to see someone walk up to a gang member and tell him simply to stop selling drugs. Ghettos were reinforced through decades of private and public action. Callous to then expect those within to fix it all when they already don't have equitable resources nor have ever. Can one poor community alone bring back a factory, hire better teachers, bring a grocery store, get police to reside in the area or at least patrol more, get more public investment spurring private, and also convince banks that the area is worth investing in for simply home repairs -- or at least to open a branch in the neighborhood?

The bouncers were more fat than MMA but I suspect steroids were involved. I really enjoyed the place but yeah can't abide that. If wanted to be thrown out of a bar by three guys in Affliction T-Shirts I would have gone to Main Street St. Charles dressed as Obama.

Doug wrote:My concerns are for public safety but also so that African Americans are able to enjoy downtown without being under a higher level of scrutiny simply because of their clothes, ride, or because they're hollering at women (something any straight male with a pulse will do).

They can do that now. We only want scrutiny for the ones who bring their guns downtown with them.

Doug wrote:The bouncers were more fat than MMA but I suspect steroids were involved. I really enjoyed the place but yeah can't abide that. If wanted to be thrown out of a bar by three guys in Affliction T-Shirts I would have gone to Main Street St. Charles dressed as Obama.

Affliction t-shirts should’ve been the obvious giveaway. For all the belief in not prejudicing people because of racial ethnicity, I sure as hell will be prejudicial to men who wear Affliction-brand t-shirts in a Downtown on a Friday night. And that prejudice is: I hate douche bags, and those guys sound like’em. I actually know a girl who’s glad for that brand so she can spot the douche bags early.

Then again, is my prejudicial assumption of those who wear Affliction-brand t-shirts comparable to the folks at the heart of this issue on Lure? Or of steroid use or Old Town St. Chuck, could that be overarching prejudice as well?

Well, I’d bet that people who are concerned about all the trouble that’s been going on at that club aren’t angry that the people involved are black, seeing that mostly as ancillary. After all, most white yuppies living around that part of Downtown aren’t moving there to explicitly gentrify it or make it like Ladue but near tall buildings with some density. Otherwise, Creve Coeur would be booming (they have a loft building there, after all). However, because these troubles have been taking place at a club on nights when it has a majority black clientele, racial issues emerge.

For me, it’s the crime that’s the problem. It doesn’t matter to me that it’s mostly on hip hop nights with a black clientele. If it was a country line dancing night club with as much trouble as hip hop night has, with Dodge Dakota trucks instead of Escalades and rebuilt classic Buicks, I’d be just as upset, and quite honestly probably more. After all, I didn’t choose to move to Valley Park, but to the City. I want diversity on these blocks, and not just of skin color but of socioeconomic backgrounds. It’s not racism that people don’t like what’s going on with Lure; people just don’t like what’s going on with Lure, simple as that.

We’ll of course have the run-ins between the haves and have-nots wherever we go, and accentuated in urban density, but the end blaming or grouping of peoples based on skin color distracts from the simple fact that crimes are taking place there, from drug dealing in the club to police officers being farking shot at in a crowd on a busy Downtown street. Meanwhile, the management of Lure has been feeding the negative elements surrounding this, from lax security management & thematically playing to material excess to being problem neighbors, ultimately playing the race card in the public eye as a blatant distraction to their explicit mismanagement in the hopes of drawing support from those who would never support them otherwise. They failed when they ran it as Lucky’s, and they’re failing now with the newer Lure brand.

There are so very many other ancillary issues involved in race relations in Saint Louis, and the nation. This is where we can talk further of socioeconomic stratification and the historical consequences of disinvestment in urban areas leading to the growth of city-based poverty. However, the focus of this thread is Lure and the problems caused there, these problems being violent crimes. And speaking for the majority of those concerned herein, I see these crimes not for being crimes taking place within a majority-black hip hop night, but simply as problems that I do not want near me.

Let’s talk of the bigger economic issues on another thread, but here, let’s stick with how Lure sucks because the management blows.

I'll be ready to call 911.

Downtown2007 wrote:So basically the great ownership of Lure plans to milk every dime out of their establishment in case they are closed for good on 08/27. You guys are real classy.

Has nothing to do with not being classy. It's just smart business.

Gone Corporate wrote:...simple fact that crimes are taking place there, from drug dealing in the club to police officers being farking shot at in a crowd on a busy Downtown street. Meanwhile, the management of Lure has been feeding the negative elements surrounding this, from lax security management & thematically playing to material excess to being problem neighbors, ultimately playing the race card in the public eye as a blatant distraction to their explicit mismanagement in the hopes of drawing support from those who would never support them otherwise. They failed when they ran it as Lucky’s, and they’re failing now with the newer Lure brand.

However, the focus of this thread is Lure and the problems caused there, these problems being violent crimes.

Drugs and the club scene have been connected since before you and I were both born. Closing Lure will not remove drug usage. To assume that Lure had anything to do with the parking lot shooting is ridiculous. Would Mandina's on St. Louis Avenue be responsible for a shooting in St. Louis Place or on North Florissant? Critics assume that these African Americans were patrons of Lure because they happen to have a hip hop night. If it was an Asian themed event instead this would have never been tied to the club, but rather yet another group of nameless African Americans shooting at Police. Lure could have taken steps to increase public safety around their club, but again I don't believe any of these shootings took place in their building. It's completely insane to hold them to a higher standard which no other bar must. Business owners are not responsible for criminal activity in public areas blocks from their address especially when no proof exists that the offenders were patrons. Were they even caught? No, a shooting happened and it must have been Lure's fault. I am not sure what you mean about material excess. That's the basis of our economy.

Doug wrote:

Gone Corporate wrote:...simple fact that crimes are taking place there, from drug dealing in the club to police officers being farking shot at in a crowd on a busy Downtown street. Meanwhile, the management of Lure has been feeding the negative elements surrounding this, from lax security management & thematically playing to material excess to being problem neighbors, ultimately playing the race card in the public eye as a blatant distraction to their explicit mismanagement in the hopes of drawing support from those who would never support them otherwise. They failed when they ran it as Lucky’s, and they’re failing now with the newer Lure brand.

However, the focus of this thread is Lure and the problems caused there, these problems being violent crimes.

Drugs and the club scene have been connected since before you and I were both born. Closing Lure will not remove drug usage. To assume that Lure had anything to do with the parking lot shooting is ridiculous. Would Mandina's on St. Louis Avenue be responsible for a shooting in St. Louis Place or on North Florissant? Critics assume that these African Americans were patrons of Lure because they happen to have a hip hop night. If it was an Asian themed event instead this would have never been tied to the club, but rather yet another group of nameless African Americans shooting at Police. Lure could have taken steps to increase public safety around their club, but again I don't believe any of these shootings took place in their building. It's completely insane to hold them to a higher standard which no other bar must. Business owners are not responsible for criminal activity in public areas blocks from their address especially when no proof exists that the offenders were patrons. Were they even caught? No, a shooting happened and it must have been Lure's fault. I am not sure what you mean about material excess. That's the basis of our economy.

Someone hasn't read the liquor laws.

"Commission of crimes upon or in the immediate vicinity of a licensed premises by persons frequenting the licensed premises or by the licensee, his employees, servants or agents"

Since when is the lot at Tucker and St. Charles in the immediate vicinity of Lure? If so then Maruzio's, Shiver, MeShon's, and Flamingo Bowl are also responsible. It also has not been established whether these offenders were even patrons. The assumption was made based upon their race and Lure's hip hop night. If it was Asian night I bet you wouldn't make that connection. They could have easily been from Gravois Park for a drug deal. Make the argument about people on the sidewalk and I agree, but the parking lot shooting is a standard which does not apply. Finally, I think the valet issue was addressed while the police barrier on Washington probably does more to undermine business than that. Regardless I suppose you guys got your way? Congratulations on your hard work. I envision more ahead.

Doug wrote:"Commission of crimes upon or in the immediate vicinity of a licensed premises by persons frequenting the licensed premises or by the licensee, his employees, servants or agents"

Since when is the lot at Tucker and St. Charles in the immediate vicinity of Lure?

Since one can throw a rock from Lure and hit the parking lot. That's called "immediate vicinity"

Doug wrote:If so then Maruzio's, Shiver, MeShon's, and Flamingo Bowl are also responsible.

No they aren't.

Doug wrote:It also has not been established whether these offenders were even patrons.

Doesn't have to be. You realize that a liquor revocation hearing is not a criminal trial, right? The standard of evidence is much lower.

Doug wrote:The assumption was made based upon their race and Lure's hip hop night.

I saw what you did there. You tried to make it about race again, didn't you? It had nothing to do with their race. But you knew that already.

Doug wrote:They could have easily been from Gravois Park for a drug deal.

Or from Mars.

Doug wrote:Make the argument about people on the sidewalk and I agree, but the parking lot shooting is a standard which does not apply.

See above.