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dksuddeth · 12-23-2006, 05:20 PM

Despite the 'bias' that some logically blinded people will see with what I'm about to post, this is how America will die....by a slow and inexorable oppression of peoples rights and freedoms.

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On June 2, 2004, police in the the Washington, D.C. exurb of Manassas Park, Virginia brought in a multi-jurisdictional narcotics task force and officers from several surrounding cities and counties to conduct a massive, 70-90 officer SWAT raid on the Rack n' Roll Billiards Club.

The raid took place on Ladies' Night, a Wednesday. Though the intent of the raid was to collect evidence of drug use and drug distribution by David Ruttenberg, the club's manager, it was conducted under the auspices of an Alcohol Beverage Control inspection. Because ABC is primarily a regulatory agency, the guise of an ABC inspection enabled the raid to take place without a search warrant.

So using 'regulatory' agencies, our branches will bypass any needs for constitutionally guaranteed protections.

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After hours of scouring the club, searching every nook and cranny, and generally turning the place upside down, the only charges to follow against Ruttenberg were for two bottles of beer a distributor had left for sampling that weren't clearly marked "SAMPLE." The bar would later be charged with a few other minor offenses: one incident of serving alcohol to a minor, and with several incidents of flashing from customers during Mardi Gras.

Police arrested three people at the club on drug charges, the principal reason for the raid (though, again, the ABC facade enabled them to carry it out without a warrant). One was an undercover officer, who was of course immediately released. The other two were, by all indications, working for the police (the Ruttenberg's brief contains the specifics as to why it's safe to assume the arrestees were informants, one paid, and one cooperating in exchange for leniency on other charges). The paid informant was released. According to the Ruttenbergs all of the drug deals police say took place at the club were engineered by the police themselves, either through the informants or through an undercover officer (this too is laid out in the brief).

So the initially stated reason for the raid happened to be 'sanctioned' by authorities, yet any probable cause for the raid could not be established, but thats fine because this was a 'regulatory' inspection.

Since this is obviously a biased site and cannot be taken worth a grain of salt, read on if you're slightly interested, here.

To continue the horrid experiences of this american citizen, continue below.

Since the initial raid, there has not been a SINGLE case presented against this person, or his club, for ANY drug violation whatsoever, yet has had his customers continually harrased by the local police force.

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Since that raid, Ruttenberg has essentially lost his bar. The state has revoked his liquor license, despite the fact that the charges against him were either paltry, or, with respect to the more serious charges (mostly, allowing drug deals to go on in his business), were instigated by the police, either by undercover officers or the informants who were working for them. They have chased away his customers with threats and harassment, spread vicious rumors about Mr. Ruttenberg around the town, and even scared off would-be buyers of the business.

Now, if police were TRULY interested in stopping any drug trade from this business, but were unable to produce any evidence, they should be THRILLED to have the owner sell his business and get the hell out of Manassas Park, right? not exactly.

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Mr. Ruttenberg's Section 1983 suit (This is supposedly a section that the american citizen can use to petition for redress of grievance, that pesky 1st amendment to the constitution) was dismissed yesterday by a federal judge. Apparently the judge granted a blanket motion to dismiss by all defendants named in the suit, all of whom cited the qualified immunity granted to public employees.

So much for THAT part of the 1st amendment.

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Mr. Ruttenberg's next step would be to appeal to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. Problem is, such an appeal would be costly. The guy has already had to sell his house, and without a liquor license, his bar loses money every day it's open. And the 4th Circuit isn't exactly known for its sympathy to claims of civil rights violations by police and public officials.

Got to love that court system that so many people LOVE, yet still fail to protect any real civil liberties.

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Since all of this flared up, David Ruttenberg has been arrested once, on a bogus charge of filing a false police report -- which itself is a pretty good story. The prosecutor declined to pursue the case.

Now, some more interesting factoids that are trying to eek out to the public.

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In the early 1990s, the Virginia state legislature gave approval for a limited number OTB satellite offices to be licensed around the state. The legislature also licensed a company called Colonial Downs to run the main track, as well as the satellite sites, where customers bet on races shown on video monitors. Within a few years, facilities had been approved in a few spots in southern and western parts of the state -- mostly in towns with light budgets, the kinds of places so hungry for business and tax revenue, they could look over the bad rap a wagering site sometimes gets.

But the gold mine was in Northern Virginia. That's where the state's money is. According to estimates published in the Washington Post, an OTB site in Northern Virginia would bring in an estimated $90 million in revenue, and around $550,000 local tax revenue. To put that into perspective, the other satellite spots combined bring in about $130 million.

Unfortunately for Colonial Downs, because Northern Virginia does have money, it can also afford to turn its nose up at OTB. And it has. Throughout the 1990s, jurisdiction after jurisdiction in NoVa turned down opportunities to host an OTB facility, either by referendum, or by a vote of the city or county council. By 1996, Manassas Park was one of the last towns anywhere near D.C. that had yet to vote down an OTB site.

OTB hit the ballot in Manassas Park in 1996. It lost, but by just 74 votes. Colonial Downs and the OTB proponents would be back for another shot, in eight years. But let's stick with 1996 for just a moment. At the time, Rack n' Roll owner David Ruttenberg started to wrap his brain around just how lucrative an OTB facility might be. Knowing the layout of the city, he figured his bar was sitting on land that would make an ideal location for a betting parlor.

Ruttenberg was right. The small, hour-glass shaped town of Manassas Park had been completely zoned out to new development on one side, and was filled with upper-income plots on the other -- the type of homeowners who wouldn't tolerate a gambling operation in the neighborhood. That left little else but Ruttenberg's own shopping center. What's more, the main highway into town ran right by the center. It wasn't just an ideal location. It was really was the only location.

So Ruttenberg got together with the other major tenant of the shopping center and drew up an offer, which they sent to Colonial Downs. If the OTB resolution passed, the memo said, Ruttenberg and the other tenant would sell their businesses, their cooperation on their leases, and their consult to Colonial Downs for $5.25 million. I've seen a copy of the offer. This is important to keep in mind. Because it shows that Colonial Downs -- and presumably by extension, the city of Manassas Park -- knew that Mr. Ruttenberg was savvy, and that it was going to take a lot of money to get him to hand over his business and his lease. If they wanted that space in 2004, the 1996 offer proved they'd either have to pay him a lot of money, or find a way to throw him out.

Here's the kicker: After the 1996 referendum failed, Ruttenberg's landlord grew wise to the notion that if OTB came to Manassas Park, the facility would very likely go right in his shopping center. And he'd likely profit handsomely from it. So going forward, he put a clause in his tenants' leases notifying them that if OTB ever came to Manassas Park, they would have to vacate, no questions asked.

But David Ruttenberg was on good terms with the landlord's property manager. Before he signed his next lease, he asked if he could have that clause removed. The property manager obliged. I've seen a copy of Ruttenberg's lease. And I've seen a copy of the lease signed by the largest tenant in the shopping center right now. The latter has the clause. Ruttenberg's lease doesn't.

Fast forward to 2004. After eight years, OTB is set to go back on the ballot in Manassas Park. Keep in mind that an incredible amount of money goes into these campaigns. According to the Washington Post, Colonial Downs spent about $20 per voter to push the OTB referendum through in 1996, including promises to offer every resident of the town a free bus ride to the Chesapeake OTB facility, free lunch, and a free $2 wager. They won public support from the city's mayor, police chief, and school board. They lost by an eyelash. So it's a safe bet (pardon the pun) that they were going to cover all of their bases after having eight years to plan for the next go-around.

Their prospects seemed good in 2004. The OTB facilities in Chesapeake, Richmond, Hampton, and Brunswick County were bringing in lots of money, and little of the crime or problem gamblers critics predicted. Public opinion was turning. The Virginia assembly was so impressed it authorized an increase in the number of licensed OTB parlors in the state to 10.

Let's go back to Mr. Ruttenberg and the Rack n' Roll pool hall. The raid on his bar came in June 2004, five months before the referendum was up for a vote. The harassment of Mr. Ruttenberg and the drug activity in his bar (much which he'd later have good evidence to suggest was instigated by undercover officers and paid police informants) had been going on for months. Rumors were flying all over town that Mr. Ruttenberg was a drug dealer, a child molester, a drug addict, a rapist, and that Rack n' Roll was an "open air drug market." Friends, customers, and others around town have told him -- and me -- that source of these rumors were often members of the Manassas Park Police Department.

That latter description-- an"open air drug market"-- is interesting. Virginia's Alcoholic Beverage Control can revoke a liquor license if it determines that a bar owner isn't doing enough to keep drugs out of his business. He needn't be engaged in any illegal activity himself to lose his license.

Here's the Washington Post in September 2004:

Colonial Downs, Virginia's only parimutuel horse-racing track, wants to bring an off-track betting parlor to Northern Virginia -- namely to the city of Manassas Park.

[...]

The site proposed by Colonial Downs for a betting parlor is in Manassas Park Shopping Center, at a busy intersection less than two miles from both Fairfax and Prince William counties.

That's the shopping center where Rack n' Roll is located.

And read this, also from the Washington Post in October 2004:

Colonial Downs, Virginia's only legal gambling company, is so confident it will win a proposal to allow off-tracking betting in Manassas Park that it has already leased space, gambling that Tuesday's vote will turn out better than the last one, in 1996, when voters rejected a betting parlor by 74 votes.
That space was in the Manassas Park Shopping Center.

The raid happened in June 2004. The ensuing harassment continued through the election. But things didn't work out as planned. The OTB referendum was again defeated, this time soundly, with 64 percent of the vote.

So why did the city continue its pursuit of David Ruttenberg's business? My guess is to save their asses. Ruttenberg and his father estimate that the raid and ensuing investigation cost taxpayers around $200,000. And the only thing they had to show for it was a couple of extremely lame alcohol violations.

The state ABC board has since revoked Rack n' Roll's alcohol license (the ruling by the ABC judge was a joke -- I'll get to that later, too). David Ruttenberg is running the bar at a loss, hoping he might find a buyer -- though the city seems to be blocking his efforts to sell, too. Seems to be a full-on, vindictive grudge at this point.

Last summer, the Virginia state police concluded an investigation into Ruttenberg's case. Ruttenberg called me one evening to tell me that the state police had found enough to bring the report to Prince William County commonwealth's attorney Paul Ebert, with the recommendation that he start an investigation. Ebert declined. Ruttenberg says the state police investigator expressed his regret at the Ebert's decision.

The state police investigator hasn't responded to several attempts I've made to contact him over the last few months. The state police also won't release the results of their investigation to the public, or to David Ruttenberg.

There's much more detail to all of this, which I'll fill in over the next several weeks. But here's the important part: None of this went into Ruttenberg's initial lawsuit against the city and several city officials, because they can't yet prove any of it. Because the judge in the case granted the city's motion to dismiss, Ruttenberg won't even get the benefit of discovery to delve into what role OTB may have played in the city's attempt to shut down his bar.

Attention to all of you, this is the system that YOU support, that YOU say is there to protect us all. This is nothing more than a front of local governments to establish their will upon ALL of us, to remove YOUR property rights and ability to do as YOU wish, with the supposed freedom that OUR forefathers fought to provide. GUN CONTROL is a huge part of that, because if you have no guns, you can't violently fight back. SOCIALISM is the act of the majority removing the minority rights to benefit ALL of society, as in taking away private property to add tax revenue to benefit the whole of society.....

It will eventually reach in to all of our lives....congratulations to all of the 'progressives' and those who feel that the individual can be forgotten about to benefit the good of society.

http://www.theagitator.com/archives/027338.php#027338