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.
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MAP posted-by: Beth