Archive for the ‘Lance Jack’ Category
Kirkwood/Icebox Granted Liquor License
The Carbondale city council, acting in its capacity as the liquor control commission, granted Kevin Kirkwood a class A-2 liquor license for his Icebox Bar and Grill at last night’s meeting. The license was controversial because a party held last year at the former Spotlight Grill, which operated at the same address, ended in a fight in which a Carbondale resident was murdered. Read the rest of this entry »
Meet Lance Jack’s Successor…Lance Jack?
The Southern Illinoisan and the Daily Egyptian had articles last week on Lance Jack’s plans to submit a letter of interest to be nominated for the council seat he resigned two weeks ago. The Southern article had a good analysis of how the replacement process will work.
It seems unlikely that Jack will be accepted back onto the council. In order to be reappointed, he would need to keep the votes of all the council members who supported his liquor license and he’d need to gain the support of one additional member. The three members who opposed the liquor license (Fritzler, Haynes, and Pohlmann) aren’t going to budge. Read the rest of this entry »
Lance Jack Revisited Part 3: Mary Pohlmann’s Comments
Last week I wrote a post about Lance Jack’s resignation from city council and I promised to follow up. This morning I wrote one post looking at local liquor law, and a second post looking at state liquor law. This is part 3, in which I am critical of Mary Pohlmann’s remarks about Lance Jack in May of 2009.
Last year, when Fat Patties was denied a liquor license for the second time the Southern Illinoisan ran an article about the denial. It contained a couple of paragraphs about Mary Pohlman’s remarks that I’d like to quote and comment on:
Tuesday’s votes came after Pohlmann criticized the legal standing of Jack’s appeal and his competence to hold a license.
The state, Pohlmann said, used language that applied to the Illinois’ other communities, each of which leaves the granting of liquor licenses to the mayor and not a full commission, she said.
Citing Jack’s conviction of DUI in 1994 and “other behavior” she said she’s observed, Pohlmann said she was concerned that Jack was “not of good character and reputation in the community in which he resides.” Read the rest of this entry »
Lance Jack Revisited Part 2: State Law
Last week I wrote a post about Lance Jack’s resignation from city council and I promised to follow up with more information. This morning I wrote a post looking at whether granting Jack a liquor license violated local law. This is part two, in which I look at state law.
Before we get into state law, let’s start with a quote from city councilman and mayoral candidate Joel Fritzler in the original Southern Illinoisan article about the Fat Patties liquor license and Jack’s resignation:
“My feeling before was, if I were to vote for it, I would be an accessory to violating state and local law,” Fritzler said.
Now we’ll take a look at state law. Read the rest of this entry »
Lance Jack Revisited Part 1: Local Law
In last week’s post about Lance Jack’s resignation from the city council, I promised to do some more research and write a follow up. I’ve spent some time wading through state and local liquor laws and I have some additional information to report.
It is going to take a lot of space to cover this, so I am going to split this into multiple posts. This is part one, in which I look at local law.
Before we get into the law, let’s start with a quote from city councilman and mayoral candidate Joel Fritzler in the original Southern Illinoisan article about the Fat Patties liquor license and Jack’s resignation:
“My feeling before was, if I were to vote for it, I would be an accessory to violating state and local law,” Fritzler said.
This is somewhat complicated, so I’ll go through it step by step. First, Carbondale is unique among Illinois cities in that all members of the city council are also members of the local liquor control commission. In comparable cities, the mayor is the sole liquor commissioner.
A few years ago Brad Cole and Lance Jack tried to amend the local liquor ordinance to bring it in line with state law, but the angry reaction of some townspeople resulted in the measure being withdrawn. If the change had passed, the entire Fat Patties liquor license controversy could have been avoided.
The change did not pass, however, so Jack was a member of both the city council and the liquor control commission when he applied for his liquor license for Fat Patties. Both the city code and state law address this situation. Read the rest of this entry »
Lance Jack Resigns
First, I want to offer a tip of the hat to Barton Lorimor at the B(ee)TL(e) Juice blog for his coverage of Jack’s resignation. Check out his post – it has video of Jack’s resignation and of Jack discussing his decision after the meeting.
There are multiple issues here. The Southern Illinoisan article quotes Councilman and would-be mayor Fritzler as saying that he thinks he “would be an accessory to violating state and local law” if he voted to grant the liquor license for Fat Patties while Jack was on the council. It’s not clear that Fritzler’s interpretation is correct.
The Daily Egyptian article has Councilwoman Pohlman favoring a “a hard look at our liquor code,” but her term expires in 2011 and she is not running for reelection. Pohlman was sharply critical of Jack last year, saying he was “not of good character and reputation in the community in which he resides.”
The Illinois Liquor Control Commission overturned the initial denial of the license last year, saying the council was wrong to deny the liquor license to Fat Patties. The council still refused to grant the license.
This subject deserves more thorough treatment than I can offer in this post, so I am going to do some more research and post on this in the future.
What do you think about Lance Jack’s resignation? Comments are welcome.
