I sincerely hope..

[dbacks fan]

I would ask "Why are these things going on?" but growing up in Oklahoma, this was SOP. I am reminded of when R&M Music owned most of all of the arcade games in Tulsa, as well as they owned several bars. They owned the bar, name, fixtures, and had a understanding with distributors for a bar that is now part of Pryor Machine on north Sheridan. It's sad that there is this control issue with establishments, that the state wants to rule what they can do, and that there is a major difference between Tulsa, and the armpit 100miles away. I have lived in the western US for the last 15 years, and the tactics that are employed by ABLE, and the LEO's is unheard of in the west. I have also spent some time east of OK, and it's the same as west of OK. It's sad that what is good for OKC is bad for Tulsa.

It's sad that the ways of ABLE have not changed in the last 25 years. And the new ABLE, Drug Enforcement Task Force means that you now have close to 300 people that can walk in and shut down any establishment, even if there are no violations.

[AquaMan]

I think Verada is right. This was a tactic, not a raid. They had other motives. Kind of like stopping a car for the driver not wearing a seatbelt. It was likely the result of profiling and allowed a search based on some tip received, but the seatbelt law allowed access.

Or they expected some overtime, some free pizza and a chance to gig the councilor. And KJRH needs to stroke the TPD alot more than they do entrepreneurs who reside close to two competitors, KOTV and TW.

[Gaspar]

http://www.fox23.com/news/local/story/Tulsa-police-release-details-about-compliance/N4zbYvV0CUWhrbnuHzkLpw.cspx?rss=2448&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

"The Tulsa Police Department released information about compliance checks in an effort to clear up misinformation officials say is being spread."

[Vashta Nerada]

http://www.fox23.com/news/local/story/Tulsa-police-release-details-about-compliance/N4zbYvV0CUWhrbnuHzkLpw.cspx?rss=2448&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

"The Tulsa Police Department released information about compliance checks in an effort to clear up misinformation officials say is being spread."

So it's settled:  Blake kills babies.

Broadcast crime reporters have too many conflicts of interest to give this a fair shake.
Maybe fox23 was waiting to jump into the fray so they could avoid the mistakes of the other broadcasters?
After all, it seemed the TV crime reporters were not wanting to rock TPD's boat to protect their ride-alongs,
Nope.   23 actually did their kissup piece from a ride-along....

KTUL was almost as bad:

A Tulsa City Councilor has some tough questions coming his way. District 4's Blake Ewing runs several downtown businesses but an encounter with law enforcement over violations at his establishments may not be his shining moment.
There are other more pressing matters like, why Councilor Ewing didn't have the proper city licenses, did he leave a city council meeting to address the personal business with his restaurants the night in question and did he imply he would not support a new police academy in the future. It's unlikely we've heard the last of this incident not from Councilor Ewing or Chief Jordan There is a supposed to be a meeting between them about the Blue Dome District later this month.

http://www.ktul.com/story/21129648/city-councilor-and-police-at-odds-over-compliance-checks

So pressing that she couldnt make a phone call to the councilor for her story? 
This is why Im glad we still have a newspaper in this berg.

[carltonplace]

Sounds like a pre-emptive strike against any potential re-election campaign.

[TheArtist]

The story might have gone down differently until Blake implied that his business may have been targeted.  Even if it were true, that would be extremely hard to impossible to prove, and of course the police department would put out info to confirm their view... both together would result in a story that would have to look unfortunate on Blakes behalf.  All the other things Blake said were defensible, and even the "targeting" point at the time I am sure surely felt and would seem to be that way, and anyone can understand the emotions involved that would lead to the feeling and the comment.  Now I don't know all the details of the story but from my perspective,  I would immediately acknowledge that it indeed was an error mistakenly said in haste (even if the premise is correct it's unprovable and now a distraction), apologize for that error, and and then promptly turn the discussion back to the other points in which he can make a good case.  As difficult as that may be in the situation, over all it would likely be better imho.  Otherwise both parties will either be looking for some face saving "out" which will result in lingering negative questions, Or, things will get uglier with the "targeting" thing becoming the dominant discussion and Blake looking bad.  There again an opinion based on my cursory info as to what is going on.

I think there are legitimate questions as to why there were so many uniformed officers at his place, or any similar ones for that matter, to do what they said was being done and at those hours.  Not business and customer friendly, and wasteful of tax dollars.  

Ok, after listening to the radio story, I take back the apology thing lol.  Blake seems to be handling this very well without my sage advice lol.  

[swake]

Figuring 2 hours per check which considering travel time to and from and paperwork is probably low, at 3-4 officers that's 1200-1600 man hours since October. That's almost enough hours for an  entire FTE for a cop for a full year! To check on video game and jukebox stickers! This is the city's only real involvement, liquor licenses and properly marked bottles is enforcement of state tax laws, that's ABLE's job, not TPD. If they were checking food handlers permits that's a county function that we have the health department for. The city is getting a few buck here and there from city licenses of Amusement games, no way is that ever going to come anywhere close to the ~100k that it costs to put a cop on the street for a year. This stinks, TPD is acting as ABLE strong arm putting 3-4 cops into local businesses to check on minor license issues. Law Enforcement in Oklahoma both at the state level and in Tulsa is way out of control and is not working for the citizens benefit.

Many years ago I was a manager at a big south side restaurant and bar. Normal checks happen with a single ABLE agent in the afternoon and are no big deal. They check that the staff on the posted schedule all have a posted licenses and look over the bottles for stamps. These checks at these busy times are pure harassment.

Often on nights when we would have a big crowd into see this or that band we often would have a certain TPD officer come in and take up my time checking  this kind of crap at like 11:00 at night with 500 people in the place. I checked with cops that I was friendly with and this joker's beat was north Tulsa, not 71st and Memorial. He worked day shift anyway. Devoted public servant that one, working hours after his shift ten miles from his area. conviently, someone named Steve Kitchell had a place just one mile away. His late drunk of a brother was a regular at our bar and I'm sure he was reporting back to Steve when we got busy. I wonder what was encouraging that fine TPD officer to do come and check us out so long after the end of his shift?

[Conan71]

Figuring 2 hours per check which considering travel time to and from and paperwork is probably low, at 3-4 officers that's 1200-1600 man hours since October. That's almost enough hours for an  entire FTE for a cop for a full year! To check on video game and jukebox stickers! This is the city's only real involvement, liquor licenses and properly marked bottles is enforcement of state tax laws, that's ABLE's job, not TPD. If they were checking food handlers permits that's a county function that we have the health department for. The city is getting a few buck here and there from city licenses of Amusement games, no way is that ever going to come anywhere close to the ~100k that it costs to put a cop on the street for a year. This stinks, TPD is acting as ABLE strong arm putting 3-4 cops into local businesses to check on minor license issues. Law Enforcement in Oklahoma both at the state level and in Tulsa is way out of control and is not working for the citizens benefit.

Many years ago I was a manager at a big south side restaurant and bar. Normal checks happen with a single ABLE agent in the afternoon and are no big deal. They check that the staff on the posted schedule all have a posted licenses and look over the bottles for stamps. These checks at these busy times are pure harassment.

Often on nights when we would have a big crowd into see this or that band we often would have a certain TPD officer come in and take up my time checking  this kind of crap at like 11:00 at night with 500 people in the place. I checked with cops that I was friendly with and this joker's beat was north Tulsa, not 71st and Memorial. He worked day shift anyway. Devoted public servant that one, working hours after his shift ten miles from his area. conviently, someone named Steve Kitchell had a place just one mile away. His late drunk of a brother was a regular at our bar and I'm sure he was reporting back to Steve when we got busy. I wonder what was encouraging that fine TPD officer to do come and check us out so long after the end of his shift?

I'm well aware of the PD checking out "anonymous tips" of underage drinking lodged by certain dooshbag club owners on their competitors.

[Hoss]

Figuring 2 hours per check which considering travel time to and from and paperwork is probably low, at 3-4 officers that's 1200-1600 man hours since October. That's almost enough hours for an  entire FTE for a cop for a full year! To check on video game and jukebox stickers! This is the city's only real involvement, liquor licenses and properly marked bottles is enforcement of state tax laws, that's ABLE's job, not TPD. If they were checking food handlers permits that's a county function that we have the health department for. The city is getting a few buck here and there from city licenses of Amusement games, no way is that ever going to come anywhere close to the ~100k that it costs to put a cop on the street for a year. This stinks, TPD is acting as ABLE strong arm putting 3-4 cops into local businesses to check on minor license issues. Law Enforcement in Oklahoma both at the state level and in Tulsa is way out of control and is not working for the citizens benefit.

Many years ago I was a manager at a big south side restaurant and bar. Normal checks happen with a single ABLE agent in the afternoon and are no big deal. They check that the staff on the posted schedule all have a posted licenses and look over the bottles for stamps. These checks at these busy times are pure harassment.

Often on nights when we would have a big crowd into see this or that band we often would have a certain TPD officer come in and take up my time checking  this kind of crap at like 11:00 at night with 500 people in the place. I checked with cops that I was friendly with and this joker's beat was north Tulsa, not 71st and Memorial. He worked day shift anyway. Devoted public servant that one, working hours after his shift ten miles from his area. conviently, someone named Steve Kitchell had a place just one mile away. His late drunk of a brother was a regular at our bar and I'm sure he was reporting back to Steve when we got busy. I wonder what was encouraging that fine TPD officer to do come and check us out so long after the end of his shift?

Ah yes.  The legacy of Steve Kitchell...

[JCnOwasso]

I am a little confused about the situation.  After reading the Fox report it said that normal compliance checks take 3-4 cops and 1 ABLE.  Why did ABLE decide to bring 4 and why did the cops add another?  And let's get real, I have spent some time in these establishments and I don't normally identify the Blue Dome District as the forefront of mischief.  I also don't know of many underage drinkers who start out at 6PM on a Thursday.  You want to catch these guys when they are extremely busy with their bars and don't pay much attention to what is going on.  And the statement by ABLE that if they have had activity at a location, trouble makers stay away??? ha, if I were them I would head to those places because I knew they had already been cleared.

[Townsend]

Pat Campbell with Blake Ewing on KFAQ

Tulsa City Council and business owner Blake Ewing on Tulsa officers in the Blue Dome district restaurants


http://media.1170kfaq.com/audio/blake+ewing.mp3

[swake]

I'm well aware of the PD checking out "anonymous tips" of underage drinking lodged by certain dooshbag club owners on their competitors.

The way we stopped it was that we started hiring off duty cops to work our door and sit with whoever was checking IDs wearing a yellow TPD t-shirt. The cop that harassed us didn't seem to want to come check us when we had another TPD officer sitting at the door. We also had zero problems with ugly drunks or underage drinkers and had no need for bouncers. A well spent $60 bucks.

[Gaspar]

Pat Campbell with Blake Ewing on KFAQ

Tulsa City Council and business owner Blake Ewing on Tulsa officers in the Blue Dome district restaurants


http://media.1170kfaq.com/audio/blake+ewing.mp3

I think the one good thing to come out of this, as implied by Blake, is that TPD really needs to take into account the public impression they make through such acts.  City budgets are under more scrutiny than ever in this economy, and all departments should be very concerned with creating a public impression of efficiency and establishing a set of priorities that agree with what the public sees as important.

Tulsa is very fortunate to have a low rate of crime, and one of the best and well trained police forces in the country.  It is a shame to have incidents like this damage that reputation, and leadership should take note, and reflect before any future efforts.

[TheArtist]

Tulsa is very fortunate to have a low rate of crime, and one of the best and well trained police forces in the country.  It is a shame to have incidents like this damage that reputation, and leadership should take note, and reflect before any future efforts.

Really?  I thought it was well known that Tulsa is one of the worst, higher crime rate cities in the US? Have our stats gotten that much better over the last year or so?

[Cats Cats Cats]

I guess I don't understand why the city needs any police officers to check arcade game licenses.  That is not a good use of police officer's time and resources.  Let a regular city employee check the arcade license, much like the sales tax notice.

"It shall be the duty of the Director, his authorized inspectors and the police officers of the City of Tulsa to enforce the provisions of this chapter requiring persons operating or offering coin operated devices...."  Page 23

http://www.cityoftulsa.org/media/31843/title%2021%20-%20licenses%20s19.pdf

Here is what I think made Blake a little upset and he probably would have been more upset if he knew what could have happened to his employees.

From Page 23:  "Any person, firm or corporation violating any of the provisions of this chapter shall be guilty of an offense and, upon conviction therof, shall be punished by a fine not to exceed FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($500), excluding costs, and/or by imprisonment in the City Jail for a period not exceeding (30) days."

So the TPD writes tickets to employees, I think there was 9 or 10 at the Max.  I am assuming that each ticket could have a month in jail for the employee.  That is just messed up that employees gets tickets for the busines and the police won't give them to the business owner when he is standing there asking for them.  To think that Blake would try to throw around his part time job for a few hundred dollars in tax certificates is laughable.

The tickets are in employees names.  I could see other less reputable business owners firing their employees and letting them handle the tickets.  How is that right?