MainStrasse taverns gain clout
By Greg Paeth Post staff reporter
Depending on whom you talk to, last month's MainStrasse Village Association board election in Covington was either a slick coup d'etat by neighborhood bar owners or a pure example of democracy in action.
The board added two bar owners, re-elected a third and a shop owner supportive of them.
Those four - and two other bar owners and their allies on the board - will give the tavern-restaurant faction a clear-cut majority on the 15-member board, said MainStrasse insiders.
The shift in power could have an impact on two potentially divisive proposals still drifting through the neighborhood, where the rift between bar owners and residents has been simmering since the March 2000 Mardi Gras. That year, unseasonably warm weather attracted about 60,000 people, who overwhelmed security and the facilities, leaving behind damaged property and a monumental clean-up job.
One plan still on the table is Jerry Blaschke's proposal to transform the former Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau building at Sixth and Philadelphia into a small-batch brewery and restaurant
The plan is now winding through a city appeals process.
Another proposal, rejected by the board in June, calls for some MainStrasse streets to be closed on some weekends to allow bar hoppers to roam them unfettered. Former board president Jeff Snyder, who was ousted after serving for six years, said he was targeted because of opposition to plans pushed by Blaschke, owner of Cosmo's Grill Pub. Snyder and the board voted against Blaschke's plans for the brew pub.
"I think the bar owners want to get control in order to make MainStrasse the next entertainment district in the city," said Kim Maius, a store owner who lost her bid for a board seat.
Blaschke acknowledged that the board's rejection of his proposal prompted him to get more involved. "That fueled my fire to get on the board," he said.
Blaschke and Steve Locke, owner of Zazou Grill & Pub, became board members for the first time last month. Craig Johnson, one of the owners of the Cock & Bull English Pub, was re-elected along with John Simon, owner of the Gothic Edge shop.
Tom Fessler, another bar owner, and Amy Kummler, ex-owner of the Strasse Haus restaurant, also are on the board.
Bar owners insist they don't have any hidden agenda for the district.
City Commissioner Jerry Bamberger, executive director of the association, rejected the theory that bar owners are now running it.
Snyder, Shawn Master, another defeated board member, defeated board candidate Maius and incumbent board member Mary Jane Combs all contend that MainStrasse bylaws weren't followed in the election. Maius and Combs said several people they had never seen before showed up on the night of the meeting, paid their dues and then voted for the bar owners.
Snyder, Maius, Combs and Master also argue that Bamberger has stonewalled their requests for a membership list that would help them determine who was eligible to vote. "They are not giving out any information on the overall membership," said Combs.
Bamberger said that after consulting with two attorneys he decided not to release a membership roster because that would violate board members' privacy. He contends the election complied with association bylaws.