The Place Where Ludington Talks
Oktet of Ludington Liquor License Violations, #5 of 8: Back to the Fifth-ies
This article is the fifth 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 fifth type of event was another sponsored by the Downtown Ludington Board (our DDA), with the permit signed by our Mayor, the Assistant City Manager, our Third Ward Councilor, and of course, our Police Chief. This event was called Back to the Fifties, a bit of nostalgia held June 7-9, 2013. Instead of putting the entertainment (beer) tent up in the North James Plaza, they decided to put it in the 100 block of west Loomis:
Without loss of generality let's say the entertainment tent was fenced in fairly close on the right (east) side, as you can see the tent is within a quarter bounce of The People's Church by this map, and well within the 500 ft. of two other churches on South James:
In fact, it's even closer spatially to the Greater Life Church than the People' Church, not to mention the tent was within 300 ft of the Church of Christ.
Since the People's Church main entrance would be blocked on Friday and Saturday by the fencing and revelers around the area, they did seek out their approval, noting that the church was 'between pastors' and so the application was signed by the church administrator:
And as per the usual police protocol, Ludington Police Chief Mark Barnett certified that all the churches pastors in the area were represented, even though only one of the three gave approval (and not even a cleric).
It all amounts to one more lackadaisical attempt by the DLB/DDA and all their public official members to follow the protocol and get their licensing legitimately. As we have seen in the past applications, whether there are three, four or five churches in range, only one at most will give their approval. Does this mean the other ones did not approve of these events, or were they just too lazy to ask? You could ask Barry Neal (below right, with Bob Neal, Jr.), Downtown Ludington Board member and sponsor of this event.
Lest you are worried that these fellows put a lot of their money into this retro event used to help promote their business, worry no more, as the taxpayer also footed the bill, as seen in these excerpts from the expenses of the City at that point in the 6-10-2013 packet:
And continued in at least the next expenses brought up at the 6-24-2013 meeting:
As per usual, the DLB events are paid for with your tax dollars (at least $2500), without anything coming back as revenues. But beer suppliers (City Official Budde Reed of Ludington Beverage) and liquor suppliers (City Councilor Les Johnson of AJ's Party Store) receive plenty of business for supplying these functions, at the detriment to some of our local taverns who not only lose business, but pay for it through taxes.
Here's more of the series:
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