Michael’s owner forced to change plan

A PrideFest After Party, Sunday, Aug. 8, 5 p.m. at Michael’s Lounge (429 Main St., Kingston). Features contests and music by DJ Roy.

by Nikki M. Mascali
Weekender Editor

On an Edwardsville street dotted with boarded-up windows and empty storefronts, Michael Dennis had visions of reviving a once-thriving establishment, the vacant Vic-Mars restaurant.

Dennis, who has owned the successful Michael’s Lounge at 429 Main St. for the past four years, purchased the Vic-Mars building in January with the intent to open Michael’s Rainbow Inn after extensive renovations. The Rainbow Inn would have been a bed and breakfast that Dennis said would have been open for lunch and dinner and employ seven full-time people and four part-timers. The plan was for The Rainbow Inn, like Michael’s Lounge, to cater to a mostly gay clientele.

The inn, though, is something that won’t be coming to fruition: In early July, Edwardsville council unanimously denied Dennis’ request to transfer his liquor license from his establishment just down the street. Council stated that transferring the Michael’s Lounge’s license, which is on the Kingston side of Main Street, to 612-614 Main St. on the Edwardsville side, infringed on the ratio of one liquor license per 3,000 residents. Michael’s remains open.

Dennis, who has been a liquor licensee for 36 years, feels that the denial stemmed from something much deeper than just liquor laws.

“In this economy to actually go to the expense that I’ve gone through, with the economy (and) where I want to spend money and everyone’s closing, it just doesn’t make any sense,” Dennis said. “It’s absolutely (homophobia).”

Dennis recalled an incident that happened the day after he purchased the property. He pulled into the parking lot and noticed a man waiting in a parked truck.

“He yells out to me, ‘Are you the one who bought this place?’” Dennis said. The man went on to ask if Dennis owned another Main Street establishment, not referring to Michael’s.

“I said that I didn’t, and he insisted that I owned it,” Dennis recalled. “He looked like I was lying to him, and he said to me: ‘We couldn’t stop you from buying the place, but we sure as hell could stop you from opening the place.’”

Dennis said the man then introduced himself as an Edwardsville council member.

Edwardsville Mayor Bernard Dubaskas did not respond to phone messages seeking comment. The man Dennis named as the council member responded to an e-mail from the Weekender seeking a phone interview, but he did not call a reporter to do the interview as of Tuesday afternoon.

“Because of their attitude, there’s nothing I can do,” Dennis said. “If I try to buy one of (two open) Edwardsville licenses, they’ll say, ‘You can’t do that because there’s a playground right there’ — even though (Vic Mars) has been licensed as a bar since April 16, 1945.”

While Dennis’ attorney feels they can appeal and win, Dennis doesn’t plan on fighting.

“I have to think of my customers,” he said. “If you’re going somewhere where they don’t want you, they’ll sic the Edwardsville police on them.”

As for his newly purchased property, Dennis now plans to make it his home.

“If they would change their mind, I would open up tomorrow, but they’re not going to,” he said. “Who wants to spend this kind of money on Main Street when they’re tearing six buildings down next month and everything’s closed, boarded up or going out of business — that they would chase away money and (someone improving) a building that’s sitting there rotting doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Another reason Dennis purchased the Vic-Mars building is because he’s simply outgrown Michael’s current location.

“I’m going to buy another place — we need more room,” he said. “I’m open to Wilkes-Barre or the West Side. We outgrew here, and I want to get back in the food business.”

As he walked around inside his future home, Dennis pointed out a table he often sat at with his parents and brother to dine on Vic-Mars’ clams.

“As I walked through the dining room in March, I got a sense of deja vu and had tears in my eyes,” Dennis shared. “That very same table was still there, and as clear as day, I saw the four of us sitting there. And now I own this place — isn’t that something?”

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