Pinch Penny Pub

Drove by Pinch Penny Pub this evening and the parking lot was pretty full. Guess a lot of locals are stopping by one more time before the place shutters tomorrow night. By my count, that leaves fourbars in downtown Carbondale, four if you count Tres Hombres:  Cellar, PK's, Hangar 9 and Trax.

Pinch Penny Pub

Just a reminder that this is the last weekend EVER to visit Pinch Penny Pub. The 40+ year old bar shutters its doors at the end of the month. There does not appear any New Year's Eve event scheduled at the bar to say "Farewell" though.

Pinch Penny Pub closing

The owner of Pinch Penny Pub announced that, assuming the sale goes through, Pinch Penny Pub and the Copper Dragon will close at the end of the year. The bar has been quietly up for sale for the past 2 and a half years, rather like Pagliai's Pizza and Thai Taste but a couple of former SIUC students appear to have made a serious offer.

From the article, it sounds as if the new owners do not plan to continue operating the bar but rather will demolish it for more housing (which Carbondale really does not need) or a hotel, which would help attracting more large multi-day events to town, as well as providing close to campus lodging for parents visiting SIUC students.

Of course, this means that one of the other bars in town will likely start hosting the annual Solar Bear and Polar Bear events as 'twould be a pity to let revenue generators like them die.

Polar Bear

This year's Polar Bear event appeared fairly quiet, though there was a heavy police presence. I drove out by the area on East Grad about 10 p.m. Saturday night and the sidewalks and lots were full. Winston's Bagels appeared doing a steady business as did Don Taco and I counted 3 police vehicles passing the area within as many minutes.  I did hear a report of pepper grenades requested alter in the evening, but whether they were used or not, I don't know. The crime map for the weekend does show a number of events in the area.

Compared to that area, the Strip was dead, in spite of the assorted "Puck Finch" events. Fat patties, Stix and Pags were all pretty empty, though I did see a small crowd at Sidetracks. It will be interesting to find out how booked the hotels were this year.

Pinch Penny Moving?

Though the agenda has not been posted as of Monday night., one of the items scheduled for the Liquor Advisory Board this Thursday night is a request to transfer of the liquor license for Pinch Penny Liquors to a new location, 701 East Grand, the location of the closed Saluki Bookstore.  It would appear that, instead of 710 Bookstore taking over the space during the redevelopment of their current location, Pinch Penny has decided to abandon its long time location and move across the street, making it a bit more difficult for those drinking at Pinch Penny Pub to pick up a 12 pack or a craft brew before hitting the road home.

The new location certainly given them a lot more space to expand their selection, which, according to the reviews I have read, tops other stores in the area in terms of regional beers and wines. Parking should improve as well as the store won't have to share parking spaces with the other businesses in the current complex.

Polar Bear

Drove past Pinch Penny Pub and through downtown Carbondale about 10 p.m. Saturday night. Crowds were huge in the Pinch Penny area as well as the water and heat stations set up nearby. While I didn't see any police vehicles in the area, I did notice an ambulance parked across the street from Pinch and I understand from a couple of hospital employees that the ERs were packed with lots of drunks and at least one overdose.

Delivery restaurants apparently were quite busy as well, as I heard that one place had over $1000 just in voids on Saturday, caused by canceled orders or delivery people not being able to find the address.  Downtown C'dale on Saturday night looked fairly busy, with more people out walking/staggering on S. Illinois than I have seen in awhile and the first line waiting to get into Stix since I don't remember when.  No idea what the occupancy rate was on hotel rooms or if they filled as they reportedly did last year.

I expect the council will discuss Polar Bear and similar events at its meeting tomorrow night, especially since a discussion regarding reducing liquor license caps and ending the Halloween closure of three bars in downtown are on the agenda.  Mayor Fritzler is not really thrilled about events such as Polar Bear and word is he may push for an end to it and similar alcohol fueled activities.

Polar Bear

The 12th annual Polar Bear event takes place tomorrow at Pinch Penny Pub and the Copper Dragon.  Meanwhile, a number of "Puck Finch" events take place over the weekend at other nearby bars.

Carbondale police have announced increased patrols focusing on alcohol this weekend (likely parking across the street from Pinch Penny Pub as they did last year and Mayor Fritzler  and Chancellor Cheng have both sent out letters about the events (here and here).  Last year, Polar Bear attracted more notice than normal after a drunken 19 year old (it was never clear if he had attended one of the events) attempted to jump on a passing train and slipped off, losing a leg.

Liquor Violations

Even with Polar Bear, Pinch Penny Pub managed to come in behind Stix in the number of liquor violations reported by C'dale police for January 1 through March 31. Pinch Penny only had 41, while Stix racked up 58.  Cali's was the only other liquor establishment to break into double digits, with 21. Every other place serving or selling alcohol in C'dale reported fewer than 10 violations, with most reporting 0.

Liquor Violations

The Police Department report on liquor violations for the 1st and 2nd quarters makes for interesting reading, if you are into that sort of thing.  A surprising number of bars and liquor stores had no violations, including Pick's Liquors, ABC Liquors, The Cellar, Hangar 9, Royal Plaza, Tres Hombres, Warehouse Liquor Mart, Westroads Liquor, Old Town Liquors, Pinch Penny Liquors, Sports Blast and P. K.s. 

Champ among violators has got to be Stix, with 79 during the 6 month period, over half of which were for underage possession. Next, and a relative piker with only 47 violations, again mostly for underage possession, was Pinch Penny Pub with 47.  Cali's only had a dozen, Copper Dragon 5, Sidetracks 8 and Gatsby's 2, only 2.

If you scroll further down the report,  you will find the fire department's report (everyone clear except Appleby's, which got a write up for emergency lights needing repair)  and Building and Neighborhood services inspection report.  One thing interesting on that one was the notation of a wedding chapel apparently under construction at Sports Blast.

Arrest Statistics for Polar Bear

The Southern has the arrest figures for last week's event. Based on the estimated attendance of 6000 I heard, the figures indicate a fairly well behaved crowd, with a fraction over 2% of the attendees receiving citations and an equivalent percentage arrested. The seven bars in the area received a total of 105 citations, averaging 15 per bar, with Pinch Penny receiving the most, 40.

The city put an extra 8 officers on duty over the weekend.  From what I have heard, in several cases officers parked just outside Pinch Penny, waiting for attendees to stagger out, then arrested them.

With nearly every hotel room in town filled by the event, Polar Bear generated a lot of tax revenue for the city.  However it flies in the face of SIUC's desire to eliminate the "party school" image it has worked towards for the last dozen years (thought the university appears much less concerned about that in recent years as fall break has moved away from Halloween weekend).

More on Polar Bear and Accident

According to an email I received from a reader, Pinch Penny's security at this year's Polar Bear had increased from last year, with private security people walking the parking lot at both Pinch's and Cali's.  Pinch also reduced the total number of people allowed in the beer garden from last year, allowing new people to enter only when an equal number exited.

It also appears there is a hole in the security fence at almost the exact spot where the man was struck by the train Saturday and that people have used it frequently as a short cut to get back to the Towers, even dragging pallets to the spot to make it possible to cross the muddy ditch.

For those not familiar with Carbondale, the accident location is some distance away from any of the bars participating in the Polar Bear activities.  He would have had to travel several blocks after leaving wherever he was drinking in order to get there.

Polar Bear

In case you hadn't noticed, this is Polar Bear weekend in Carbondale which brings several thousand people into C'dale.  Headquartered at Pinch Penny Pub, it's basically an excuse for lots of drinking, much of it outside.  Hopefully, there will be lots of taxi service or designated drivers around.

Update:  The police are out in force writing tickets for open containers and underage consumption of alcohol and there has been one accident early this morning. According to Mayor Fritzler's Facebook page, a 19 year old man with a blood alcohol content of .273 tried to jump on a passing freight train and failed, causing him to at least lose a leg.

I have to wonder if the bars involved, up to four now in the eleventh year of the event, spend any extra money on security.  They fact that they didn't, choosing to rely solely on the police to help control the event, is one of the reasons Halloween went out of control.  Large quantities of alcohol and large numbers of students never end well.

Update 2:  It appears the original post on the Carbondale for Joel Fritzler Facebook page has been deleted.