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Mar 11, 2010 - 9:20:54 PM |
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Bible-based predictions about social trends often come true, but rarely as quickly as in the case of Club OTR, a bar in downtown Augusta which has justifiably earned a very bad reputation. In a press release issued during the first week of January, the Christian Civic League predicted that Club OTR would again become a source of trouble despite assurances to the contrary by its owner and the Augusta City Council. True to our prediction, the bar has relapsed into its old ways.
The Record was the first media outlet to call attention to the serious nature of the trouble at the bar. In a story published on New Year's Eve, The Record reported that young people flock to Club OTR where the liquor is so cheap and plentiful that bar patrons, especially young women, often pass out on the way home, or wind up in emergency rooms to be treated for alcohol poisoning. In addition, fights are a common sight in a nearby parking lot after young men pour out of the bar at closing time.
Shortly after The Record reported on Club OTR, an Augusta paper picked up the story and revealed that a city licensing board had rejected Club OTR's liquor license renewal application based on information provided by Augusta Police Chief Wayne McCamish, who stated that police made over 100 calls involving the bar in 2009.
Despite the obvious necessity for the city to reject the bar's renewal application, the Augusta City Council planned to overrule both Chief McCamish and the licensing board because of pressure from downtown merchants. Many of the downtown businesses welcomed the money spent by the spill-over crowd from the bar. In anticipation of a January 14th vote on the liquor license, merchants contacted members of the Augusta City Council and urged them to renew the bar's license.
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Another pretext for the renewed license were the cagey assurances by the owner of the bar, Mark Coulombe, who humbly pleaded he was going to reform his ways. Coulombe promised he would send his bartending staff to a state course on how not to over-serve bar patrons. Coulombe's remarks went a long way to persuade the City Council of his good intentions.
The Record warned that Coulombe's sudden change of heart could not be taken seriously, because he cynically asked the City Council to believe his bartenders did not know when a young person was drunk. One had to take Coulombe's new-found civic virtue with a grain of salt, and conclude that bartenders at Club OTR fully intended to go on over-serving alcohol to their bar patrons.
The
Record immediately issued a press release calling on concerned citizens
to attend the City Council meeting to oppose the renewal of the bar's license
in order to protect the young people of Augusta. The Record also correctly reminded the public that Mark Coulombe and the Augusta City Council would share the guilt for any illness, injury, or death that resulted from a decision to renew the license.
True to The Record's prediction, the trouble at Club OTR continued. A little more than a week after the license was renewed, Augusta police arrested an intoxicated man for an assault outside Club OTR. Less than two hours later, another assault occurred inside the bar, near closing time. The following evening, a young person was the victim of a theft at the bar.
If crime at Club OTR continues at the same rate, police calls to the bar will exceed the extraordinarily high level reached in 2009, and The Record's prediction of a serious injury or fatality caused by alcohol consumed at the bar will almost certainly come true.
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