Alehouse goes . . . country?!

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Late one night a while back, Russ Riseman, owner of the Alehouse on 30 Market Street, in Portland, was writing “country” on the board listing his club’s upcoming shows, while across the room a metal band was packing up. They looked over, saw the word, and started laughing. Riseman was worried, but only for a second.

The band members told him, Riseman recounts, that they listen to country music at home, in their cars, wherever they are. Even though they play heavy metal, country is what they grew up with and love.

Now, one night every other week at the Alehouse, there’s a chance for rockers of all kinds “whether they want to put on their plaid flannel clothes” or not to come into the Old Port and go a little bit Western. The events start Thursday, March 23, with a show by Maine native Mark Knight, who has been performing in Nashville for a while.

The Alehouse gigs will “introduce the largest genre in the country to one of the smallest cities in the country,” Riseman says, but it’s really just a pilot project for his dream: by the end of the year, Riseman wants to open a “full country bar,” complete with a mechanical bull, a bathtub full of ice and beer bottles, a horseshoe bar, and a big stage, somewhere a few miles out of the city.

And while he’s not talking about closing the Alehouse (though moving it is a possibility, if he can find a new spot with more room and a different landlord [see “Good Soundbreaks Make...,” by Jeff Inglis, January 20]), Riseman recognizes that “the potential for me as a businessperson is greater ... with country music,” given its wild popularity both nationally and locally.

The Toby Keith concert at the Civic Center March 2 sold out in minutes, and a pre-party hosted by radio station WPOR at the Old Port Tavern was well attended.

But for country to succeed here, Riseman says, “an emotional door needs to be open,” so Portland’s city folk can reveal their down-home secrets. “Nobody in a city wants to admit that this is your favorite form of entertainment,” maybe not even the metal bands.

City Council flexes muscles

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Using a new tactic to control bars in the Old Port, the Portland City Council last week overruled the objections of the city’s police department and renewed the entertainment license of the bar 188 Bourbon Street, which also operates a banquet hall called the Pavilion, both located at 188 Middle Street.

But the council, whose ability to restrict liquor licenses is limited by state law, used a city law targeted at outdoor entertainment to limit the bar's indoor live music and dancing.

Any business holding an entertainment license — a special addition to a liquor license that expires the moment a bar’s liquor license does — must still obey city noise restrictions, requiring relative quiet after 10 pm from any source, indoors or out. But the council went further, allowing 188 Bourbon to stay open and continue to serve alcohol until 1 am under its liquor license, but requiring the bar's entertainment to stop at 11:30 pm on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights.

The council has often limited events to certain hours, but usually as part of an permit for outdoor entertainment, like the speakers at Natasha’s, which are not allowed to be on until after 5 pm, according to Amanda Berube at the city clerk’s office. In that case, the restriction is because Natasha’s is surrounded by businesses that might be disturbed if the tunes came on too early, Berube says.

“It’s just been more of a recent” move to limit indoor events, she says. So recent, in fact, that no minutes of any council meeting in 2005 — and only last week’s meeting in 2006 — even show councilors moving in that direction.

And it happened twice in the same meeting. The first time, in the discussion for the Tree’s new license, the motion, by councilor Karen Geraghty and seconded by councilor Will Gorham (the council’s lead dog on controlling the bars), failed.

But councilor Jim Cloutier, who abstained from the debate on the Tree, liked the idea so well he proposed it for 188 Bourbon Street shortly thereafter. He did not return a phone call seeking comment on his motivation. The council also tried — but failed — to block outside seating, though it succeeded in forcing 188 Bourbon to renew its license in six months, instead of granting the usual year-long permit. That, too is “something that they’ve started to do” recently, Berube says.

“They’ve curtailed what they see as a problem on our Ladies Night,” which draws 300 to 500 people on Wednesday nights, says Jim Albert, the club’s owner. While he admitted the problems were from his patrons, they were “outside the club, after closing,” and therefore should be handled by the police, he says.

Albert thinks it is “hypocritical” for the city to charge a bar-stool tax to support police presence in the Old Port, and then penalize bars for the work police officers have to do. Further, he says his lawyer told him 188 Bourbon bouncers should not be dispersing crowds on public streets, citing liability concerns.

“Maybe it’s time for the patrons that cause the trouble to be accountable,” by being arrested or summoned to court, Albert says.

The council also subjected Albert to another form of discipline — as promised in December, when Gorham, chairman of the council’s public safety subcommittee, said he would move all entertainment- and liquor-license renewals to the end of council meetings, rather than have them early in the evening.

The club’s permit was not even taken up for discussion until 9:30 pm, and debate finished just before 11 pm. Albert, who didn’t bring his attorney to the 7 pm meeting — thereby avoiding having to pay for four hours of an attorney’s time to get 90 minutes of help — remembered having his business addressed more in the middle of the meeting the last time he had to renew his license.

Gov. Baldacci faces in-party challenge

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Chris Miller, a progressive Maine Democrat who has tried to push the party to the left, has filed papers to unseat Governor John Baldacci, and said he will announce his candicacy later this week or early next. Miller was elected vice-president of the Maine Progressive Caucus in 2004, helping lead an organization that described itself as trying to work within the Democratic Party to return it "to its populist roots." (The group's Web site is no longer in existence.)

Miller told a caucus meeting in 2005 that "the Democratic leadership [in Maine] really is clinging to the large corporations."

As an activist, last year he tried unsuccessfully to strip from corporations their abilities to support candidates in elections, to fund petition drives, and to refuse to testify against themselves – rights people have that were also granted to companies in an 1886 Supreme Court ruling. He also backed legislation to require companies to act in the public's best interests, which also failed. (See"Campaign 2008" by Lance Tapley, May 13, 2005; and "Legislative Matters" by Sara Donnelly, June 3, 2005.) PeopleFirst!Maine – a group dedicated to those ends – is headquartered at Miller's home.

The Web site for the business he runs, a Gray-based Internet-service provider called Maine Street Communications, is filled with links to progressive news and opinion sites, and includes a blog sub-site with columns from many of Maine's populist and progressive activists.

Miller's own postings are there, too, addressing Iraqi civilian casualties, national Democratic politics, privacy, corporate accountability to society, and slamming Baldacci policies.
Miller said his positions as a candidate will follow the lines on his blog, but did not want to give more specifics until launching his effort to get the required 2000 to 3000 signatures on his nominating petition to force a primary runoff with Baldacci.

Sinclair may have violated state law

Published in the Portland Phoenix

While the contract negotiations between union workers at WGME Channel 13 and the TV station’s parent company, Sinclair Broadcast Group, have stalled, the union’s attorney is investigating allegations that Sinclair failed to obey a Maine law requiring employers to pay workers within eight days of the close of a pay period.

'GME frequently pays part-time workers and overtime wages for full-timers as much as 16 days late, according to Matt Beck, shop steward for the union, IBEW Local 1837, which represents off-camera employees such as video photographers, editors, and producers.

Jonathan Beal, a labor attorney working for the union, said he has begun discussions with the station, and is holding off on filing a lawsuit until more conversations take place.

Sinclair attorney Michael Lowenbaum did not return phone calls seeking comment on the pay-period dispute, and station manager Alan Cartwright declined to comment.

Labor negotiators have not met since the summer, though both sides say they are ready to talk “at any time.”

The workers have gotten support from other local unions, including the stage workers at the Cumberland County Civic Center, the Portland Newspaper Guild, the Southern Maine Labor Council, the Teamsters, and local painters and machinists unions.

The WGME workers are waiting for Sinclair to respond to a request the union made for evidence to support Sinclair’s assertion that WGME staff members are among the best-paid in the company.

Some would say they should be: Jason Nelson, a video photographer, was just named the best video photographer in New England by the National Press Photographers Association, the only Sinclair journalist so honored this year.

Other WGME employees have been part of productions that have won awards from Emmys on down to Maine Association of Broadcasters honors, according to Beck.

Beal said the company is conducting a survey of its workers in response to the demand for more information, but said that information will be less useful than the station-specific and position-specific information the union wants.

Beck said union members are worried Sinclair may declare an “impasse,” and then impose the most recent contract offer, which is not acceptable to union members.

Cartwright declined to comment on the state of negotiations, or even on the awards won by his staff, saying his attorney had instructed him not to discuss “ongoing negotiations.”

Good soundbreaks make . . . Hotel vs. Club

Published in the Portland Phoenix

After being neighbors for more than five years, the Portland Regency Hotel, owned by Eric Cianchette, has sued the Alehouse, a tenant in another one of Cianchette’s buildings, saying the club generates too much noise and disturbs hotel guests.

Cianchette said the noise generated by the Alehouse, a space once owned by Cianchette and operated as "Eric's," is "affecting a lot of [hotel] customers," but said "I don’t know much about" the lawsuit.

The hotel’s general manager, Jill Hugger, didn’t know anything about the suit, though she said noise from the Alehouse has been a problem for a long time. She said the hotel has to give people free overnight stays "a lot" due to the Alehouse’s noise, but would not be specific about how often or how much money was involved.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, is similar to one filed by Cianchette's company, ELC, in 2001, to stop the Alehouse from holding any live-music performances. A judge then found in favor of the Alehouse, a ruling that was upheld on appeal. The recent suit does not include any specific dates or times of noise problems, though a filing by Alehouse owner Russ Riseman claims he has received only two complaints about noise from the hotel—one in the summer of 2005 and another in the fall, and none from other neighbors.

Gerald May of Perkins Olson, the lawyer representing the hotel, said he had "no comment" and hung up the phone when asked whether the suit would be dropped because of the Alehouse’s recent steps to lower the noise level.

On the very day the suit was filed, Riseman was arranging the installation of $2000 worth of soundproofing material and for sound engineers to hourly test the noise level outside the door of the Alehouse and at the front door of the Regency, in response to a complaint from the hotel, he said.

Filings on Riseman’s behalf claim that the sound engineers’ readings are now at or below the city’s legal limit of 58 decibels, about the level of a normal conversation. "We have meetings with the Regency every single night," Riseman said, illustrating his efforts to solve the problem.

Some of the noise may be due to customers who leave the Alehouse to smoke and converse outside, but he said there's nothing he can do about that because he can't allow smoking inside and the customers have the right to smoke on public sidewalks.

Riseman said he feels that Cianchette wants the Alehouse to move, and said "I'll go willingly" to another place if one is affordable. But, until then, he's going to fight, heartened by his success in 2001. "If we lose, we're going to lose because I can't afford the litigation," said Riseman, who added that he is getting a discounted legal rate from local lawyer Dan Skolnik—"but it's not free."