Monday, December 31, 2007

Infamous New York Club Parties Shut Down

From NYT:

By MELENA RYZIK
Published: December 31, 2007
It’s been more than three months since Melissa Maino and Jonathan Murray dressed up in gold lamé pants with matching boots (him) and a sailor hat and bubble dress (her) for the final Misshapes party. And it’s been about two months since they costumed themselves in green body paint (her) and a silver spacesuit (him) for what turned out to be the last Halloween blowout of a long-running series with an unpublishable name.
Both Misshapes, held every Saturday for five years, and the other party, held on the eve of major holidays for nearly eight years, were regular destinations for young downtown clubgoers. Their unexpected back-to-back demise left the skinny-jeans-and-Converse set — along with the promoters who cater to them — asking the same question: What’s next?

“It’s been rough,” Ms. Maino, 24, said. That’s especially true Monday night, one of the biggest clubbing nights of the year, when the former holiday-eve party was a reliable place to celebrate in the most downtown-decadent way possible. Going there “was what I depended on for New Year’s Eve,” Ms. Maino said, adding that its sudden end “was definitely heartbreaking.”

But on the weekend before Christmas she and Mr. Murray, 28, who live together in Manhattan and are corporate suit-wearers by day, rallied and coordinated their outfits once again to hit two of the newest regular parties. On that Friday, they were at Robot Rock at Le Royale, a West Village club open just three weeks (in the space that was formerly Luke & Leroy, once home to Misshapes) to hear Kele Okereke, the singer from the British band Bloc Party, D.J. On Sunday they stopped by Beauty Bar, on East 14th Street, where the D.J. and promoter who goes by the name Michael T., a founder of the holiday eve series, has recently helped start the retro-glam Re-make/Re-model party. For the time being it will also be held only before holidays.

“It’s just getting harder and harder to do weekly parties, unfortunately, at least for me,” Michael T. said, adding that the right site is difficult to find. “In a city just inundated with bottle service and things of that nature, that’s not me, and also ultra-hip Brooklyn ‘I don’t bathe and I have a beard’ is not me.”

In 2000 he was co-founder of the holiday eve series as a way to merge disparate Manhattan scenes — glam, rock, goth, indie, gay, straight — with his partners: Georgie Seville, a veteran promoter; Johnny Yerington (a k a Johnny T.), an East Village bar owner and musician; and the D.J. Justine Delaney, better known as Justine D. What began as a part-time endeavor wound up as a regular roving bacchanal, famous for its nude go-go dancers, wildly costumed crowd and dance floor debauchery. (The party’s original home, the Chelsea club Mother, closed unexpectedly after their inaugural event there; the founders moved it around to clubs like the Roxy, Avalon and Rebel.)

A rarity on the club scene, the holiday-eve party was also a destination for up-and-coming bands, indie favorites like Bloc Party, the Rapture, the Faint and !!! before they broke, and the Cramps and the New York Dolls on the cusp of their comeback tours. During its long run the party managed to retain a cult audience; more than 2,000 people came to the Halloween event, Michael T. said. Last year it was even the subject of a yet-to-be-released documentary, which the crew hoped would propel it to bigger projects, like an album. Despite its longevity, the series was never a moneymaker. “We did it as a labor of love,” Ms. Delaney said.

But the foursome’s different managerial styles caused near-constant friction. “We’ve had years where we were like cats and dogs, at each other’s throats,” Mr. Yerington said, adding that the group had decided to call it quits in 2008, after eight years. Then on Halloween Michael T. and Mr. Yerington had a fight about an unrelated party that both had been involved in.

Michael T. characterized it as the final straw. “I had an epiphany,” he said. “I was just like, do I want to continue to deal with this type of relationship in my life? No, I don’t.” He decided to disband the group immediately, though not without some regret. The end of that party, he said wistfully, “was kind of like somebody in your family passing away.”

But his partners were sanguine. “I think it was time,” Ms. Delaney said. It helps that they are all busy with new ventures. As the creative director of Studio B, Ms. Delaney is overseeing parties like Monday’s New Year’s Eve event there, with Slick Rick and Moby. Mr. Seville works with the Lower East Side club the Annex and at a club in Miami, Studio A, and runs a recording studio. Mr. Yerington is expanding into restaurants. And Michael T. is a co-host of a New Year’s Eve party on Monday at Don Hill’s in the South Village, with promoters of another downtown series, Trash. The Brooklyn band A Place to Bury Strangers will perform, and there will be burlesque; Mr. Murray and Ms. Maino are already on board for Don Hill’s, they said when they checked out Le Royale.

They gave Le Royale high marks for being not too self-consciously posey, despite the presence of a photo blogger. “The party should be about having fun, not looking like you’re having fun,” Ms. Maino said.

In Le Royale’s opening weeks, the ground floor lounge area, which has a V.I.P. section, was mostly empty, while the upper level dance floor was mostly packed. Fashion was less outré than at Misshapes. One man wore a sweater around his shoulders, apparently without irony.

“There’s two dramatically opposed scenes,” said Thomas Dunkley, a booker for Le Royale and an owner of GBH, a decade-old promotions company. “The real commercial scene,” typified by the big-box clubs of West Chelsea, “and the hipster scene.”

“Where it gets interesting,” he said, “is where the two merge together. We’ve always tried to be in that place.”

His partner, Alejandro Torio, categorized their crowd as music fans and “hipsters who have graduated.” To that end they are booking D.J.’s from indie it-bands like Peter Bjorn and John, and the Raveonettes, playing host to rock bands and giving after-parties.

Bottle service (buying an expensive bottle to get a table) is not a main focus, and though there is a coverage charge — around $20 — it seems easy to get around it by being on the right list or dropping the right name. (“Oh, you’re a friend of the bartender?” a doorman said to a guest who was trying to get in free. “O.K.”)

The comparatively unpretentious endeavor has the support of the club’s new owner, Dave Baxley, a nightlife veteran who used to run the 1990s D.J. haven Centro-Fly and whose taste in bars runs to the Subway Inn on the Upper East Side. “Everything is a little too clean in New York,” he said. “I feel like this is a good club for a recession.”

He added, “It’s the opposite of 1 Oak,” referring to another new downtown club backed by celebrity- and model-friendly promoters. “We are trying to have a sense of humor.”

But will it be the next Misshapes? When that hipster Mecca ended in September, a Tuesday party called Six Six Sick at the Chinatown bar Happy Ending emerged as a contender; Jackson Polis, a Misshapes D.J., had his birthday party there, and the promoters, three women known for their matching risqué outfits, won a nightlife award from Paper magazine. The downtown nightlife calendar also includes the Factory-esque 205 club on Mondays for karaoke (or Butter, for the celebrity-hungry); Home Sweet Home for a goth night on Wednesdays; Hiro Ballroom (promoted by the GBH crew) on Thursdays; and Studio B and the Annex on Fridays. By general consensus, Saturdays are still up for grabs.

But perhaps not for long. Next month Michael T. plans to restart Rated X, a particularly louche party with a late-night “hot body” contest, at Don Hill’s. Still, it won’t be like his signature party. “Every artist has their peak time, and then you make that mark,” he said. “Right now, I’m not at that peak.”

Not that he’s wall-flowering. “I’m a survivor,” he said. “It’s going to be me, Cher, and the cockroaches.”

Sunday, December 30, 2007

East Side Bar Owners Brace for Worst As Smoking Ban Takes Effect - Smokers Threaten to Move Their Drinking to St. Louis' Ban-Free Bars

From Belleville News-Democrat:

BY OLIVIA GOLDBERG
For the News-Democrat

More than 70 percent of Illinois residents support a ban on smoking in restaurants and work places. But you'd never know it to hear the customers at Crehan's Irish Pub in Belleville.

Grumbling about the statewide ban on smoking in public places that begins Tuesday, some customers said they'll give up a favorite hangout before they give up a favorite habit.

"I'll go across the river," said David Rush, 64. A retired engineer, Rush patronizes Crehan's three or four days a week. But now he plans to take trips to Soulard or the Hill in St. Louis. Some Missouri municipalities have enacted smoking bans, but St. Louis city and St. Louis County have not.

"We've had people here say their friends are planning to come over here from Illinois and party," said Paula Young, the service manager at Hammerstone's in Soulard.

It's a reaction that has Crehan's owner, Barry Gregory, on edge these days.

"I'm much more nervous about it now than ever I have been," said Gregory who, at 54, staked his future on the success of the bar-restaurant at 5500 North Belt West.

"I invested my entire retirement in this facility," he said. "If this doesn't work out, you'll probably see me as a greeter at some local store somewhere."

Eddie Sholar, owner of Fast Eddie's Bon Air in Alton, already had plans to expand and, with passage of the Smoke-Free Illinois Act, began incorporating a large space especially for smokers.

"We like to say there's no smoking ban here," Sholar said.

Sholar described the additional 300-seat bar as "just a regular room that meets all the codes."

The Smoke-Free Illinois Act, slated to take effect Tuesday, has stirred up passions -- particularly among smokers. The law prohibits smoking in all public places, including restaurants, bars and clubs.

It is a response to the 2006 U.S. Surgeon General's report, which determined there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke, and that even small amounts of exposure puts health at risk.

The state backed up the legislation with findings from its 2005 survey in which 72 percent of adults believed smoking should not be allowed in work areas. Nearly 73 percent supported a law for smoke-free restaurants.

The state also cited a 2006 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which calculated that nearly 80 percent of Illinoisans do not smoke. Compliance rates with other states that had previously enacted smoke-free laws, it found, were high.

Gregory serves as the area state vice president of the Illinois Licensed Beverage Association, which has lobbied steadily against a smoking ban because bars could go out of business.

The American Cancer Society, which supported the smoking ban, has heard similar arguments from business owners like Gregory before. As of 2007, 25 states have passed similar anti-smoking laws.

"We understand the way these establishments in the hospitality industry may feel, but there are more than 20 independent studies that say these laws have a neutral or positive effect on hospitality industries," said Dr. James Piephoff, the volunteer board president of American Cancer Society's metro-east chapter.

Gregory, his patrons and employees say the law is, at worst, an infringement on citizens' rights to determine their own behaviors.

"They're taking away your personal choice in trying to protect you," Gregory said. "It's been proven with prohibition that you can't legislate. ..." Rush finished Gregory's sentence. "Morality?" he said. "Right," Gregory answered.

Patrons at the Fairview Heights Memorial VFW 8677 and Ladies' Auxiliary on North Illinois Street in Fairview Heights tend to weigh in on smoking more as a fundamental right, one implied in the U.S. Constitution and now, imperiled.

"My dad served in World War II, my husband served in Vietnam and my son's been in the Army 15 years," said bar manager Ruth Ann Shellito.

"All of them served for our rights and freedoms, but they're constantly taking our freedoms away," she said, adding that plans to build a beer garden on the property are on hold, pending more information on the parameters of the new law.

Rosie Gwinn, president of the Ladies Auxiliary, quit smoking in 1999 after her mother, Carol Gwinn, suffered a heart attack. Returning to the smoky VFW was a challenge at first, but one she said she had to get past.

"If you want to be with your friends, you have to get over it," she said, adding that she smells smoke on her clothes when she gets home. "But here it doesn't bother me at all. People are going to smoke wherever you go."

However, the number of public places people can smoke in the country has declined. Between 1998 and 1999, 61 percent of adults in U.S. households polled by the National Cancer Institute for a tobacco use survey said smoking was not allowed at home. Sixty-eight percent said their workplaces did not allow smoking. By 2003, the numbers had grown to 74 percent and 77 percent, respectively.

Similarly, nearly 30 percent of U.S. households surveyed between 1998 and 1999 believed bars and cocktail lounges should be smoke-free. Three years later, that number grew to nearly 40 percent. Attitudes toward smoking have changed.

Case in point: John Pilkington. The 58-year-old father and grandfather exited St. Clair Square on Christmas Eve and promptly lit up. In his estimation, the more smoke-free environments lawmakers identify, the better.

"She's been after me for years to quit," nodding toward his daughter, Anne Amici, 37.

Local businesses don't have years, and owners must take steps now to turn people's habits -- at least in their establishments -- around. Ashtrays will vanish, no smoking signs will appear and some places, like Porter's Cigar Bar in Collinsville, will take on a whole new identity.

The swanky space has emptied its humidors in anticipation of the ban. After Tuesday, the venue will be known as Porter's Place, a jazz and blues venue.

"It's certainly not what we wanted, but we're trying to put our best face forward as a way to remarket Porter's," said general manager Tom Bruno. The business has partnered with the music department at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville to acquire local talent.

While Bruno, like so many of his colleagues, tried to stall or seek exemption from the legislation, the ban's passage told him the time to fight was over.

"It's the law now," he said. "We want to be in compliance with the law."

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Illinois Officials Big Failure - Critical Smoking Ban Questions Unanswered Days Before NYE Effective Date

Who is going to pay for enforcing this law? How many communities have extra money to cover cost of enforcement of smoking ban? What programs will suffer or be cut when communites are forced to pay for this unfunded mandate? Will police be forced to curtail street patrols so they can write tickets in bars?

From St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
By Kevin McDermott
POST-DISPATCH SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
Sunday, Dec. 23 2007

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — This much is clear: After midnight on New Year's Eve, it
will be illegal to light a cigarette inside a restaurant, bar or other indoor
public place anywhere in Illinois.

But parts of Illinois' impending smoking ban remain hazy. It will go into
effect Jan. 1 with unsettled questions regarding outdoor dining patios,
merchant liability, the appeals process and even the wording of the
"no-smoking" signs that businesses will be required to post.

"There are some things that haven't been totally defined," said Barb Hohlt of
the St. Clair County Health Department, who cited especially "questions about
beer gardens and patios."

She added, "To be honest with you, we don't have the answers to those."

Normally, the state agency responsible for rolling out a new law (the Illinois
Department of Public Health, in the case of the smoking ban) proposes specific
rules so local officials and the public know exactly what to do. The proposed
rules have to be approved by a legislative body called the Joint Committee on
Administrative Rules, made up of 12 state legislators.

The process is to make sure that the agencies carry out new laws the way the
Legislature

intended. The committee declined earlier this month to approve the proposed
rules from the Department of Public Health, saying they don't address key
issues.

Generally, the law bans all smoking in enclosed public places, all venues where
employees are present, and within 15 feet of entryways of those venues. The law
sets fines of up to $250 for individuals and $2,500 for businesses that defy
the ban.

But the proposed rules didn't address what happens if a smoking complaint
arises from something beyond a business' control — say, a non-patron smoking
outdoors but near a restaurant doorway. And there's no administrative appeals
process for a business that believes it's been wrongly fined.

Also, the proposed rules don't provide exemptions for situations that obviously
weren't the target of the law, including several smoking research programs
being conducted by universities. State Sen. Dan Rutherford, R-Pontiac, a
committee member, worried that the law might bar such research. He added that
the smoking ban law was poorly drafted and the proposed rules inadequate.

Meanwhile, the state Department of Public Health is re-working its proposed
rules, and the committee could approve them at its next meeting Jan. 9. But
that means local officials and businesses will still have to feel their way
around the new law for more than a week, at least, with some details still
unclear.

Toni Corona of the Madison County Public Health Department called the snag "a
hiccup in the process." She said it wouldn't impede the ban locally, but had
complicated issues such as what kind of "no smoking" signs businesses have to
post.

There also are quandaries about outdoor restaurant areas that are partly
enclosed, an issue the only vaguely addresses.

Hohlt, of the St. Clair County Health Department, is refraining from even
trying to answer that question until the rules clarify it.

"We don't want to cause a local business to construct things (for smokers) that
don't comply with the law," she said.

A spokesman for the Illinois Restaurant Association, Larry Suffredin, said that
the snag was another reminder that "state government doesn't always function
well," but that he didn't expect restaurants to have any serious problems
implementing it. "The law is clear: There's no smoking as of Jan. 1."

kmcdermott@post-dispatch.com

Illinois Statewide Smoking Ban Takes Effect @ Midnight on New Year's Eve

From Chicago Sun-Times:

December 28, 2007
.. Article By Line -->
BY JIM RITTER Health Reporter/jritter@suntimes.com
.. Article's First Paragraph -->
At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, Illinois will ban virtually all indoor smoking in public spaces, including bars and restaurants.

Bad timing, said Sheila O'Grady of the Illinois Restaurant Association.

"To become effective in the middle of New Years Eve celebrations is not ideal."

However, O'Grady predicted that restaurants will comply. And if past experience is any guide, she's probably right.

Chicago restricted indoor smoking in 2005, and so far this year, the city has received only 119 smoking-related complaints, the public health department said.

Under the Smoke-Free Illinois Act, just about the only places left where you can smoke indoors will be private cars and homes.

Smoking will be banned in offices, factory floors, stores, private clubs, prisons, bowling alleys, dormitories, stadiums, casinos, elevators and restrooms.

Smoking also will be banned within 15 feet of entrances, exits and windows.

Smoking will still be allowed in private rooms in nursing homes, in up to 25 percent of hotel rooms and in tobacco shops and hookah bars that don't serve food or alcohol.

Smokers could be fined as much as $250. Businesses could be fined at least $250 for the first violation and at least $2,500 for a third violation within a year.

The city offers this advice if you see a violation: Ask the smoker to put the cigarette out, then inform the management. And if that doesn't work, call 311. After three complaints, the city will send an inspector to investigate.

Outside Chicago, call the Cook County Public Health Department, (708) 492-2000 or the Illinois Public Health Department, (866) 973-4646.

Health advocates say the law will protect workers. In addition to cancer, secondhand smoke can cause stroke, heart disease, respiratory ailments and sudden infant death syndrome. Studies have found secondhand smoke kills 65,000 Americans each year, including eight people in Illinois every day.

A 2005 survey found that 72 percent of Illinois adults said smoking should be banned from work and 73 percent said it should be banned from restaurants.

But the Illinois Licensed Beverage Association says bars, restaurants and nightclubs could lose business to neighboring states. And a casino trade group has warned that casinos could lose as much as 20 percent of their business, costing the state as much as $144 million in lost tax revenue.