The City County Observer has had the privilege to view the bar bill that has been represented to have been for the party of Democrat City Council members who gathered at the Maingate Bar on Main Street on January 23, 2012 right after the City Council meeting where presentations by Casino Aztar and a Colorado based consultant regarding the upcoming vote on a comprehensive smoking ordinance were made.
The receipt that is represented to have been for a party of 8 on January 23, 2012 is dated February 1, 2012 and time stamped 2:29 PM. This receipt has been alleged to have been paid by Josh Smith, a consultant from Indianapolis who along with attorney Krista Lockyear joined the gathering of 6 Democrat members of the Evansville City Council at the Maingate after the City Council meeting. Mr. Smith is also stated to be a friend of Councilwoman Missy Mosby.
The bar tab for the party of 8 includes 33 beers and 13 alcohol based drinks for a total of 46 drinks that were ordered and charged to the table. The total charges were $212.00 and the tax was reported to be $6.74 for a total of $218.74. It has been pointed out that the Indiana sales tax on a $212.00 bill should have been $16.96 to reflect the 8% rate that is the law of Indiana. No additional taxes were on the bill.
In previous correspondence Councilwoman Stephanie Brinkerhoff-Riley has stated that she paid for her own drinks and City Council President Connie Robinson state that she went home early. Accepting those statements as truth that leaves a total of 46 drinks to have been consumed by 6 people some of whom provided testimony regarding the content and volume of Councilman Lindsey’s alleged consumption of alcohol. It is a challenge to the CCO to understand how a gathering where an average of nearly 8 drinks per person were consumed would possess sufficient unimpaired judgement to count and measure what they were drinking themselves much less to keep count of what others were drinking.
What time did the official council meeting end? Was there time to end the meeting, arrive at The Main Gate and have 8 people drink 46 beverages by 2:29 in the afternoon? It would take most people at least 2-3 hours to drink approximately 8 drinks each (as you’ve stated) and they would be heavily intoxicated.
The receipt was also dated February 1 as opposed to January 23 when the gathering took place. It would make one wonder if the receipt was re-created after the fact with the time and date stamps clearly inaccurate.
OK, I see. I don’t see how that could be considered proof of anything then. Seems to me it proves that someone drank a bunch on 2/1/12.
CCO should be ashamed of the half-truths and innuendo from this posting. I guess the old adage that if you do not have all the facts you just make something up holds true for this website?
Your “article” states you had the “privilege” of viewing THE bar bill (emphasis added) from the night of 01/23/2012, but then turn around and make a passing comment that the receipt was “also dated February 1”. Which lie are you peddling?
Furthermore, if the receipt was time-stamped as you state, then how can you even begin to explain your baseless allegations that a receipt with a time of 2:29 PM is anything other that your fuel for a witch-hunt? Per the City Council website “City Council meets Monday evening at 5:30 p.m. in Room 301 of the Civic Center”. So a receipt dated over a week later and 3 hours prior to the scheduled meeting is supposed to prove what?
And if you try and say that the receipt was “re-printed” from the bar, that is even more laughable. I’ll wager that you cannot find 5 or more bars that can spontaneously re-print a receipt from more than a week ago in Vanderburgh County? If you want to play like Woodward & Bernstein than give us the copy of the ORIGINAL receipt.
It should come as no surprise to anyone on here that this entire mess just gives the CCO an excuse to continue to bash anyone from the Democratic party. You have exposed your bias long ago, but I watch the website to give you a pity laugh at the way you lean.
I know Al, and he made a serious mistake in not going back to work as soon as the City Council meeting was over, and he should be punished for that. Perhaps if you wanted to display real journalism you would get a copy of the EFD/City of Evansville “employee handbook” and show what that actually says about employee misconduct. You readily publish PDF files, so why not show us what the guidelines are for Evansville EFD employees?
The biggest thing that I think is wrong is that Al is an emergency services employee as a fire fighter, and I do not care if he only had a single sip of an alcoholic beverage, if he consumed alcohol he should have NEVER punched back in for work. Be betrayed the public trust when he did that, and potentially put the public and his fellow fire fighters in danger. But if his record after 26 years is as spotless as has been alleged, then I have to opine that without proof that he made any errors during the remainder of his shift, how can he be terminated from EFD?
Journalism, CCO! Your slanting of the truth by basing so much on something that would never see the light of day in legal circles is pitiful.
Evansville Turth (vs. Truth)? Did you help out on those 46 drinks ? Green with envy !
Well, well, well, this takes me back to the CVB’s drunken reveling from a year ago that led to the firing of the entire board that was imbibing. At least the CVB people had enough sense to eat something while they were killing off brain cells by the score. I wonder how many of these elected drunkards drove home after this binge? Maybe Mr. Lindsey is not the only one that needs a trip to the woodshed.
Why can’t we have a recall election and get rid of all of the vindictive self indulgent children? People who behave like this do not deserve to hold elected position.
Also, is that guy that paid for the frat party on contract or being considered for a contract for the City of Evansville? If so we not only have sunshine laws getting walked on but we have influence peddling and improper compensation to public officials too.
“…… is that guy that paid for the frat party on contract or being considered for a contract for the City of Evansville? If so we not only have sunshine laws getting walked on but we have influence peddling and improper compensation to public officials too.”
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uh oh…..you have stumbled upon the proverbial bigger picture! congratulations…now hush! (just kidding) 🙂
JMHO
Maybe we should turn this into the Education Testing Service for a possible SAT math question.
If 8 Evansville City Council Member consume 46 acoholic beverages in three hours what is the rate of alcholic intake? How many minutes before they are all legally intoxicated? How many minutes will pass before old polictal grudges surface? How many appetizers will each councilperson have to eat to sop up the excess alcohol? How many state statues will the council violate?
Feel free to add your twist to the questions! LOL!
RE: the Sales Tax being lower than expected–the Main Gate must have filed an exemption form with the Indiana Dept. of Revenue declaring themselves EXEMPT from the Food & Beverage Tax. They said they did not want to contribute to the payment of the Arena Bonds !
How is that possible, not paying food and beverage tax?? Everyone in the food and beverage industry must pay it. And if theres a loop hole that they would of course find its amazing to me that they would not want to help make payment to the whole reason they opened there….the arena
Waterholegate is like joining the Jelly-of-the-Month Club.
The gift that keeps on giving. The City-County Observer and Courier are getting more press out of this than Lindsay Lohan gets stepping out of a car in a short dress.
Perfect for a Saturday Night Live skit or one-upping Russell Lloyd Jr. on the Daily Show.
The fattest meth making, funniest mug shot, drunkest socializing politicos and most treacherous back stabbers in the world!
Liq. Tax is included in the price of bar drink, so it would only show taxes for food purchases. Its kind of hard to believe that there was no business being talked about
OK. I looked at the receipt. Here are the FOOD items on the receipt that would be charged “sales tax” (if the amount of sales tax is indeed represented in the price of the drinks).
1. 16 IN Meat Supr = $39.90
2. Chips + Cheese = $11.85
3. Go -> Chips + Cheese = $3.95
TOTAL = $55.70
Sales tax printed on the receipt = $6.74.
$6.74 = 12.10% of $55.70.
Question for Mr. Johns: Do we have 12% sales tax or food and beverage tax in Indiana? I don’t think so!
MR. JOHNS … YOUR MATH IS NOT ADDING UP. SHOULD WE BE CALLING THE INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE TO HAVE THEM INVESTIGATE TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE PAYING YOUR TAXES CORRECTLY?
People, look at the BRIGHT SIDE: if they were sloppy drunk, they were not conducting any City business, so no violations of ‘Sunshine Laws’ !!!
how about “moonshine” laws?
Nice !!!
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