Rack & Roll Gets Media Attention
By Greg L | 22 February 2007 | Rack & Roll Scandal | 5 Comments
Today’s Manassas Journal-Messenger article on the Rack & Roll scandal is the opening article of a three part series, and introduces some issues that I expect will be explored at greater depth over the next few days. This installment focuses on the denial of a Conditional Use Permit for Rack & Roll in 2006 which is the most recent chapter in this sordid tale, and hopefully will work back in time from there. I’m looking forward to the rest. There are a couple of important points that got left out of this segment of the story however, probably due to space limitations, which I think are important to making sense of the issues introduced in the article.
The article gives an opportunity for the City Council to explain their actions, which I hope gets greater scrutiny in later installments:
Some members of the city council say the [Conditional Use Permit] denial was the end result of a council fed up with a business dragging on the good name of the city.
Vice Mayor Bryan Polk said he had asked Ruttenberg and his attorney at the hearing how the new conditions would ensure that police didn’t get called to the business and that the property taxes would be paid on time — both issues plaguing Rack N’ Roll.
In previous posts I think I’ve documented pretty extensively exactly who is responsible for “dragging on the good name of the city”. In “Let’s Go To The Video Tape! (#1)” we saw the strange behavior of Manassas Park Police when responding to 911 calls reporting drug activity, which a paid informant of the Manassas Park Police Department explained in “Anatomy Of A Setup”. Protecting the good name of the city as a priority of the city council certainly was not a concern in regard to a neighboring establishment which was so out of control that bartenders were dealing cocaine and publicly engaging in sex with customers as we saw in “A Tale Of Two Establishments”. If Rack & Roll was tarnishing the good name of Manassas Park, you’d think they’d be interested in learning who was actually responsible for the problem. It’s too bad the Conditional Use Permit could not have specified that the Manassas Park Police Department would not be allowed within 500 feet of the establishment, as I’m certain that would have put an end to substantially all of the problems.
David Ruttenberg’s property tax issues, which I understand he is trying to deal with in good faith, is certainly related to the drop-off in business he experienced after his ABC license was (I believe unfairly) revoked, the business was subjected to a massive paramilitary-style raid under the auspices of an ABC inspection in 2004, and the extremely close attention the Manassas Park Police Department gave to customers subsequent to the raid. That attention on customers became so heavy-handed that in 2006 Prince William County BOCS Supervisor Sean Connaughton authorized Prince William County Police to establish a temporary presence at Rack & Roll and effectively protect the establishment from the Manassas Park Police Department. For several weeks PWCPD cruisers were parked outside of Rack & Roll, and miraculously the MPPD presence vanished. I’ve talked to customers who described MPPD’s behavior as “getting 150 questions every time you walked out of the place” and a near guarantee of getting pulled over every time you pulled out of the parking lot. That this would put financial pressure on a business is an understatement. But it’s curious that the city council would complain about the impact these manufactured circumstances had on Dave Ruttenberg’s ability to meet his financial obligations.
The article brings up the controversy of whether David Ruttenberg’s Conditional Use Permit (CUP) was subject to annual renewals. David Ruttenberg wasn’t the only one who had been under the impression that their Conditional Use Permits didn’t require renewal, this also was the case with Yuxiu Lee, operator of the Golden Pheonix who was given her CUP in November 2003 with an absolute minimum of fuss, despite the outrageous activity which going on there. David’s CUP was denied, and the article points out that Mayor Frank Jones voted in favor of granting the CUP. The article does mention that he was the last to cast his vote, but it’s worth noting that he was apparently aware that Ruttenberg was talking about a lawsuit at the time, and that his vote conveniently allows him to claim that he wasn’t a party to any malfeasance. It was a meaningless gesture that really doesn’t demonstrate any degree of goodwill or fairness, especially in light of the unequal treatment which David Ruttenberg’s CUP application was given. If the entire process is unfair, which certainly seem to be the case to me, minor details about the outcome like this are pretty much irrelevant.
Another interesting story about that CUP decision is that the Ruttenberg’s tried to provide the councilmembers with information from the ABC hearing, but the information was confiscated. The Ruttenberg’s mailed copies of the closing arguments from the ABC hearing to all of the councilmembers so they would have a more complete picture of what had happened previously. City Attorney Dean Crowhurst learned about this and instructed the councilmembers not to read the information, and even went so far as to go to each councilmember’s house and personally retrieve each packet. In the article Crowhurst is quoted as saying “The governing body looked at the body of evidence in front of them and decided to deny his conditional use permit.”, which would have more accurately been stated as “the governing body looked at some of the body of evidence” subject to his opinion of what they should be allowed to look at. Perhaps there was some ex parte procedural issue with citizens actually providing councilmembers with information prior to a council decision, but for the life of me I can’t imagine what it would be. Why hide relevant information from the city council?
When the city council considered the CUP for Rack & Roll, it is my understanding that the city code did not allow the CUP to be denied as long as Ruttenberg agreed to all of the conditions the council placed on it. If those conditions weren’t enough for the council, they did have the opportunity to establish different conditions for the permit, but failed to identify any additional conditions that they would require. Instead, they denied the CUP in what appears to be a violation of the city code. The issue of that denial is in active litigation right now, and is scheduled for trial in March.
I’m pleased that the Manassas Journal-Messenger has picked up the story and will allow Alex Granados to show how much work he’s done on this. The first article tees up the question of there being two entirely different stories about what has transpired, both of which cannot possibly be true. Now readers will have the opportunity to decide which version of events is more believable. For those readers which might be wondering if this is just some bizarre conspiracy theory developed by Dave Ruttenberg, I’ll leave you with something to ponder for a day until the next installment is published: if this is just some crank story, why would it take a three part article to discuss it? Would a newspaper spend three days talking about a story that’s entirely bogus?
UPDATE: Alex’s article actually points out that Frank Jones was the last to vote on the matter, and I should have caught that. That section of the post has been updated.
The opinions expressed here are solely the views of the author, and not representative of the position of any organization, political party, doughnut shop, knitting guild, or waste recycling facility, but may be correctly attributed to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. If anything in the above article has offended you, please click here to receive an immediate apology.
You can follow the discussion through the Comments feed.
5 Comments
Views: 930
Loading ...
[…] in Prince William County Politics, Corruption. trackback No one (at least locally) has been covering the saga of the City of Manassas Park and Dave Ruttenberg’s Rack & Roll better than Greg L. at […]
VV makes a great point. The C&D letter IS moot. Darn, I thought we might get to once again read the BVBL Battle Cry of “Bite Me!”
Here’s an update on the coverage: tomorrow is going to focus in the police activity and the ABC permit, and Saturday we’re going to see a lot of stuff about Colonial Downs. Today was pretty much a teaser. Have some faith that Alex is going to put all that effort he invested into researching this to good use.
It seems to me that the MJM story is slanted, in favor of MP. Did anyone else get that impression? Maybe I feel that way because I have read BVBL and know how much of this story is missing..
Also, one has to wonder why it took MP seven years to let Dave R. know he was suppose to get his CUP renewed every year.
Thank god for Google Alerts.
I have one on Manassas, where I grew up and then left 25 years ago with another Manassas boy to a place far far away from the rednecks of Virginia.
Glad we don’t live there anymore. Visits are bad enough.
Thank you BVBL for your website and all the juicy news from Manassas.
Seems like the more things change, the more they stay the same!
I eagerly look forward to the blog and the MJM everyday.
ya know, when we lived there, we called it “Prince Nazi County”
instead of William and it seems like it is still the same.
I plan on going into the Rack & Roll, not to be confused with the Wok & Roll, next month when we come into town for a visit again, even if it is just to be on the cam outside and see what I can see inside, maybe even shoot some pool.
Keep up the good work BVBL, I appreciate it very much & look forward to more.
~~Question authority~~
and remember: Police acting on their own, can NOT BE TRUSTED.
1974 Graduate of Gar-Field High School & 1975 Graduate of Osbourn.