Attorney Andy Dawkins Slamming City of Saint Paul in Divas Legal Battle
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posted by Bob at Thursday, July 12, 2007
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Thursday, July 12, 2007
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St. Paul North End / Diva's verdict doesn't suit city
Patron is in prison, but officials still want to act against bar
BY SHANNON PRATHER and JASON HOPPIN
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 07/12/2007 12:17:15 AM CDT
A St. Paul man who opened fire inside Diva's Overtime Lounge, killing one and injuring two others, is now behind bars. City officials, citing that incident and a host of other problems, still want to take action against the Rice Street bar, possibly closing it for good.
But Diva's is not going down without a fight. An attorney for the bar suggested the city's motivation for targeting Diva's could be race.
Attorney Andrew Dawkins accused the city of making Diva's a scapegoat for crime and quality-of-life problems the city is battling along Rice Street in the city's North End. Dawkins said he suspects the city is taking aim at Diva's because its late-night clientele is predominantly black.
"People are unhappy with the way their neighborhood has turned. I don't blame them," Dawkins said. "But to blame Diva's because it has mostly a black clientele isn't right."
City officials say public safety, not race, is driving their actions. Four people were shot in or near the bar in the past year, including the one fatality.
"It's absolutely not related to race," said St. Paul City Council Member Lee Helgen. "It's related to problem behavior and an unwillingness to work with the city on problem behavior."
But the Diva's attorney points to a recent order from an administrative law judge that recommends the bar be sanctioned, not shut down. The judge, Eric Lipman, described the precarious balance the bar must achieve when policing patrons without discriminating.
Lipman wrote that the bar owner sits atop a "razor's edge of competing legal interests." Diva's cannot deny access based on color, creed, gender, sexual orientation or national origin, the judge said, yet the city is trying to hold the bar accountable for the "clientele it attracts."
In his order, Lipman concluded Diva's is achieving that balance - instituting a set of rules that eliminate bad behavior but do not arbitrarily exclude whole classes of customers. Diva's prohibits patrons from wearing head bandanas known as do-rags. The bar prohibits gang-related colors and references to gang activity. It has changed its music format and enhanced its security and requires that patrons be 25 or older.
City officials counter that they can't ignore the bloodshed.
On Wednesday morning, Maurice Lovell Anderson stood before Ramsey County District Judge Margaret Marrinan for sentencing. The 26-year-old brought a gun into Diva's on July 14, 2006. When an argument erupted with fellow bar patron Julian Roland, Anderson pulled his weapon and started firing.
Roland, 25, suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at Regions Hospital. Two bystanders suffered leg wounds.
A jury convicted Anderson of second-degree murder and two counts of assault. Judge Marrinan sentenced Anderson to 26 years and 10 months in prison, denying a request for a more lenient prison term.
After the shooting, city officials fed up with allegations of fights, noise complaints, after-hours drinking and gun violence launched a two-pronged effort to close the bar. The city sought to have the bar's liquor license revoked and, in a separate action, asked a judge to label the bar a nuisance.
In the liquor license proceedings, the city cited fights among bar patrons, construction of a smoking patio without a permit, failure to pay $3,300 in fines and fees in a timely manner and failure to make video surveillance recordings immediately available to police.
"The evidence against Diva's speaks loudly about the problems that the bar has caused to the surrounding neighborhood," said John Choi, city attorney. "At some point, the bar owner and her attorney need to stop making excuses and accusations about the city's motivations and take some responsibility."
After a series of hearings, Lipman, the administrative law judge, recommended a "weighty administrative sanction" for some of the violations rather than yanking Diva's license altogether. The City Council - which is not bound by the judge's ruling - is expected to take up the matter in the near future.
"To be sure, some of Diva's patrons have been frighteningly quick to violence," Lipman wrote. "Yet the record as a whole does not establish that (Diva's) or its employees prompted this violence, encouraged it or were slow to confront it when it erupted."
In the nuisance action, the city asked a Ramsey County District judge to shut down Diva's. Like Lipman, Ramsey County Judge Marybeth Dorn seemed skeptical that the bar should be blamed for every incident city officials linked to it.
Dorn issued an order in December imposing operating conditions the bar must meet to remain open. In June, the city attorney accused the bar of violating one of those conditions. A hearing is scheduled for July 31. Bar owner Deb Johnson declined to comment, but Dawkins said she's doing what it takes to make Diva's safe.
"Deb Johnson hated this killing committed by Maurice Anderson at this bar as much as anybody else," Dawkins said. "Ever since this shooting, she has hired top-notch security consultants and changed the way she runs the bar."
Shannon Prather can be reached at 651-228-5452 or sprather@pioneerpress.com
If anybody should know about the city's excesses, it's Andy Dawkins. I expect the bureaucrats have hidden agendas here.
It is twisted logic trying to blame historic racial issues on Divas. Divas needs to take a reasonable approach and the city needs to do so also.
The basis of the RICO suits are racial discrimination. The City of Saint Paul has been involved in the "Gentrification" of Frogtown & the Red Zone of the East side.
The City has targeted private rental properties to diminish the numbers of low income minority housing in Saint Paul.
Now here we have Andy Dawkins, a former city employee (Head of Code Enforcement) and defendant in the RICO suits defending his client Deb Johnson of Divas successfully using racial discrimination in sort of the same terms as the plaintiffs allege in the RICO suits.
The Judge over seeing Divas case is no FOOL. It would be GOOD if he sat on the housing court. Then the city would have a hard time gentrifying the City of it's labeled "undesirables".
My head is spinning, do ya think maybe Dawkins would represent the plaintiffs in the RICO suits and screw himself and the city in the interest of JUSTICE?
One more thing, DEB JOHNSON OF DIVAS, last I heard she was seeking the Libertarian endorsement for City Council. Lee Helgens seat.
Lee Helgen needs to be replaced in order for the North End community to succeed. Since Helgen took over that district the community has seen nothing but increased violent crime that arises from the stress and displacement he has put on many people of that community. He has shown no type of care for the families that are in the need of support and help from their councilman, instead of displaces people to rid the city of the undesirable he should work with them to help them become a producitve citizen.
Don't ya love lawyers and lobbiest? Dawkins' issue in this case is that there is nothing that his client can do to control gun fire in the parking lot.
Landlords can pick up the trash in the yard or bring the wiring and plumbing up to code and satisfy the inspectors. They can evict tenents with high numbers of police calls. The argument in the RICO case is that building owners should have no public health standards and that the City in any effort to regulate them through a complaint based system is being discriminatory.
Your plaintiffs would argue that if you didn't have enough inspectors to look at every house in the city at exactly the same time for excactly the same issues, then you are discriminating against whoever you would inspect and therefore the City must stop inspecting property.
Dawkins is arguing that you are not giving his client the ability to control the factors that you want to close her down over.
The issue for the judge will be just that, is she doing what is possible to do to manage the bar. Is her management of the liquor license the reason why there is gun fire?
Andy's problem, like the landlords problem is that the ability to sell liquor is a privilege and not a right. It is a license. The Wabasha Bar was closed down for selling a 6 pack of strong beer to go, instead of the 3.2 they could legally sell to go. They fought that for a long time... but the court said its the City's license and you have to obay all the rules or you can lose the privilege.
Its like being in the rental business the City has the right to regulate it.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
What this story isn't telling anyone is the victim Roland, lay on DIVAS floor for 45 minutes dying waiting for an ambulance. All the while police officers stood by doing absolutely nothing!
That's City service for you. I believe the City has some responsibility in this mans demise.
Something else the story neglects to address is one of the shootings they are referring to was by a one time patron of the bar. The shooting incident didn't even happen at the bar. It happened down the street. But yet the City would like to hold DIVAS accountable. What MORONIC thinking.
Hmmm, seeing Eric Lipman as the Ad Judge is interesting. Until recently, he was in the state house of representatives with Andy Dawkins.
I beleive he was very vocal in his opposition for rehabilitation, headstart and after school programs. All things that help squash young folks keep from opting for a criminal lifestyle.
Eric M.
Bob, similar incident at Arnella's a while back. A one time patron shot a regular ACROSS the street in the Bally's parking lot and the guy makes it to Arnella's (probably looking for help) and dies outside of her door. It goes down as a mark against Arnella's. Arnella's by the way, is the only African American with a liquour license in the city of Saint Paul.
I'm still not sure how much race plays in Diva's case, you well aware of my opinion but, in Arnella's case I'm more convinced.
Ooops, forgot to sign my 9:52 post.
Eric M.
The city has also seen some very negative results to holding the establishment accountable for police calls. Such as the incident last week where a lady was assaulted on University Ave. makes her way to the Trend Bar to seek help (911 call) and was told by staff that they are not allowed to use the police for help because of the consequences that the city forces upon them. The reporter also went on to say that it has become a common policy with several bars not to involve the police.
I know this is happening even in MPLS, a few weeks back my daughter was jumped by 10-12 individuals inside a club. The club did not call police or provide medical attention to her, she was semi unconcious so they dragged her in their back office. This is the results of the owners afraid to involve law enforcement.
We filed our own police report of course with no suspects being that the club neglected to get info or hold the suspects for police. As for medical the incident did result in my daughter having to have surgery.
Is this the way a business should be operating? Afraid to use law enforcement that they also contribute tax dollars to for their service...
Nancy
That is rather disturbing information Eric.
The judge in the landlords lawsuit is not going to be a fool either!
You had better be afraid of the police. They are not your friend any longer. They are looking for "stats" and if they can make you one of those "stats", it will be much better for their file.
If Diva's a scapegoat for crime in the same way the landlords are the scapegoats for the crime in the nieghborhood?
The city has lost its ability to reason and be fair, trying to blame anybody for anything. I think it will just get worse. Quite a fall from what had been a first-rate city.
When you have uneducated slim for leaders, you have slim for a city. This shouldn't be a suprise to anyone.
Hey Chuck.....I suppose this is all just a bunch of hot air too huh?
OMG Eric Lipman is an Administrative Law Judge? The man came to Minnesota (from New York if memory serves me correctly) to work for Mary Kiffmeyer, then he went on to un-distinguish himself in the legislator, then he capped it off by being Pawlenty's "Sex Offender Czar" despite having no experience in the prosecution or correctional supervision of sex offenders. Take what he says with a grain of salt
With what Andy Dakins has done to this city he should be ashamed of himself.
I didn't know it was the citizens responsibility to work with the city on problem behavior. I thought we hired a police department and city leaders to deal with problems. Why aren't they doing they're jobs? Following this through to its logical conclusion, if the citizens are responsible for taking care of the problems, what the heck do we need the governemnt and all these crummy leaders for?
9:02 I have never said that there may not be bad actors, people who act inapropriately or even people who may have committed crimes who work for the City or the County. My only arguement has been about the RICO suit and that there has not been anything showing a conspiracy of the City to benefit some private person or agency.
There are jerks, and bullies and crooks everywhere in every line of work. Can the City or County end up hiring one? sure. Does that make the City or county a part of the action? no. It is my belief that the City and County does a good job of policing itself, but that is why from time to time you see these issues, because they aren't swept under the rug.
JMONTOMEPPOF
Chuck Repke
Dawkins hit the nail on the head. Either he thinks these RICO cases have a good fight or he knows how the city was asking him to come down on our same business owner landlords who rent to minorities.
Very interesting what Dawkins is saying don't you think Chuck? Sounds really familiar!
Chuck you make the remark that the city is not part of the action just because they hire a bad employee, but they ARE responsible for that employee.
Your statement about things not being swept under the rug is laughable Chuck. The types of accusations the landlords are making in the lawsuits have been voiced to city officials for years, and all they have done is sweep it under the rug.
The Watchdog published photos of city contractors taking property out of a garage they were not entitled to take, and a city employee was there with them.
The city has been aware of the Affidavits Bob published a few weeks ago for a couple of years now.
There has been no investigation or even any questions asked. This sure sounds like "sweeping it under the rug" to me Chuck.
chuck,
go hide behind your pathetic non profit b/s east side blah, blah, blah..... Get a real job. Where you have to be accountable for when you waste money. You are a train wreck chuck. What do you and dave t do together-- Play boo boo? What is your deal? Why do you protect thune? Do you play boo boo?
Keep it up Andy. You are truly unbelievable.
Hey 3:30---I think you are being a little harsh on Chuck. In case you haven't noticed, we're kinda starting to like him around here. Why don't you tone it down a bit? Chuck is entitled to his opinion ya know, just like you are.
11:01, you just might be Thune.
To be effective, we all have to use restraint.
But I am not Thune. I am just another guy who thinks that even the people we don't agree with should have the rights here as the ones we do agree with. That includes Chuck.
5:29, a good healthy debate is the best tool we have at getting at the truth. Wtih a good debate, people take the best points from both sides, and make something better than either.
I find Chuck can go to extremes defending the city, but know i don't have all the answers. I think our 3:30 poster got carried away also. Passsions run strong here. Constructive arguments, rebuttals, and efforts to moderate discussion are all needed. Ultimately, we need common courtesy in finding a solution and avoiding a scrteaming match, there is good potential for finding solutions here.
9:55 said-
I find Chuck can go to extremes defending the city, but know i don't have all the answers. I think our 3:30 poster got carried away also. Passsions run strong here. Constructive arguments, rebuttals, and efforts to moderate discussion are all needed. Ultimately, we need common courtesy in finding a solution and avoiding a scrteaming match, there is good potential for finding solutions here.
Bob said- I could tell you who the 3:30 poster is, but I won't!:-) I recognize the personality. Sometimes this poster uses his real name.
We will always have comments like this because this is a place inclusive of all the citizens of Saint Paul. Regardless of personality, education, income or race.
Someday I hope some of these anonymous posters feel secure enough to use their name. I have gotten to know many peoples writings and it is awkward not being able to associate a name or face with the words. :-)
9:55 said- Constructive arguments, rebuttals, and efforts to moderate discussion are all needed.
Bob said- This will improve as membership grows. Also, I think the new A Democracy forum coming at the end of the summer will help. Then citizens can post their own topics. The forum will be similar to SPIF in format.
Moderation, is like sitting on a fence, it is a balancing act and as time goes by I think I will get better at it.
Thank all of you for your participation.
Sorry for the off topic post.
I grew up in the NE and all i know is that in all the years before Divas had a black clientele there wasnt ever a killing. And the only reason Deb managed the place is because his married bf Fred Maculous(sp?) (owner of Freds Tires) bought it for her......ick. It used to be a nice neighborhood bar before she ever took over, im glad its closed. Andy Dawkins? The same Andy Dawkins that backs Sara Jane Olsen the convicted murderer, isnt he a prize :-/.
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