Pubdate: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 Source: Casper Star-Tribune (WY) Copyright: 2005 Casper Star-Tribune Contact: http://www.casperstartribune.net/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/765 Author: Brendan Burke, Star-Tribune staff writer Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) FEAR AND LOATHING ON LINCOLN AVENUE Does a neighborhood turn bad because it has a troubled bar at its center or does a bar become troubled because it is in a bad neighborhood? Disagreement on this question was at the center of a debate that brewed for well over an hour before the Casper City Council on Tuesday night during a public hearing regarding the future of The Lounge. Residents who live around the bar claim the intersection of Lincoln Avenue and Second Street, where The Lounge is located, serves as the hub of criminal and debauched activity in their neighborhood. The neighbors claim the city should pull The Lounge's retail liquor license, a move that would shut the bar down. The Lounge's owner, Cliff Chew, countered this by stating that his bar sits amidst low-income and government-subsidized housing. And as difficult as it is to sometimes admit, those types of dwellings carry with them inherent, and sometimes criminal, problems, he said. The Lounge is a neighborhood bar and its patronage is reflective of the neighborhood it is in, Chew argued. Pulling The Lounge's license and shutting it down would do little in the way of cleaning up the neighborhood, the bar owner maintained. The Drunks Most of the neighbors who spoke before the council on Tuesday relayed bad experiences they have had with drunk patrons coming from The Lounge. Phyllis Cotherman, a wheelchair-bound resident of Fifth Street, told the council of one time in September when she witnessed a drunk patron stumble out of the bar and promptly pass out on the sidewalk. Cotherman, who was making her way west on Second Street when she saw the incident, had to wheel herself into the oncoming traffic lane of one of Casper's busiest streets in order to avoid the inebriated person sprawled on the sidewalk, she said. Lincoln Street resident Ken Ball told the council of a morning in the past few weeks where he went to The Lounge and witnessed a man so drunk he could not sit on his stool. Ball witnessed this at 8 a.m., he added. Later in the day, Ball drove by The Lounge and saw the same intoxicated customer asleep in the bar's parking lot, he said. According to Chew, his bar happens to be a stop on a trail homeless people and transients use for making their way through Casper. Unfortunately, these people have nowhere to go once they leave the bar and sometimes crash to the pavement or nearby grass when they leave The Lounge, he said. The ownership and employees of The Lounge do not condone this behavior but they can't control what people do once they leave the bar, Chew said. The Calls Citing Casper Police Department statistics, Lincoln Avenue resident Richard Costello told the council that in the past two years there have been 231 police calls made from The Lounge. To put that number in perspective, Costello said the police have only gotten 11 calls from Bob's Place, a bar located two blocks from The Lounge, in the same time period. Casper Police Chief Tom Pagel could not confirm these numbers Tuesday night, but he did say 112 calls were made from the bar in 2004. Chew said so many police calls come from his bar because it has one of the few public pay phones in the neighborhood. Many of the people who live around The Lounge do not have phones of their own. And when they have a problem they need to report to the police, they go to the nearest pay phone, which is in The Lounge, Chew said. The Lounge is a "high activity" bar when it comes to police calls, Pagel said. Most of the crimes reported at the bar are fairly minor, he told the council before Tuesday's meeting. A huge exception to this was the June 2003 homicide of John DiIorio, which took place in the bar's lot, Pagel added. The Drugs The Lounge has always been a place to party, Cotherman told the council. But recently the nature of the partying done there has changed, neighbors told the council. Methamphetamine has now joined alcohol as a drug of choice at the bar and this is evidenced by the needles neighbors said they have found in their yards. Erica Costello, Richard Costello's wife, said her children can no longer play in her front yard because of the hazards presented by used hypodermic needles she has found there. Ball presented the City Council with photos of used needles on the roof of the Wyoming High School Activities Association building, which is right next door to The Lounge. And Lincoln resident John Kilburn said that he, as a patron of The Lounge, has found needles on the floor of the bar. Kilburn also said he once walked in on a man injecting drugs in the bar's bathroom. Chew said he and his employees have no tolerance for meth use in the bar. Recently, Chew said he installed a surveillance system that has curbed illegal activity inside The Lounge. Chew also told a story about a bartender at The Lounge who called the police on a patron who accidentally had some dope fall out of his pocket. Chew did admit there is meth use in the neighborhood around The Lounge. But there is little the bar itself can do about that, Chew said. Solutions Following Tuesday's public hearing, the City Council decided to table a resolution on renewing The Lounge's liquor license. The council plans to sit down with Chew, the police and neighborhood representatives to talk about what should be done. Chew said the city needs to implement a solid law enforcement policy for the area around his bar. If The Lounge stays open, it can help with such a policy as workers there hear many things from patrons, he added. At the end of the day, the city could either renew the license, revoke it or renew it with restrictions. The last time complaints like those made against The Lounge were leveled against a Casper bar was in 1997 when north Casper neighbors voiced their discontent with Oil City Liquors. The city renewed Oil City's license at that time but placed heavy restrictions on the bar which included additional outdoor lighting, private security guards, limited hours and the banishment of numerous patrons. Several months after the restrictions were placed on Oil City, owner Dianna Hessler reduced the business' operations to a retail package store because the restrictions made running the bar too costly. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth