Friday, March 4, 1 QSSH'he Battalion/Page 3
State and Local
(New nightclub comes
to College Station area
By Rene Moody
Reporter
jThe look and the sound of a met-
Ipolitan nightclub are coming to
-College Station, the owners of
a new club in the Skaggs
lopping center, said Tuesday.
|“Tnis club’s going to be like some-
ig you’d see in Houston or Dal-
” said Jerry McGill, one of the
jowners of Graffiti. It’s not Bryan-
'College Station; it’s a big city club.”
Z
signed Graffiti and is in the proc-
J of building it. Winston also owns
Intract Interiors, a general con-
cting company that built Rocco’s,
llleria Jewelers, the Laredo Bar
iffiH the Roxz nightclubs across the
te.
praffili is the 10th nightclub Con-
ct Interiors has built, Winston
Hit will be a lot of fun,” be said,
■herever you sit or stand inside, as
Hi look across, you will get a com-
Htely different look.”
^ Hhe nightclub, located where
Vlea/er’s, the Roxz, the Laredo Bar
j and R-and-R were previously, is ex-
j petted to open next week, Winston
§■!.
H'hey originally had planned to
Hn a club at 1804 Valley View
Hve, formally Ira’s Place, but
Hldn’t lease the parking lot. Col-
H Station city ordinances require
210 parking spaces to operate a
aig itclub in the 10,500 square foot
' ouilding. The site only has 23 spaces.
prlHVinston and McGill tried to lease
• JITking spaces from K mart, whose
larking lot is adjacent to the build-
ng, but the deal did not work out.
■We offered to repave and main-
H the area if they would lease or
Jive us permission to use the
jjjjHes,” Winston said. “If someone
eased the old Piggly Wiggly, there
Aid be more than enough space
flPthern, us, K mart and have about
•Spaces left over.
— “The city had OK’d it; all we
reeded was a letter from K mart.”
ijane Kee, a College Station zoning
‘"This club’s going to be like something you’d see in
Houston or Dallas ... it’s a big city club. ”
—Jerry McGill, part-owner of Graffiti
official, confirmed Winston’s expla
nation. She said there were enough
parking spaces to satisfy city ordi
nances for K mart and the place next
door to it.
“There was enough space left
over to allocate to the club,” Kee
said.
After K mart’s headquarters re
fused to lease them parking,
Winston and McGill leased the loca
tion in the Skagg’s shopping center
from Culpepper Properties.
“It won’t be the some old place it
was before,” Winston said. “The
only thing that’s in the same location
is the DJ booth. We’ve completely
gutted it and started over.
“Our music format is top 40, but
rock-n-roll top 40. That means no
Madonna basically, no Michael Jack-
son. We’ll play a little of the new
wave stuff, but the mainstream stuff.
“We’ll play songs that hit the
charts, not the stuff that you never
hear.
“We’ll play the music’s that’s new,
that’s out on the radio, that every
body likes.”
Graffiti also will highlight the best
songs from each year, starting with
today’s hits and going back to even
the Beetles and Buddy Holly,
Winston said.
He and McGill said they don’t ex
pect Graffiti to hurt the other clubs’
business. “It will probably help out
the other clubs in the long run,”
Winston said.
“We’ll get a lot of attention at
first,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll
shut anybody down, but they be able
to see the difference. Then after
awhile we’ll draw our own crowd.
There’s enough business here for
everyone.”
Don Ganter, the owner of the
Dixie Chicken, agreed that Graffiti
may help the other clubs. The com
petition will help keep the entertain
ment market healthy, he said.
“It’s a matter of taste and prefer
ence,” he said. “We need some diver
sification.”
Ganter is planning to open the
Old Campus Theater as a nightclub
in Northgate.
“It will be a rock-and-roll bar with
dancing,” he said. He’s not in a
hurry to open, but he could be ready
in two or three months, he said.
Gary Seaback, the owner of the
Edge, said he is not sure if Graffiti
will hurt his business.
There is definitely not enough
business in the Bryan-College Sta
tion area to support the number of
nightclubs and dance halls it has, he
said.
“You can’t predict anything,” he
said. “It could be a total failure. It
could be a total winner.”
Sisco Spence, manager of Sun
dance in the College Station Hilton,
agreed with Graffiti’s owners and
Ganter.
“Competition keeps people from
getting fat and lazy,” Spence said.
“I’m sure Graffiti will affect my busi
ness, but I think it will be in a posi
tive way.”
Spence said he does not anticipate
changing Sundance to compete with
Graffiti. He admitted that it took
several months to bring Sundance
out of a rut.
Winston and McGill said Graffiti
will change constantly.
“We’re going to be fun,” Winston
said. “We’re not going to let the
place become boring.
“There’ll be something new every
week.”
Black leaders push for end
to Dallas shooting inquiries
DALLAS (AP) — Police named
an alleged triggerman in the
third fatal shooting this year of a
Dallas officer as two black leaders
were in Washington, D.C, seeking
quick resolutions of federal inves
tigations into police shootings.
Dallas County Commissioner
John Wiley Price and Deputy
Mayor Pro Tern Diane Ragsdale
said after their meeting with offi
cials in the U.S. Department of
Justice that they are satisfied that
the police shootings of Etta Col
lins, 70, and David Horton, 81,
were being examined actively.
Police Chief Billy Prince, how
ever, said he thought the meeting
Wednesday in Washington was
inappropriate.
“I don’t know why we can’t ac
cept the grand jury system that
we have,” Prince said, referring
to investigations into the police
shootings by local grand juries,
which declined to issue indict
ments against the officers in
volved.
The meeting Wednesday be
tween Price, Ragsdale and top of
ficials in the Justice Department’s
Civil Rights Division was part of a
continuing controversy that has
dominated Dallas politics since
black leaders began raising ques
tions about shootings of blacks by
white police officers.
The issue resulted in the cre
ation of a strengthened citizens’
police review board and a series
of other police reforms, which
have drawn increasing fire in the
wake of three slayings of police
officers this year.
On Wednesday, police investi
gator John Wesy^halen said eye
witnesses identified Vincent Ed
ward Cooks as the man who
fatally shot Dallas officer Gary D.
McCarthy during a robbery at a
supermarket where he worked
part-time.
Westphalen also said that just
30 minutes before McCarthy was
shot Friday, a police sergeant
spotted Cooks and two other men
in a car parked across the street.
The sergeant provided crucial
information leading to the arrest
of all three men, he said.
The death of McCarthy and
two officers have helped spark re
sistance to police reforms sup
ported by Price, Ragsdale and
other Dallas leaders, and on
Wednesday those leading the
fight to abolish the police review
board revealed a change in tac
tics.
Dallas Police Association mem
bers, who also want to force the
city to hire more officers, said
they have opted to forego a refer
endum in favor of a charter-
amendment election, which has
easier requirements and allows
fewer city council options.
Members said they will seek to
force the change through an
amendment to the City Charter,
which requires petition signatures
from only 5 percent of registered
voters, or 20,000 signatures,
whichever is less.
Report: Inmate brutality won’t end
unless officials punish offenders
HUNTSVILLE (AP) — The
Texas Department of Corrections’
history of brutality against inmates is
likely to continue until prison offi
cials demonstrate they won’t tolerate
such behavior, a special monitor’s re
port on court-ordered prison re
forms concluded.
Special Master Vincent Nathan
acknowledges in his most recent re
port on the prison system’s compli
ance — filed with Houston’s U.S.
District Court — that the TDC has
made substantial improvements dur
ing the past two years in reducing
the number of incidents of inmate
abuse.
But he says there is no justifica
tion for leniency with guards who
use excessive force against inmates.
The special master’s monitoring
of the prison system resulted from a
landmark ruling by U.S. District
Judge William Wayne Justice, who
ordered massive prison reforms as a
result of a lawsuit filed by inmate
David Ruiz.
Nathan said prison monitor Gary
Kuiper’s report, which formed the
basis for his report to the court,
“demonstrates that TDC has not yet
succeeded in meeting its obligation
to administer adequate and effective
discipline in a prompt fashion
against all employees who use exces
sive or unnecessary force against
prisoners or who harass or retaliate
against prisoners for exercise of
their legal rights.
“The lengthy record in this case
on the issues makes it clear that ac
tion in this regard is needed ur
gently,” Nathan said.
Nathan, however, did not ask Jus
tice to order prison officials to re
spond in writing to the report, as
Nathan did in a January report on
inmate abuse at the Wynne Unit.
Charles Smith, assistant TDC di
rector for compliance, said officials
already have developed clearer poli
cies to address the problems identi
fied in the report. Those changes
were made in 1987, when a draft of
the report first was circulated among
parties involved in the prison law
suit.
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