Monday, May 28, 2007

Something to think about - CD Sales Plunge 20% From Last Year

From NYT:
May 28, 2007
Plunge in CD Sales Shakes Up Big Labels
By JEFF LEEDS
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” the Beatles album often cited as the greatest pop recording in music history, received a thoroughly modern 40th-anniversary salute last week when singers on “American Idol” belted out their own versions of its songs live on the show’s season finale.

But off stage, in a sign of the recording industry’s declining fortunes, shareholders of EMI, the music conglomerate that markets “Sgt. Pepper” and a vast trove of other recordings, were weighing a plan to sell the company as its financial performance was weakening.

It’s a maddening juxtaposition for more than one top record-label executive. Music may still be a big force in pop culture — from “Idol” to the iPod — but the music business’s own comeback attempt is falling flat.

Even pop’s pioneers are rethinking their approach. As it happens, one of the performers on “Sgt. Pepper,” Paul McCartney, is releasing a new album on June 5. But Mr. McCartney is not betting on the traditional record-label methods: He elected to sidestep EMI, his longtime home, and release the album through a new arrangement with Starbucks.

It’s too soon to tell if Starbucks’ new label (a partnership with the established Concord label) will have much success in marketing CDs. But not many other players are.

Despite costly efforts to build buzz around new talent and thwart piracy, CD sales have plunged more than 20 percent this year, far outweighing any gains made by digital sales at iTunes and similar services. Aram Sinnreich, a media industry consultant at Radar Research in Los Angeles, said the CD format, introduced in the United States 24 years ago, is in its death throes. “Everyone in the industry thinks of this Christmas as the last big holiday season for CD sales,” Mr. Sinnreich said, “and then everything goes kaput.”

It’s been four years since the last big shuffle in ownership of the major record labels. But now, with the sales plunge dimming hopes for a recovery any time soon, there is a new game of corporate musical chairs afoot that could shake up the industry hierarchy.

Under the deal that awaits shareholder approval, London-based EMI agreed last week to be purchased for more than $4.7 billion by a private equity investor, Terra Firma Capital Partners, whose diverse holdings include a European waste-conversion business. Rival bids could yet surface — though the higher the ultimate price, the more pressure the owners will face to make dramatic cuts or sell the company in pieces in order to recoup their investment.

For the companies that choose to plow ahead, the question is how to weather the worsening storm. One answer: diversify into businesses that do not rely directly on CD sales or downloads. The biggest one is music publishing, which represents songwriters (who may or may not also be performers) and earns money when their songs are used in TV commercials, video games or other media. Universal Music Group, already the biggest label, became the world’s biggest music publisher on Friday after closing its purchase of BMG Music, publisher of songs by artists like Keane, for more than $2 billion.

Now both Universal and Warner Music Group are said to be kicking the tires of Sanctuary, an independent British music and artist management company whose roster includes Iron Maiden and Elton John. The owners of all four of the major record companies also recently have chewed over deals to diversify into merchandise sales, concert tickets, advertising and other fields that are not part of their traditional business.

Even as the industry tries to branch out, though, there is no promise of an answer to a potentially more profound predicament: a creative drought and a corresponding lack of artists who ignite consumers’ interest in buying music. Sales of rap, which had provided the industry with a lifeboat in recent years, fell far more than the overall market last year with a drop of almost 21 percent, according to Nielsen SoundScan. (And the marquee star 50 Cent just delayed his forthcoming album, “Curtis.”)

In other genres the picture is not much brighter. Fans do still turn out (at least initially) for artists that have managed to build loyal followings. The biggest debut of the year came just last week from the rock band Linkin Park, whose third studio album, “Minutes to Midnight,” sold an estimated 623,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan data.

But very few albums have gained traction. And that is compounded by the industry’s core structural problem: Its main product is widely available free. More than half of all music acquired by fans last year came from unpaid sources including Internet file sharing and CD burning, according to the market research company NPD Group. The “social” ripping and burning of CDs among friends — which takes place offline and almost entirely out of reach of industry policing efforts — accounted for 37 percent of all music consumption, more than file-sharing, NPD said.

The industry had long pinned its hopes on making up some of the business lost to piracy with licensed digital sales. But those prospects have dimmed as the rapid CD decline has overshadowed the rise in sales at services like Apple’s iTunes. Even as music executives fret that iTunes has not generated enough sales, though, they gripe that it unfairly dominates the sale of digital music.

Partly out of frustration with Apple, some of the music companies have been slowly retreating from their longtime insistence on selling music online with digital locks that prevent unlimited copying. Their aim is to sell more music that can be played on Apple’s wildly popular iPod device, which is not compatible with the protection software used by most other digital music services. EMI led the reversal, striking a deal with Apple to offer its music catalog in the unrestricted MP3 format.

Some music executives say that dropping copy-restriction software, also known as digital-rights management, would stoke business at iTunes’ competitors and generate a surge in sales. Others predict it would have little impact, though they add that the labels squandered years on failed attempts to restrict digital music instead of converting more fans into paying consumers.

“They were so slow to react, and let things get totally out of hand,” said Russ Crupnick, a senior entertainment industry analyst at NPD, the research company. “They just missed the boat.”

Perhaps there is little to lose, then, in experimentation. Mr. McCartney, for example, may not have made it to the “American Idol” finale, but he too is employing thoroughly modern techniques to reach his audience.

Starbucks will be selling his album “Memory Almost Full” through regular music retail shops but will also be playing it repeatedly in thousands of its coffee shops in more than two dozen countries on the day of release. And the first music video from the new album had it premiere on YouTube. Mr. McCartney, in announcing his deal with Starbucks, described his rationale simply: “It’s a new world.”

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Good News! Newly Elected Mayor & Volunters Are Cleaning Up East St. Louis

From KSDK:
By Rebecca Wu

(KSDK) - The city of East St. Louis is trying to clean up its image in more ways than one. Every Saturday through the end of summer, volunteers will clean up the streets.
Newly elected mayor Alvin Parks, Jr. isn't afraid to make cuts in order to keep weeds from growing in downtown streets.

"When they're high, you have people who want to hide in the weeds and do something not healthy for the citizens," Parks said. "When you have a lot of weeds, it could block stop signs and street corners so cars can't see around them."

An estimated 100 volunteers helped clean up downtown Saturday, including East St. Louis native Dorian McCorkle. If he weren't whacking weeds, he'd be at home beating his drums. But he volunteered after seeing the mayor asking for help on TV.

"I occupy my time to keep me from being in trouble and to show the little kids how to get out and clean up your neighborhood and not destroy your neighborhood also," said McCorkle.

Cleaning up the city is one of two priorities for the mayor. The other is to keep citizens safe by increasing police patrol and stepping up criminal investigations. Those were the things Parks heard over and over again during his campaign for office.

Mike Makhlouf, the manager at Crown Food Mart on Colinsville Street, where volunteers were picking up trash, said he'd never seen anyone cleaning up trash before.

"That's something nice, something different, actually a surprise for everybody," said Makhlouf.

Makhlouf was so happy to see people cleaning the area around his gas station and food mart, he brought them water. He believes the trash keeps away potential customers unfamiliar with the area.

"They think it's a bad area, it's not a nice area. They don't like to stop by. That's why we like to see it clean."

After cleaning up the trash, Parks wants to beautify the city with flowers, trees and fountains. That way East St. Louis not only looks good but feels good.

"There's a sense of pride that you have to reestablish by cleaning up your community," said Parks.

Volunteers estimate they picked up 11 truckloads of trash in just four hours.

They started cleaning downtown but will eventually clean up different parts of East St. Louis throughout the summer. Parks hopes residents will step up when volunteers clean their neighborhood.

The Saturday clean up events will continue each weekend through the summer, except Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Location, Location,Location - Some Early Thoughts on Our Survey Results

You can still tell us what you think of St. Louis' nightlife. You can tell us what direction you think Faces should take in the future. Our online survey is still open and we are still listening. Some of you wrote to us with concerns about the survey, we listened, and we tried to re-organize it to make it easier to complete. The survey is anonymous. we cannot track who completed it or link specific answerers to specific people. We aren't collecting information to use against you or hurt you. We know the survey is long. We felt that we only had one opportunity to ask your questions so we asked as much as we felt we needed to know. We hope you will take advantage of the opportunity to give us your thoughts and concerns and not use the survey to engage in personal attacks. The survey questions must be completed in order..you can't cherry pick the questions you want to answer because the survey will display an error message if you skip questions. There are questions that do not require an answer but you will find that out as you answer the questions. We thank you for taking the time to complete our survey.
There is a danger in talking about a survey while people are still completing it. Sometimes the results of the survey can unintentionally change because of what someone says.
With that in mind, we will try to confine our early comments to some of the more anecdotal comments rather then the actual numbers.
One topic that has come up in the open ended (essay) answers to some of our questions can be classified as "location, location, location". Some of our survey respondents have suggested that the answer to Faces problems is to move...to move from East St. Louis...to move to someplace "closer to the other bars", to move to St. Louis. All options are on the table at this point. No idea is being thrown out. We have considered the idea of moving. With that preface, we'd like to give you something to think about. Faces has served St. Louis in the same location for nearly 30 years. Many of those 30 years were booming times, with large crowds partying until dawn. Tens of thousands of people have patronized Faces in East St. Louis. To move from East St. Louis would mean to end our ability to be an after-hours nightclub. There are a handful of communities in Illinois that allow bars to be open and serve drinks all night. None of those communities are particularly desirable or entirely safe.
Gay bars in general are not in the best parts of town, even the ones in St. Louis. Drive (we would not advise walking) a block in any direction from the Manchester strip and you will probably not feel safe. Park under the unlit overpass by the local leather bar and tell us how fast you run to the bar's front door. Drive a few blocks north, south, or east of the CWE and see how many stop signs you run to get to safety. The fact is that people don't like to live next to nightclubs. Bars and nightclubs are noisy, they generate traffic late at night, trash (beer bottles), the customers take up parking, they frequently make noise and get into trouble as the bars close. To get a liquor license in St. Louis, a potential bar owner has to go through a costly and often difficult ritual of obtaining signatures of approval from all their neighbors. In areas that already have bars, like the Manchester Strip, existing bars can and frequently do block new bars from opening by withholding their approval. One unfriendly neighbor can prevent any bars from opening nearby. Gay bars are even more controversial. Even if a gay bar owner were able to meet all the requirements to get a license, communities can block them or get them closed down quickly by enforcing obscure laws like ones that were used for years to run gays out of the CWE by requiring bars with dancing to get a special license and making it a law that dancing could not be visible from the street. Missouri's liquor laws are very different. St. Louis' rules are very different on your behavior as well as what is acceptable entertainment. There is a reason that none of St. Louis' gay bars have strippers. Two stories may help illustrate the point. After a very popular lesbian/girl's bar opened in St. Louis, they were busted by St. Louis Liquor Control and forced to shut down because a customer who had just had her nipple pierced, exposed her breast to another customer to show the piercing. While this was in no way the bar's fault, the bar was closed for a period of time as punishment.
The former manager of a popular St. Louis gay dance bar told me the story of how his bar had hosted an event where the bar staff was dressed in swim wear. Liquor control was prepared to bust the bar and the bar staff for wearing underwear in the bar until the manager proved that they were wearing swim wear. He told me that they have gotten in trouble for customers on their dance floor even showing pubic hair or a brief bare butt. They must monitor their customers behavior with security cameras to insure that no one gets carried away and drops their pants on the dance floor and to insure that any PDA does not become too hot and heavy. He also explained that they had to monitor their ambient video..the videos sent by record companies and gay marketing companies because they were not allowed to show video with nudity or simulated sex in St. Louis bars. A popular leather/bear bar always includes a disclaimer in their event ads stating that costumes worn must be "street legal".
While some might argue that this is a good thing, making gay bars PG-13, the majority of our survey respondents do not agree. We have been able to provide the entertainment that we did because of our location.
We would not be able to stay open and serve all night in Missouri. Our location allows us to continue the party all night long.
Is our location really so far off the beaten path? Mapquest states that we are 6.1 miles from Freddie's, 5.3 miles from JJ's, 5.1 miles from The Complex, 2.84 miles from Busch Stadium, and 2.3 miles from Rue 13. We are probably closer to major highway on and off ramps then any other gay bar. We are a block from the police station, a block from an SIU branch, a few blocks from the Federal Courts building, and a few blocks from a thriving and expanding casino.
We agree that when you go to any other bar, you need to be careful. Don't talk to strangers outside. Don't loiter outside. Don't leave valuables in your car. and park near the crowd, not on some desolate street. That is all just basic common sense. Anyplace that attracts large groups of people with money is also an attraction for bad people. We want every customer to have a safe experience at Faces. We are always reviewing our customers security needs and have made adjustments to keep you safe. Some things are beyond our control. We don't own the parking lot across the street. We think it is the safest place to park because it is lit and visible from the Metrolink station as well as our front door. When everyone parks in the same area, it is easier to watch. Unfortunately, customers still park blocks away, on dark side streets or behind the abandoned Spivey Building and we frankly don't know how to discourage that. We have noticed this same problem on the Manchester Strip. When customers park further from the center of things, on those dark side streets, they are frequently preyed upon. The Manchester Strip continues to wrestle with the problem every day just like we do.
When we bought Faces 14 years ago, we accepted the fact that there were some people who would never patronize our bar. East St. Louis' reputation for lawlessness over the past century has been passed down from generation to generation. East St. Louis had a reputation of being controlled by mob bosses as far back as prohibition. We realize that for many, their minds are made up and they will never drive over, no matter what we do. So, our goal has been to cater to, to market to those who were adventureous, to those will to take a walk on the wild side, to those willing to leave their comfort zone for something different, for something more. it has been a trade-off. If customers want cutting edeg, raw, adult entertainment..if they want strippers, slightly raunchy theme parties, all night dancing, and events like lube wrestling, then they usually find their way to Faces.
Here is the lnk to the survey:
Click here to take survey

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

The Faces in My Mind

First, we welcome all responses to our survey. We disagree with some..we love others, and many have confused us but we thank you for taking the time to complete the survey. Some of the comments on the survey border on personal attacks..some seem to have their own agendas..and some seem to remember some bar other then Faces.
When I first went to kindergarten, I thought my school was immense..it was so big I was afraid I would get lost..time passed and my junior high (now called middle school) was huge with moving walls and a modern look like Mexico circa 1965 (you know what I mean if you ever took Spanish and used an older text book that included pictures of Mexican buildings). When I finally reached high school, it's three stories, multiple gyms and locker rooms and it's several thousand students made my first grade school seem like a one room school house. The things I remember..my perceptions at the time, were all subjective...all the result of my own life experiences and my own "mind's eye".
The Faces that I remember, the one I used to patronize as a customer 4-5 nights a week, the one I bought 14 years ago, the one I owned and operated, does not seem to be the same Faces that some of our online survey respondents are remembering and commenting on.
I felt comfortable at the Faces that I drank at. There was no judgement about who you were, what you looked like, how old you were...everyone was welcome.
The Faces that I used to drink at was empty most of the time. My weeknights at Faces were usually spent with 5-10 of the same customers...we all knew each other...we knew the bartender (usually Rosee or Danny) and we knew the bar was on it's last legs. The cabaret had closed long ago, the main floor was only open on Saturday night and was even empty at midnight on New Year's Eve. There was a competing gay bar a block away that seemed to be on the verge of forcing Faces to close. Liquor laws had changed in St. Louis. Bars in St. Louis used to have to close by 1:30 AM on weeknights and close at midnight on Sunday (if they served food, other wise they had to close on Sunday). First, there was only one gay bar in St. Louis allowed to get a 3 AM license...a bar next to Union Stations that occupied the two stories of what is now a hotel. Before the laws changed, Faces was truly a melting pot, gays and straights together. As the St. Louis laws changed, more bars got 3 AM licenses, and Faces crowd started to thin out. At the same time, our community was decimated by the AIDS epidemic. We lost thousands of friends, family, lovers, and wonderful customers. As Faces struggled to find it's place, the original owner/creator of Faces, Jerry Edwards came back. He took the bar back from Harry and Jim, who had been running it for years and he tried to save it. He kept the doors open, installed a new AC unit for the dance floor, and sought out Petrina Marie. He asked her to come back to work at Faces. I had watched all this from a customer's point of view. I knew the end was near, I loved the bar..I guess I saw the potential of the bar, so I started talking to the owner. I told him I was interested in buying the bar. He ignored me for several months as he tried to bring back the magic. By fall of that year, he grew tired of the fight and wanted to move back to Florida. He made me an offer and I bought the bar.
The bar that I bought was on the verge of closing. To quote Jerry (the former owner) you could roll a bowling ball across the dance floor at anytime on a Saturday night and not hit a customer. I feel the need to repeat this..the Faces I bought was on the verge of closing. Had I not worked full time as a theatre manager, working 8-10 hours in a theatre then spending the night working at the bar, I would not have made it until my first NYE..it was that bad. I used my experience in marketing movies, combined with my own instincts as a customer. My goal was to keep the melting pot part of Faces..to make everyone feel welcome..and to try to make Faces like a gay amusement park with as many rides as possible. I wanted to give people a reason to come over and reasons to stay. I calculated that if a customer didn't like one of our "rides", that the would like something else. I knew that our customers were diverse..old, young..pretty, plain, rich, and poor..I knew from my own experience that some of our customers hated drag..hated the idea of men dressing up as women...but I also knew that drag queens were an integral part of our community...they raised the money for AIDS before it was "in" to do it..they were on the front lines of fight for gay rights..So, I met with Petrina and told her that I wanted the best drag show in town. I told her that I wanted all the best queens, that I wanted production numbers..that I wanted a real show. We delivered that show. I installed new AC units for the cabaret my first year because for years, the cabaret closed all summer due to broken AC.
I knew that we had to offer more then drag, so I started scanning gay magazines and newspapers for gay entertainment. I booked gay comedians (Advocate Magazine's Gay Comedy Jam), I booked porn stars, I booked male dance revues, I booked by puppeteers, I booked recording artists. We hosted show tune nights before Loading Zone or Freddie's. We hosted huge Oscar parties before anyone else did. We delivered a cutting edge gay club experience to St. Louis. i poured every dime the bar made back into the business. We struggled to compete with the gay bar around the corner. That bar went through three sets of experienced club owners but we were still able to survive.
The Faces of my mind was hard to turn around but we did it. We went from handfuls of customers on Saturday night to 600-700 on an average Saturday..I need to stress this again..we went from near zero to 600-700 on a Saturday under my ownership..under my management. We managed this despite having a competing gay bar a block away. We did it despite being in East St. Louis.
Even as we achieved great success on Saturday, we still struggled with an empty bar on weeknights. We tried drag shows with older queens (the late Tracy hosted Tuesday and Thursday nights), we tried country line dancing lessons on Wednesdays, we tried show tunes on Mondays, we tried NTN on line trivia games, we tried Direct TV sports, we tired older DJs in the basement, we tried a piano bar in the basement, we tried karaoke on Sundays, we opened one of St. Louis' first martini bars with lounge/martini music, we tried strippers on weeknights, we tried 25 cent rail drinks, yet we could not attract a weeknight crowd. Petrina used to host Sunday drag shows in the cabaret and would perform for a handful of people every week. Our success on Saturdays basically paid for the losses on the rest of the week. Finally, we tried making Sundays 18+..We were the first gay bar to welcome 18+ customers and it was an immediate success. We went from 25-50 people on a Sunday to several hundred but we also experienced backlash and complaints from our over 30 year old customers. It seemed odd to me..I was there nearly every night...I never saw these adult customers on Sunday before we were 18+ but they still complained about it and claimed that it was why they didn't come on Sunday...it might be part of growing older..some don't like being around younger people because it makes then feel old..but honestly, the same kind of complaints come from the 18 year olds who don't like to be around older people..it always seemed sort of silly to me..the minors paid a higher cover, helping to pay for the entertainment, and they brought a level of energy to bar that we only saw on a packed Saturday...they seemed to enjoy the shows more then our older customers, they came early and left before 3 AM so most of our adult customers barely saw the minors..there were very few problems with our minor customers other then the complaints about them being there. I remodeled the basement several times because the rings (sales) were never as high as the rest of the building..in one of it's incarnations, I tried to use 1960 pop culture and comic books as inspiration...painting the walls, floors, and ceiling in "SuperMan" colors, we covered the walls with posters, art, and autogrpahs from superheroes of the 60s...trying to convey the fun and homoeroticism of superherores. The resaction was a immediate..our older customers, who had in fact grown up on these comic book icons, were certain that I was caterng to the "twinks"..that I was ruinning the bar with decor aimed at our18 year old customers...usually when I explained it, many of them "got it"..that the art work was aimed at them and thier childhoods, not our 18 year olds (since they weren't allowed down there in the first place). Every change we made was because the basement was usually the least profitable part of the building but changes were percieved as some sort of desecration of a shrine.
More baffling to me has been the response from older customers to women. When I bought the bar, there was a urinal in the middle of the basement. The urinal was there so that women could be denied access to the basement. It seemed like one of the Faces traditions that was funnier then it was serious but it always created problems. Male customers would leave female friends alone upstairs while they went to the basement. It was rude and something between them, but it always ended in a drama of the girls trying to find their friends or trying to sneak in the basement, or crying upstairs because they were left alone. I built a new "in between" bar in the basement..the martini bar with food, and some seating so girls could stay and wait for their friends. It was successful but it still seemed out of touch with today's world. I felt that gay bars should not discriminate against our own and finally tore the wall down that separated the bars in the basement. There were complaints but the sales for both bars increased after we tore the wall down. There were probably never more then 5 females who wanted to go in the basement and they drank, spent money, played pool, and didn't cause any problems. I find it sad that there are still people who can't get past that..who really seem to hate women or maybe feel embarrassed by their own sexuality who think a gay business should cater to their prejudices. Where do we draw the line..when does the Faces that I love, the Faces that welcomes everyone start to discriminate...
So, the Faces in my mind is not the same Faces that some of our customers remember. They remember a bar that was packed every night before I bought it..they remember lower covers and drink prices and more fun before I bought the bar..they remember better music and no women before I bought the bar..they remember better drag shows before I bought the bar...and they remember Faces being less sleazy and sexual before I bought the bar...In my mind, I was there..I paid the bills, I placed the ads, I booked the entertainment, and I created the concept...I made the decisions that kept the bar open and turned it around. I would love to own the bar that these people remember. It sounds like it was a lot of fun. I am willing to take the blame for every decision I made in the last 14 years old as long as we can agree that some of those decisions are responsible for keeping Faces open, turning it around, and delivering more then any other gay bar in St. Louis has to our community.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Illinois Licensed Beverage Association Presents Facts on Smoking Ban Impact

A complete smoking ban in a community would result in hospitality businesses experiencing a severe decline in sales, and problems with neighbors as patrons would be outside smoking and making noise at all times of the night. Many of our member businesses are located in mixed-use districts adjacent to residential buildings.

Anti-smoking groups continue to make claims that smoking bans either have no negative economic impact on bars and restaurants or they actually improve the business in these venues. If this were true, the hospitality industry would be leading the charge to pass complete smoking bans-or at a minimum, business owners would have voluntarily banned smoking in their establishments.

The economic studies conducted by anti-smoking advocates conveniently conclude smoking bans are not bad for our industry. This is logical as they include establishments that don't hold a liquor license. This is also logical as they funded the studies. What is illogical is that they discount the studies funded by our industry stating that they are biased because we funded these studies-using this same logic; their studies are biased and should be discounted as well.

The integrity of the studies cited by these groups is questionable. For example, anti-smoking advocacy groups boast of recent statistics from Pueblo, Colorado citing a dramatic decrease in heart attacks since the inception of their ban. These groups consistently point to the reduction in heart attacks in Pueblo, Colorado and Helena, Montana as incontrovertible proof that secondhand smoke is doubling the heart attack rate among non-smokers.

These two studies comprise a population base of roughly 200,000 people. However, when you look at the 70 million people that comprise the non-smoking states of California, New York, Florida and Oregon-the heart attack rate has either not decreased at all or decreased such a small amount as to be statistically insignificant.

Researchers can deliberately sift through enough small local jurisdictions with smoking bans to find a few aberrations in heart attack rates and then claim that elimination of exposure to secondhand smoke will dramatically reduce incidents of heart attacks. Please don't be taken in by misleading claims based on very select data samples.

All-out smoking bans have a severe negative economic impact on hospitality venues that serve beverage alcohol for consumption on-premise. Some people view the information from anti-smoking groups as credible when the pocketbooks of these groups are not impacted, yet the economic forecast of the industry that will be directly impacted is viewed skeptically. Again, if a complete smoking ban would benefit the businesses in our industry, the ILBA wouldn't care about this issue. Of particular concern are independent, small, family owned businesses. These businesses will fold first.

If hospitality industry businesses lose revenue, cities will also lose revenue. On average in Illinois, hospitality businesses generate 1 of every 8 sales tax dollars. Can cities, towns and villages really afford to lose this revenue?
We urge the City Councils to pass a compromise proposal to ban smoking in all public places, with some limited exceptions for bars, bar areas of restaurants, lounge areas of bowling centers, fraternal clubs and limited areas in retail tobacco stores. Concurrently, require businesses to use a uniform sticker public notification system on all entrances to inform customers of their smoking policy.

For establishments with a fair share of smoking customers, banning smoking would cripple their business. To deny hospitality business owners the right to make market-based decisions on issues that affect their bottom line is a slap in the face of free enterprise.
Patrons of bars and other hospitality venues make an active choice in entering such establishments. Those who do not wish to be subjected to secondhand smoke can choose to visit one of the thousands of venues that have voluntarily gone smoke-free. The free-marketplace takes care of itself in these matters-there is no need for draconian government intervention.

The businesses in our industry have worked very hard to achieve a compatible existence with our residential and business neighbors. This will spiral out of control when patrons are hanging outside at all times of the night creating noise and litter because they cannot smoke in the establishment.

In addition to crowds, noise and litter-a complete ban would cause other problems including creating an environment that invites underage drinking. Bars work very hard to keep underage persons from entering their establishments. An all-out smoking ban would create a perpetual revolving door situation at bars and taverns-making it nearly impossible to maintain control over the persons coming in and out the doors.

A complete smoking ban will induce consumers to spend their money in neighboring communities. Smokers will continue to smoke. The claim that a smoking ban will cause people to quit smoking is without basis in fact. The only logical comparison would be the effect Prohibition had on alcohol consumption.

The highest rate of alcohol consumption per capita in our nation's history was during Prohibition. Clearly, that experiment was a failure.

A compromise smoking ban proposal creates a comprehensive smoking ban in the vast majority of public places in communities, while simultaneously preserving the fabric of a community's personality, providing economic stability for one of Illinois' largest industries-and preserving the integrity of neighborhoods in mixed-use districts. Again-this is the logical and reasonable course to pursue in this matter.

Municipalities should allow this compromise proposal to work for a period of time. If stronger measures are warranted down the road, the Council can always re-visit the issue. This would be much more realistic than imposing an all-out draconian ban and then trying to pull it back after businesses have closed and employees have lost their jobs.

Quick Thinking Illinois Legislature Passes Bill that Will Cost the State Hundreds of Millions

From Belleville.com:
Casinos fear losses; others study options
BY SCOTT WUERZ
News-Democrat

Metro-east casino, bar and restaurant operators say they expect a 20 percent loss in business if Gov. Rod Blagojevich signs a smoking ban passed Tuesday by the General Assembly.

Representatives of the Casino Queen in East St. Louis and the Argosy Alton Casino referred calls to Tom Swoik, executive director of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association, which represents eight of nine state gambling establishments.

Swoik painted a bleak picture of smokeless Illinois casinos.

"It could be as much as $166 million lost," Swoik said, based on the 20 percent figure. "The Casino Queen and Casino Rock Island estimate that 60 to 70 percent of their patrons are smokers. And while there is a lot of loyalty amongst casino patrons, people who live near the border will be awfully tempted to make the short drive to a place where they can smoke."

The House on Tuesday approved the smoking ban, which will take effect in January if Blagojevich signs off on it as he is expected to do.

Backers said the law was needed because 2,900 Illinoisans die each year from secondhand smoke, and it's unfair that not only customers but also people who work in the service industry, including waiters and bartenders, have no choice now but to be exposed to the smoke. Blagojevich has indicated that he plans to sign the bill into law.

Scott Schmelzel, co-owner of Big Daddy's 618 in Belleville isn't a smoker. But he said he is disappointed about the ban because he thinks it will hurt his business.

"I know it's going to slow things down, at least initially," Schmelzel said. "Smoking is part of the bar atmosphere. That's part of the reason they come here, and I don't want my customers to be unhappy."

Schmelzel said he thinks he has an advantage over most bars in the metro-east, however. He has an outdoor patio where people can still hang out while puffing away.

Jessie Zirkelback, manager of Randy's 6-4-3 restaurant and bar in Troy, said she is planning to have a patio built to appease smokers.

"We were waiting to see if this passed," said Zirkelback, who estimated that 40 percent of her customers smoke. "Now that it has, we're definitely going to put a patio on."

Bob Graham, commander of American Legion Post 365 in Collinsville, said he plans to talk with the organization's board of directors about turning the establishment into a private club to get around the new law.

"We're definitely going to discuss that at our next meeting," Graham said. "We need to talk to legal counsel to see what we can do."

When asked how the smoking ban would affect the American Legion's business renting out its hall for wedding receptions, parties and other events, Graham was more optimistic.

"People are going to still need a place to hold those big events," Graham said. "The only difference I suspect you will see is a lot more cigarette butts on the parking lot."

Larreen Presson, a smoker from Collinsville, said she goes out to eat about once a week.

"I guess I'm going to go over to St. Louis more often," Presson said. "This is definitely going to affect where I go out for dinner."

Contact reporter Scott Wuerz at swuerz@bnd.com or 239-2626.


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We're Listening & Want to Hear From You!

Faces on Fourth Street needs your help. We're interested in what
you have to say about St. Louis nightlife, gay bars, what you
think is important, what you would never change, and what you'd like to see at Faces on Fourth Street in the future. Please take a few minutes to complete this survey.

Thank You From Faces on Fourth Street

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A Sense of Where We Are (and how we got there)

As we consider our options and plans for the future of Faces on Fourth Street, we felt it might be helpful to clear the air so everyone understands where we are now and how we got here.

First a cautionary note; many false rumors and myths have surfaced about Faces. Much of what the public thinks they know about us is not true. We were not evicted by the landlord. We own the building and it's contents. We have not "skipped town". The fact that we own the building and have operated it as one of the best known (infamous)nightclubs in the country for 14 years makes that rumor sound kind of silly and insulting. The owner is not wealthy, did not run off with all the money, did not bleed the bar to pay for his drug habit, his harem of boys, his swimming pool, his doll collection, or any other diversion. The owner and his family have not collected pay or money from the club in at least 4 years. They (the owner and his family) have in fact loaned money, morale support, and provided sweat equity to try to turn things around. We have not declared bankruptcy. The Bush Administration has basically eliminated that option for a small business trying to survive. We have not sold the building although if you ask any bar owner in town, they would answer the same way, everyone has a price and we would consider a sale for the right price if it meant the bar could survive.

Given a choice, we would have rather kept the club open as we worked to improve it ourselves. Unfortunately, we are faced with a perfect storm of events with some common themes that make that choice nearly impossible. The problems that have drained our cash reserves include several acts of god and several outrageous actions by government officials.

Several years ago, the abandoned building next door (now a vacant lot) collapsed onto our building, parking lot, and street. The owner of the property did not clean up the collapsed building, leaving it on our parking lot, patio, street, and roof. The resulting mess impacted our business as it looked like our building collapsed as well as rendering critical street and lot parking unusable for months. We were forced to hire lawyers to sue the owner to clean it up. The clean up was slowed by corrupt government officials (later sent to prison) who put greed and personal gain over public safety. The building was left to literally crumble around us (and on top of one of our employee's cars). We paid tens of thousands of dollars to lawyers who never reached a settlement or collected damages. Basically they were really good at sending us bills. We ended up cleaning most of the debris and brick up ourselves as well as attempting to protect our customers by securing the site with barricades and concrete barriers. Our lawyers couldn't even get the owners to secure the site or post warning signs. We were forced to drop the suit because it was bleeding our cash reserves.

We invested in a $100,000 liquor control system seven years ago. The system paid for itself in less then two years by reducing losses (through over pours of liquor). While controversial when we installed it, most large bars have similar systems, including the casinos and our neighbors, Pop's and Oz. Two years ago, our building was struck by lightning, destroying the liquor control system as well as damaging AC units,TV monitors, lighting, and sound equipment. Our insurance company refused to pay off on the claim. We were stuck with an unusable $100,000 liquor control system that we had leased. We had to pay off the lease even though the system was destroyed. We could not afford to replace the system so we were back to losing thousands of dollars a week in liquor sales while we settled and paid the lease. We were forced to pay to repair the AC units but left other equipment damaged because we could not afford to repair it. We hired a new lawyer to take this case on a contingency but nothing has been done yet.

Last year, someone climbed onto our roof from the abandoned Walgreen’s building next door. The Walgreen's building owners had failed to secure their property. The thieves gutted two of our AC units for the copper. Both units were for our cabaret. Our insurance company again refused to pay (nearly $8,000 to repair), leaving us unable replace the AC units and making it impossible to use the cabaret for 5-6 months out of the year.

Several years ago, a newly elected mayor went on TV and announced to the world that he would close all the East St. Louis bars at midnight on New Year’s Eve unless the city council gave into his demands. He tried to use the bars, one of the city's only revenue sources, as a bargaining chip with the city council. We were forced to hire a lawyer to prepare a suit against the mayor and to file a complaint with the Illinois Liquor Commission to obtain an order to keep our doors open. Our success was never reported in the news. The headlines and TV reports stating that all the bars would close, broadcast over several weeks in December resulted in our NYE business dropping in half.

Last Summer’s storm and power outage forced us to close for several days, causing us to lose thousands dollars of much needed revenue. Our power was restored in one day but the rest of East St. Louis was still without power so the mayor ordered a curfew, forcing us to stay closed. We never made that money back.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/07/23/st.louis.blackout/

Late last Fall, the Illinois State Legislature and the Governor allowed Illinois utility companies to be deregulated, resulting in a huge windfall for Ameren and ConEd as they more then doubled their prices for both gas and electricity. To put it bluntly, the utility companies bought and paid for the legislature. No action has been taken to roll back or reduce these crippling utility rates. Our gas and electric rates have more then doubled since December. The utilities are making no effort to work with their customers (even though they testifed under oath that they would not disconnect anyone's service). Our electric bill was $2,500 to $3,000 a month last summer. We expect our electric bill to reach $7,000-$8,000 a month or an increase of over $350 to $400 a day this summer unless the legislature passes some relief.

While the legislature has basically said a big "fuck you" to small businesses being raped by the utility companies, they did manage to pass legislation reminiscent of the prohibition era. This week, both state houses passed a complete and total smoking ban in public places. Last year, Illinois allowed cities to pass their own smoking bans, while few cities actually passed the bans, small businesses in every town that passed the bans were hurt. Many were forced to close as they saw their sales drop. Now, the legislature has taken it a step further, taking away all personal choice..all rights as an individual to decide for themselves whether to support bars that ban smoking. Clearly that did not happen...the people voted by refusing to patronize bars with smoking bans so the legislature took the right to choose away. Our customers will be able to smoke in most bars in St. Louis but will be subject to arrest and fines if they smoke across the river in Illinois. We have no way of knowing how much this ban will hurt us but evidence from other cities that passed bans while their neighbors allowed smoking indicates that this will hurt.

As all these events took their toll on our finances, we began to experience a steady decline in our core business. Most events we planned did a fraction of what we expected. Nightclubs all over the country were experiencing similar drops, resulting in a steady stream of club closures. In St. Louis, the most prominent example was the closing of Velvet on Washington Avenue. It is generally agreed that this trend is in part due to the rising popularity of social networking sites. Many of our regular customers can be found on line when they used to be in nightclubs. Our community has substituted crusing on Manhunt, Gay.com, and Man4SexNow to cruising at Faces. Another factor that has decimated our community is the rising addiction to crystal meth. We have lost many friends and great customers to crystal. We kept planning events, we kept booking entertainers, we kept our shows going, hopng to excite the imagination of the community again. We tried to appeal to our customers for help, sometimes almost begging long time friends to come in for events and to bring their friends. We are grateful to everyone who did. There have been times when our own entertainers and staff went unpaid as we tried to get the crowd back. In hindsite, while we appreciate their sacrifices, efforts, and their support, we regret asking them to invest their time and effort. We are still indebted both emotionally as well as financially to several of them and we hope to repay that debt before we reopen. We are grateful to and proud of all the entertainers who have helped make Faces what it is. We have seen our entertainers and DJs grow and become incredible talents.

We have made mistakes. We admit that. Our actions sometimes met the classic definition of insanity...doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. We sometimes tried to live up to our own reputation, delivering increasingly expensive events and entertainers while the money was clearly not coming in to pay for it. We always thought that if we delivered more then the other St. Louis gay bars did and marketed it well, our customers would notice and continue to suppport us.

Acts of god, combined with the increased popularity of Internet social networking, a less the robust Bush economy, and our community's increasing addiction to crystal meth, are the primary reasons that we are in the position we are now. Basically, we were screwed by insurance companies, bled dry by lawyers, which prevented us from being able to update the bar or market it as we had in the past. The State of Illinois stepped in, rendering double blows, failing to pass utility relief while banning smoking. Our challenge now is to listen to our customers, brainstorm, and come up with a new business model that will allow us to survive these setbacks.

Boy Culture Movie Opens Friday May 11 @ The Landmark Tivoli Theatre

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Tuesday, May 01, 2007

So the "thumpa thumpa" continues. It always will. No matter what happens. No matter who's President.

We're Closed for Now But We'll Be Back!
We are sorry to announce that Faces on Fourth Street closed it's doors on Tuesday, May 1, 2007. We've served St. Louis' gay, lesbian, transgendered, bi, and straight community for 30 years.
We've laughed with you, cried with you, danced with you, drank with you, applauded you, watched you fall in love, and welcomed you for nearly 30 years. Now we want to say THANK YOU! While this moment is bittersweet, we hope it will result in a better, stronger Faces when we come back.
We have reached a point where we need to step back, take a hard look at our business model, see what worked and what didn't, build on our strengths, and adapt for the future. Nightclubs all over America are experiencing a downturn and we are no exception. We realize that if we are to survive, we need to adapt, evolve, and change. While we have had some tremendous successes, we have also experienced quite a few disappointments. Faced with utility bills that have more then doubled since January we have determined that without immediate relief from the Illinois Legislature and a plan to increase our attendance and revenue we cannot survive.May is traditionally one of our slowest months so it made sense to do this now. We expect to make some much needed upgrades and improvements to the building while we take some time off. We will be doing some brainstorming with our staff as well as surveying you and your friends. We need your help. We thank you in advance for giving us feedback through our online surveys. We would appreciate any help that our St. Louis bar owner friends can provide to our staff. If you can find a place for the until we reopen, we would be grateful. We appreciate our staff, DJs, and entertainers and hope that they will join us in this new adventure.
Please check back here for more updates. We will have a better idea when we will reopen after we review the survey results. We encourage you to sign up for our email updates to insure that you are the first to hear the news.

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