"He's very committed to getting what he wants, and he's willing to pay whatever it takes to get the required number of signatures," Minner says. "We're at a distinct disadvantage because we can't afford to hire petitioners. We're using volunteers."
11. Hire the former director of Excise and Licenses. Late last year Pappas retained Mary Sylvester, who had previously been an unpaid consultant in the case, first on behalf of the liquor store opponents and then as a favor to Mayor Webb (see number 5 above). Opponents' attorney Lawrence Schoenwald was sufficiently distressed to learn of Sylvester's defection to suggest that she had a conflict of interest. In early January Sylvester returned Pappas's check and bowed out of the case, but not before writing a letter to all parties involved detailing her peculiar three-sided contact with the dispute.
Schoenwald declines to discuss Sylvester's role, saying that her letter "speaks for itself." Sylvester says she saw no conflict in joining Pappas's legal team until Schoenwald raised the issue. "I am a lawyer with two hands, and I can argue either side of the issue," she says. "I didn't think I had a problem when I agreed to represent Mr. Pappas. Larry Schoenwald did. And if he thinks I've got a problem, I've got a problem."
In her letter, Sylvester wished Pappas success and expressed "my frustration that there is more law to this case than is being addressed."
12. Play the ethnic card. Two weeks ago Pappas met with representatives of the Capitol Hill and Congress Park neighborhood groups to discuss his latest application. Also present was Taki "Pete" Dadiotis, co-owner of the Golden Bell Diner on East Colfax and a prominent member of the Greek Chamber of Commerce.
According to attendees DeAnne Minner and Kathy Fay, Dadiotis explained that he had been invited to attend because of concerns in the Greek community that Pappas hadn't been treated fairly in his prior applications because he was Greek. A man identified as Pappas's "investigator" described the dispute as a "tong war" and claimed that opponents had ridiculed Pappas's accent at the first license hearing.
Fay says the neighborhood representatives took pains to assure Pappas that they were opposed to any liquor store on the block, regardless of who the applicant was. "They want to make this into some kind of ethnic thing," she says. "That's something they've inserted into the debate. Nobody cares about his ethnicity."
Like Pappas, Dadiotis declines to comment on the meeting, citing concerns about the upcoming licensing hearing. "I don't think it's fair to talk about it now," he says.
13. When all else fails, hope for a bureaucratic flip-flop. Last month hearing officer Joyce Seelen recommended that Pappas's latest application be thrown out, agreeing with motions filed by Mike Henry and Schoenwald arguing that the "location" of Alex's House of Spirits was essentially identical to that of the prior applications--the same building, the same impact on the neighborhood. Seelen noted the history of opposition to the enterprise and concluded that all three addresses are the same location. "To reach any other result would allow for absurd consequences," she wrote.
On January 4, Excise and Licenses director McCann accepted Seelen's recommendation, pending the filing of objections. Five days later, before the opponents could begin to celebrate--and before any objections to the decision had been filed--McCann reversed herself. Citing a lack of case law on the matter, McCann ordered the attorneys to present oral arguments on the location issue. She subsequently issued a decision allowing Pappas's application to proceed to a public hearing on March 7.
"If one can simply continue to apply by moving down the street a few feet every time an application is denied," McCann wrote, "the intent of the statute seems to be thwarted." Yet because Pappas's various addresses involved no "overlap of square footage," she considered the locations to be separate.
Opponents of the liquor store have branded McCann's decision a "cop-out" and worse, but McCann says it's not her job to rewrite the statute. "I don't think it's the place of someone like myself, an appointed official, to make these calls when the legislation is not clear," she says.
DeAnne Minner thinks McCann ducked "an opportunity to stand behind the neighborhood...It's absurd to think our 'needs and desires' changed because he moved fifty feet down the block," she fumes. "It's the same neighborhood--the only thing that's changed is the amount of money that's going to be spent on this."
Seelen won't be overseeing the license hearing next month. McCann decided to replace her with "someone completely new, who hasn't had any involvement in the case," in order to avoid any appearance of bias or impropriety. Whatever the fourth hearing officer decides, McCann suspects the case may end up being resolved in court--which, as far as Excise and Licenses is concerned, might be a good thing.
"We're running out of hearing officers," McCann says.
