Oktet of Ludington Liquor License Violations, #3 of 8: Oktoberfest and NYE-- Ball Dropped

[XLFD]

This article is the third of eight articles on the violation of State of Michigan liquor laws by the City of Ludington by submitting knowingly insufficient or false data to the state as regards their application for a special liquor license for a special event.  This negligence was compounded by Ludington's Chief of Police Mark Barnett certifying each and every one of these events by signing his approval after 'investigating the application'. 

 

I am not a prude by any means, but there has been a shift away from the Ludington community throwing family-friendly events that can be enjoyed by all members of the public, into a series of special events spotlighting drinking which necessarily exclude parts of the public, often from the public squares and streets of our fair city.  New events including the New Year's Eve Ball Drop, St. Patrick's Day beer tents, Oktoberfest, Friday Night Lives (starting this year), Ludington Area Art Council dinner theatres, and other drinking-centered events held outside of our local drinking establishments have popped up since then. 

 

Such changes reflect an organized effort to change the direction of how Ludington is perceived, and one can soberly reflect that this trend does not help that perception.  Back ten years ago, you could probably be hard pressed to see a handful of special events with drinks being served by Ludington publicly funded entities in twenty months.  But a recent FOIA request to the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (DLRA) shows that about 40 events have sought these special permits in the last 20 months.   

 

Does this reflect that the current leadership of our community love to hit the bottle, or that the suppliers of beer, wine and spirit for these special events (who happen to serve as Ludington officials) are out looking for private gain?  Not necessarily; but one should begin to question the agenda being covertly set around town.  In our goals for representing Ludington as a great tourist destination, do we want to appeal to families or just appeal to the tourist looking for a drinking party? 

 

We can't successfully do both.   We should at least make sure our public officials follow the rules however, when they apply for liquor permits.

The third violation could technically said to be last year's Oktoberfest, which was covered last year in this thread:  Aaughtoberfest.  Without any loss of generality, I will instead touch on that when discussing this year's Oktoberfest, later.  Closely related to this event the last two years has been the New Year's Eve Ball Drop. 

 

In both events in late 2011 and 2012, the drinking area was confined to the North James Street Plaza.  The area fenced in for both is basically the sidewalk of Ludington Avenue to the south, Court Street to the north, and about halfway up the block from James street both on the west and east, just like the diagram shown in the above thread:

 

 

I lack the exact drawings of the drinking areas at both the 2011/2012 Ball Drop and the 2012/2013 Ball Drop, but they were both couched in the north James Plaza, and had roughly the same area covered.  Let us take a look at the applications.  Last years Octoberfest was already noted to be deficient in the above link so let's look at the two New Years Eve Ball Drops.  The first one 2011/2012 NYE BD shown here, has the Community Church pastor being the only signer of the document.  But looking to the north clearly two more downtown area churches fall within that 500' bubble:  the  Reorganized Church of Jesus of 201 N James and the Grace Episopal Church of 301 N James:

 

 

If we look to the south we'll see a few more fall within that 500' circle, just barely but within it nonetheless:  the Greater Life Church at 208 S James, and the People's Church at 115 W Loomis Street.

 

 

 

This year's New Year's Eve Ball Drop is planned to expand quite a bit to the south which will make the Grace Episcopal Church pastor's obligation out of needing to sign, but it will necessitate the James Street Church of Christ (at 219 S James) pastor signing the special liquor license to be lawful.  Of course, our spacially-challenged police chief will sign it regardless of whether all of the correct pastors have signed it or not.  Chief Mark Barnett has signed for both Oktoberfests and New Years Eves for the last two years with just the Community Church's pastor's signature on the licenses, as illustrated by the 2012/2013 New Years Eve certification below and the other in the .pdf above:

 

 

Unfortunate when you consider that four more signatures of approval were needed.

Check out #1 Not So Artful, #2 Hospital Chairs Tipped Over, #4: St. Patrick's Blarney, #5 Back to the Fifthies, #6: Friday Night Life, #7: Vodka and Vaginas, #8: Firewater Safety