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Oktet of Ludington Liquor License Violations, #7 of 8: The Vodka Monologues

This article is the seventh 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 seventh violation took place once again at PM Galleries concerning a dinner theatre presentation of "The Vagina Monologues" by the Lakeside Civic Players, not too unlike what happened in the first violation of this octet. Running something potentially controversial like The Vagina Monologues in our generally conservative area was handled nicely by the marketing staff by keeping a very low profile. Its run and reviews were never noted in the local paper of record, The City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews). They received a glancing mention in the Mason County Press, and so much of the notice must have been by word of mouth or by the local Facebook pages of the LCP, which is why it remained free of outside positive or negative criticism.

AM Galleries has proven in the past that they can handle controversial art projects and be on the local cutting edge of the art world. Interlochen, known for its own forays into the arts, has noted some displays by the 115 West Ludington art gallery before, even reviewing a showing that touched again upon the sensitive topic of a vagina: IPR Article on the Devil's Vagina at AM Galleries

But some of my best moments in life have lingered in that same topic, so I will not hold that against them. But what I do find surprising is that when they decided to make a theatre production of the project and held it at AM Galleries, they failed to get the proper permissions from the local clerics to serve alcohol on the premises. Conceivably, they would not have to tell them what the theatrical production was about to get their approval. The production itself went off well enough, I guess, as there were no independent reviews I could find about it, but it seems a very strange way to run a play that is put on by the powerful women of our community.

And this had their backing, even if they didn't go to churches to get the requisite signatures.

As you can see, Ludington Assistant City Manager Jackie Steckel, Ludington Community Development Director Heather Venzke Tykoski and Ludington Deputy City Clerk Jennifer Christensen all signed for this event's liquor license (along with LCP's secretary Kathy Hansen). As we have already seen the prior six times, when Ludington city officials are involved, the license does not get filled out properly. You will note that unlike the previous dinner theatre held at AM Galleries, they did get one church administrator to sign on from the People's Church, which was good enough for Ludington Police Chief Mark Barnett, who signed the previous one without any cleric signatures:

But as we have previously noted in #2, AM Galleries is about at the midpoint of several other churches, four to be exact-- two to the north:

And two other churches to the south:

And so the City leaders who sought this liquor permit for a private theatrical production on private property failed to fill out four more pages of paperwork to get the liquor permit. Sometimes the devil is not only in the vagina, but in the details.