Ch. 8 Dealing Drugs
February 13, 2018: The troubling discovery of a heroin needle in my parking lot led me to contact the Ludlow Police Department. I took the matter to Facebook to address the issue, highlighting the responsibilities of local building owners, who are also families of sitting city council members.
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February 24, 2018: Downtown Ludlow constantly buzzed with the inaugural Cabin Fever Music and Arts Festival. Spearheaded by the talented promoters of the Whispering Beard Folk Festival and funded by two of Cincinnati’s entertainment icons, Jerry Springer and Bootsy Collins (James Brown’s former bassist and lauded local celebrity).
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In the 1900s, when Ringling had its Clown College, every news station would happily send local media personalities to auditions to grab a five-minute “good news” segment. Weather personalities would “try out” as prospective clown college students to procure a bit of comedic relief. This feel-good earned media footage usually got a pre-commercial teaser run after all the sensationalistic “If-it-bleeds-it-leads” news, politics, and sports segments of a typical newscast.
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September 24, 2018: After I escalated the request for the City of Ludlow to turn over the police body camera footage from 2017, the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General (see workbook) ruled that Ludlow violated Open Records requests and exposed bureaucratic delays in releasing the police body camera footage from the 2017 shutdown
While hosting a female focus group beer tasting the City of Ludlow shuts down on May 3, 2017. Partial Transcript:
Police: I am lost, have no idea what you guys are doing
Fire: I know
Police: You expect him to give you a problem physically or anything?
Fire: No
Police: We were dispatched for squatters in the building
Fire: Building is being illegally occupied. They were given notice a few weeks ago not to occupy the building
Police: Buy you guys... The city or....?
Fire: PDS
Police: What's PDS?
Fire: Planning and Development Services
Police: OK
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September 28, 2018: After much initial resistance, we passed all inspections – including, finally, that of the Ludlow Fire Department (which had previously stated on several occasions that things were too busy to provide us with our inspection). I took to Facebook Live, seeking to apply pressure towards expediting our permit. A temporary occupancy permit for 100 people has been granted to Bircus Brewing Co., and we finally opened for business at the Ludlow Theatre.