FACTS CAN BE A FUNNY THING
TRUTH, LIES AND SOME MORE FAKE NEWS!
256. Hi everyone and welcome to Blog 22. We will start today off with some interesting facts provided to us by the City of Superior. We will show you how Mayor “Lying” Jimmy Paine and his merry band of liars were, in fact, LYING. They were lying to you, the public, to make sure they painted the Palace and me in the worst possible light so that when they pulled the plug on our business, it wouldn’t come as a big surprise. In fact they might have thought that it would score them political points. After all, they saved the city from the worst bar that ever existed in Superior. There was only one problem. The facts don’t match up with their claims. Facts that they provided, not something I made up. It’s time, like in the last Blog, to let facts speak for themselves.
257. POLICE REPORTS #1
What are police reports?. Well, in our case, it is a compilation of contacts the police have had with our business as well as other ones. This includes just about everything including those famous “bar checks” which I spoke about in the last Blog #21. It also includes things like parking infractions, articles lost and found, asking for information, animal complaints, alarms and many other things that are not criminal in nature. We have received reports from several bars, including ours and we will dissect the reports for you today on this Blog. We have data from 2018 up to June 2022. That is the date we closed. The bars we will use, which are three of the busiest in town are the Palace, Centerfold’s and Builder’s/Boardroom. The following chart is for “everything in”, so that includes all the things I just spoke about, including the 95 “bar checks” that occurred in 2021(See last Blog 21).
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020* | 2021 | 2022(Jan-June) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palace Bar | 29 | 47 | 115 | 230 | 56 |
| Centerfold’s | 38 | 38 | 70 | 123 | 40 |
| Builder’s/Boardroom | 20 | 61 | 71 | 154 | 58 |
*= We were all closed for two months in 2020 because of the pandemic. We all closed on March 17th and re-opened around Mid-May.
258. POLICE REPORTS # 2
The chart below shows the numbers when you strip out all the things I spoke about on point 257 above. That includes “bar checks”, alarms, lost and found inquiries etc. I did this for all three bars.
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020* | 2021 | 2022(Jan-June) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palace Bar | 19 | 34 | 85 | 94 | 33 |
| Centerfold’s | 32 | 30 | 53 | 95 | 24 |
| Builder’s/Boardroom | 10 | 42 | 51 | 108 | 31 |
As you can see the numbers are much lower when you strip out the “bar checks” and all the other things I have spoke about. You can also see the spike in incidents for 2020 and 2021 at all three bars. That is because Minnesota, along with many other states were closed because of the pandemic. Wisconsin was one of the few states that were “back to normal” after being shut down for only two months. We had a huge spike in sales and new customers. The bulk of them from Minnesota, but also from Illinois and other states as well.
*= We were all closed for two months in 2020 because of the pandemic. We all closed on March 17th and re-opened around Mid-May.
259. POLICE REPORTS # 3
There is a couple of other ways to compare numbers. One is a “customer contact” method. As an example, if you did 100.00 in sales and your average check was 10.00, you would have 10 “customer contacts” that day. If you do that over the course of a month or year, you can take that number and divide that by your police report incidents and that would give you the number of incidents per contact. Unfortunately, we don’t have access to our competitors numbers, so we can’t use that method. I did do it for our numbers and that number was less than one percent.
But there is also another method, which is based on “hours open”. With this method you take the one which is open the most hours, which in this case, is the Palace. You then pro-rate the others hours and you adjust them to match their incidents to the hours of the Palace. Think of it this way, you have two similar businesses, one is open 50 hours a week and the other 100 hours a week. The one open 100 hours a week has more exposure than the other, but it doesn't necessarily mean it’s any less safe. You would just have to analyze the numbers to find out.
The Palace was open 10 AM until 2 AM (2:30 AM on Fri. and Sat). That total comes to 113 hours a week.
According to their Facebook, Centerfold’s is open 4PM until 2AM. That comes to 70 hours a week.
According to Google, Builder’s/Boardroom is open 3PM until 2AM (2:30 AM on Fri. and Sat) and closed Sunday. That comes to 65 hours a week.
Below is an adjusted chart, based on the previous one(#2), to reflect the “hours open” method.
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020* | 2021 | 2022(Jan-June) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palace Bar | 19 | 34 | 85 | 94 | 33 |
| Centerfold’s | 45 | 43 | 138 | 152 | 38 |
| Builder’s/Boardroom | 16 | 65 | 80 | 149 | 48 |
*= We were all closed for two months in 2020 because of the pandemic. We all closed on March 17th and re-opened around Mid-May.
So there you go. I always felt that we weren’t any worse than our closest competitors, and these charts prove it. The Mayor, The Chief, Nicholas Alexander, City Attorney Frog Prell, Melissa Hyatt and others lied, exaggerated and even weaponized police procedure to make us look bad, but in the end the facts don’t lie.
260. FAKE NEWS
VERY FAKE NEWS!
As I was preparing for today’s Blog, I ran across this article that was in the May 18, 2022 Superior Telegram.
Palace Bar licenses may not be renewed
Superior Police Chief Nicholas Alexanders asked the city council to take action against what he feels is a 'disorderly or riotous' establishment.
SUPERIOR — After more than 150 calls for police services since January 2021 — including fights, battery, disturbances, a weapons violation last year and a shooting in the early morning hours of March 18 this year — the Superior City Council is considering action against the Palace Bar, 1108 Tower Ave.
Those incidents and more than 100 bar checks by the Superior Police Department in the same time frame revealed five liquor law violations, according to police department data.
The council on Tuesday, May 17, set a public hearing for June 7 to consider nonrenewal of the Palace Bar’s liquor and amusement device licenses at the request of Superior Police Chief Nicholas Alexander.
The reason for the nonrenewal is based on violations of Wisconsin law for maintaining a “disorderly or riotous, indecent or improper house” and similar violations of city ordinances related to license establishments, Alexander wrote in a memo to the council.
“The establishment known as the Palace Bar has been the source of repeated, continuous and ongoing calls for police service for incidents involving drunkenness and violence in recent months,” Alexander wrote. “Just since April of 2021, the city’s police department has documented numerous incidents of physical confrontation at the Palace Bar, including several one-on-one and large group fights that have occurred both within the bar and/or have spilled out onto the bar’s parking lot. Several people involved in the incidents of violence were proven to be underage.”
Fights at the bar have resulted in battery charges, and the March altercation involved two people drawing firearms and one person discharging the weapon toward a group of people attempting to flee, the chief said.
Councilor Mark Johnson, who holds a conceal and carry permit, questioned the legality of having a firearm in a tavern.
It is legal to have a firearm in a tavern, Alexander said, but the individual possessing the firearm would not be permitted to drink alcohol. He said if an establishment posts that no firearms are allowed on premises, they would be prohibited.
“I was thinking about our other establishments that we have throughout the city and wondering if we could put a memo out that is just a reminder … of the statutes and ordinances?” Johnson asked.
Mayor Jim Paine said after speaking about it earlier in the day, he started a draft to remind license holders of the relevant laws that govern their license. Paine said while the city will remain strict about safe environments, it’s also the city’s role to help create safe environments.
“They know their establishments best and if they need help, they can reach out to us, and we are always willing—and in fact eager—to work with businesses that want to improve or are dealing with a problem,” Paine said. “The police have a number of resources that they can use to help.”
In fact, among the calls police responded to at the Palace Bar were 16 incidents of suspicious activity and 10 incidents of unwanted guests on the premises.
“I believe that the establishment known as the Palace Bar constitutes a ‘disorderly or riotous, indecent or improper house’ that threatens public health and safety, as well as enjoyment of the surrounding neighborhood,” Alexander stated.
The council will consider nonrenewal of the Palace Bar's licenses at 6:30 p.m. June 7 in Room 201 of the Government Center.
MY COMMENTS
After reading this bowl of crap soup, I will serve you with a side of my comments.
1. They claim there was over 150 calls and over 100 “bar checks”. There was actually 115 “real” calls and there was 131 bar checks, 95 of them in a three month period (See last Blog).
2. The Chief, like usual, then goes on about how bad the Palace is. The same stuff he’s talking about was happening at many other bars in town. It was all just part of their scheme to make the Palace look worse than all the other places to get public opinion on their side, so when they pull the plug, you the public, wouldn’t be surprised or upset.
3. Then there was this gem.
Mayor Jim Paine said after speaking about it earlier in the day, he started a draft to remind license holders of the relevant laws that govern their license.
If anybody has a copy of this, please send it to me. I won’t hold my breath.
In other words, I never got one.
4. Then the biggest bowl of turd of this whole article is served to you compliments of the biggest liar of them all, Mayor Jim Paine.
“They know their establishments best and if they need help, they can reach out to us, and we are always willing—and in fact eager—to work with businesses that want to improve or are dealing with a problem,” Paine said. “The police have a number of resources that they can use to help.”
When I read this I just about barfed. This man has no shame, but I guess when you lie as much as he does, it’s hard to keep track of all of them.
Let me tell you exactly what happened. When I got his original letter dated
April 18, 2022, (See Blog 1, point 12) I called my lawyer because I knew something was off. He told me not to call the Mayor or City council and that he would take care of it. About two weeks later, he told me the Mayor was mad because I had not called him. There was no mention in his letter to call him, like the two letters he sent to Centerfold’s and Lady Vi’s ( See Blog 7, point 118). Anyway, I told my lawyer that I had no problem meeting with him and to set up a time for me. He called me back and told me that the Mayor didn’t want to meet with me.
5. And then there was this.
In fact, among the calls police responded to at the Palace Bar were 16 incidents of suspicious activity and 10 incidents of unwanted guests on the premises.
What is this supposed to mean?
That’s it for today. See you all soon.
Brian
