The Carbondale Observer

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 »

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 »

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 »

The Daily Egyptian had a great article last week on the nearly rebuilt Hangar 9. I walked past the new building a few days ago and it looks like the exterior is coming together.  I couldn’t see inside but I did notice the floor for the upstairs mezzanine was in place before the front wall was finished. The D.E. article said Hangar’s goal is to be open before the end of November.

I’m really glad Hangar is coming back. The old pole barn was ugly on the outside, but it was a good size to see a live show and a lot of good touring musicians played shows there. The new building is going to be larger and it won’t be a pole barn so I’m going to call that an improvement.  You can see drawings and floor plans for the new building in the Hangar 9.2 folder on Hangar’s Facebook page.

On the other hand, I don’t like the fence enclosing the beer garden.  In the drawings it looks like there will be slats (of wood?) facing the street and a chain link fence behind that, with vines trained to grow up the wall.

It looks pretty cool viewed from the inside, but I don’t know if it’s a good idea to build a wall between the street and your business.  I realize they had to enclose the beer garden, but it would have been nice to have an enclosure that allowed patrons to see out and pedestrians to see in.

Maybe the city council/liquor control commission  wouldn’t permit a more “open” fence like the one enclosing Booby’s beer garden.  I have sometimes wondered whether the wall between Melange and the street contributed to its downfall.  A wall or an opaque fence says “you aren’t welcome here.”

In spite of the opaque wall around the beer garden, the new Hangar will fill a void on the strip and it will be a great venue for live music.  That’s good for Carbondale.  Here are two more photos:

Comments are welcome.

If you’ve been on the strip lately I’m sure you’ve seen this sign at the site of the former Animal Crackers building. The city tore the building down in August. Apparently we’re making way for progress, but I haven’t seen much information on the plans for the site.

Brad Cole had a letter to the editor in the Southern earlier this month in which he wrote:

The city just finished demolition of the former Animal Crackers building at 315 S. Illinois Ave., to make way for the future development of an inter-modal transportation center that will accommodate an expanded Amtrak rail station and other services.

Local blogger and businessman Scott Thorne posted in the Carbondaze Gazette that the city is going to put in “…more parking lots to service a planned intermodal transportation center…”

I couldn’t find an article directly about the city’s plans for the lot on the Southern Illinoisan website, though there are two pictures of the demolition in progress. The Southern did have an article about Amtrak in August that mentioned a station expansion, but it wasn’t really clear:

And Amtrak is looking at ways to keep growing its presence in Southern Illinois. Baity said the city has a proposal from the country to renovate and expand the station on South Illinois Avenue – a move Baity said is necessary.

I assume “country” is a typo, but was it meant to be “company,” or “county” or something else? The article doesn’t mention a timeline and no site or building design plans have been released as far as I can tell.

If it is done well, an intermodal transportation center would be a good thing for Carbondale and for the strip.  107,000 people came through the Amtrak Station in FY 2009, and a nice station would make a good impression. It would also be nice if the space was shared with Greyhound.

Site and building design would be critical.  I’d like to see a brick building with lots of windows built at the front lot line with any additional parking behind the building.  I’m not sure that new parking in really necessary.  The city operates a large lot along the tracks to College Street.  If anything, the strip has too much surface parking and too few buildings.

The worst thing they could do would be to put up a shabby windowless building at the back of the lot with parking in front. If we want the strip to be attractive and pedestrian friendly, we need to employ good principles of urban design. We can accommodate cars without turning over all of our public space to them.

At least on the strip, parking lots aren’t progress.

Comments are welcome.