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Thursday, June 3, 2010
Club Splat! page claims Liberty’s ‘LIBERAL BIG GOVERNMENT’
Subbing for new West Chester and Liberty reporter Kelsey Cano this a.m. (as I’ve moved on to cover Hamilton).
Continuing Cano’s coverage of the paintball/laser tag/weekly teen dance party Club Splat! in today’s traditional media and online….
Excerpt:
LIBERTY TWP. — Officials have filed a preliminary and permanent injunction Wednesday, June 2, against Club Splat!, a local teen hangout, for violating its zoning and going over its occupancy limit, township officials said.
UrbanSplat, 7102 Hamilton-Mason Road, is a paintball and Laser Tag business by day. On Saturday nights, it turns into Club Splat!, for teens from 15-18 years old — or as owner Mark Pannek calls it, a teen party place.
According to documents filed with the Butler County Court of Common Pleas, Pannek was issued a Liberty Twp. zoning certificate in July 2009 for indoor paintball. Caroline McKinney, the township’s economic development director, said operating the teen dance club violates the zoning use.
“Like all businesses, they need to follow a process and procedure to make sure we have the correct zoning in place,” she said.
In addition to the zoning issues, authorities have concerns about safety, McKinney said. The maximum occupancy of the building is 182, according to a Butler County certificate of occupancy. On May 15, approximately 500 teens were in attendance, and on May 22, nearly 300 teens were in the club, according to township documents.
The photos are still available online. Take a peek. I’d be curious to know what local parents think?
The issue boils down to two alleged violations: One, a violation of Pannek’s permit, which supposedly allows for the operation of laser tag and paintball and not a club. The permit is specific to the paintball use.
The difference? Of course, it comes down to money, and from where Pannek makes his take, i.e., charging by head at the door and via concessions. No alcohol is served at the club.
Pannek also operates the Bananas Drop-in Jump & Play next door.
The other issue is capacity. The building is zoned to allow only 182 people at a time.
Take a look again at the pictures. You’ll lose count after hitting 182, so long as you don’t get distracted by the sea of shirtless young men and scantily clad young women seemingly caught mid-writhe.
Here’s another one, Pannek — or whomever the administrator of the Facebook page is — claims Liberty Twp. is “LIBERAL BIG GOVERNMENT.”
That’s an interesting take. Liberty Twp. residents are largely, largely Republican and largely, largely conservative. And their trustees are a reflection of that.
Trustees Patrick Hiltman and Christine Matacic, while they don’t run in partisan races for the township, are and have been life-long card-carrying members of the county’s GOP.
Trustee President David Kern was elected last week as the Chairman of the GOP, and he’s even further right than Hiltman and Matacic as a passionate member of the Liberty Tea Party (his wife, Katy, is that group’s president).
If you recall, he even called President Barack Obama “a Marxist” last year.
Not sure “liberal” is the word these folks were looking for.
Then Pannek takes a stab at pulp culture, paralleling his situation with that of the great 1984 flick “Footloose” (one of my favs for sure).
They even quote Ecclesiastes 3, which Ren McCormick (Kevin Bacon) stumbles through during the movie’s town hall meeting as a counter argument to town leader and local Rev. Shaw Moore’s (John Lithgow) reason for calling off a school dance.
ALL of this is to point out trustees and township administrators are saying Pannek or others can come to the township and apply for the appropriate zoning under which a “club” or similar operation could qualify. In other words, if he solicits and is granted the appropriate use of a zoning certificate, he can operate anything he wants…save for a strip club or other adult entertainment business. But that’s a whole different blog post.
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