Flat Rock Tap Parking Issue

Heard a certain ignorant Chihuahua on the "Can't get a Sponsor to Save My Life" show on JOB barking and whining about resident-only parking signs being posted around Flat Rock Tap.

Immediately the imbecile launched into an attack on the Mayor claiming it was politically motivated since Mike Repay,brother of Dan Repay is the owner. The idiot even tried to claim that perhaps the spaces were being taken up by patrons of "Kenny May's". Apparently she is too stupid to realize that they have their own parking lot. Soon after, other right-wing mutts like "Walt from Munster" heard the dog whistle and called in to agree with her even though they don't live in Hammond and it was the first they heard of it.

I believe the issue is that Kim Poland R-4th was upset that these signs were erected without going through certain proper channels. What the uninformed host of that show failed to mention is that there were a significant number of residents living on Mulberry St by Flat Rock,who showed up at last night's council meeting and voiced their approval for these signs during public commentary. One by one these neighbors described what they had to put up with.....lack of parking spaces,people urinating,used condoms,etc. One resident who is handicapped spoke of how he would arrive home late at night only to find that someone had taken his handicapped only spot

Mayor Thomas McDermott was in attendance and spoke to the issue,informing everyone that the signs would be removed for the time being until things could get sorted out. I believe there is a meeting Thursday at 9AM that will address the process of getting the signs re-erected

From all accounts,Flat Rock Tap is a nice place,well run,and very successful. They just need to provide parking for their customers.

decent ba,r but parking is lousy. this issue only came to my attention within the last 24 hours. as was told to me several neighborhood residents were at the council meetng the other day complaining of the situation. it seems there is nowhere for the residents to park because the bar doesnt have enough parking to serve its customers.

now this to me seems like a logical place for the district council woman to say hey, hold on, we need to fix this so that everyone can be happy. i have resident voters. i have bar patrons that vote. lets find a happy middle ground.

nope. ya see mike repay, the dino helped poland, the rino, get elected 4 years ago. both by hosting fundraisers and lending what little electoral influence he has. and now with repay number 1 puppet disposed of in the primary. poland finds it more in her interest to back the bar owner then to help either the residents or the bar patrons.

put simply. the bar customers cannot be allowed to park in front of houses or in the alleys behind houses. its noisy and harrasment to the residents, and its a safety issue for the bar patrons.


the incidents at the old brothers II and mctaverns have showed us what happens when bar owners worry about thier wallets more then the neighborhoods or the safety of their patrons well being. in those cases the owners refused to take action regarding their problems and we all know what happenned there. what needs to happen is repay needs to find additional parking for his patrons. their are neighboring properties available should he want to take responsibility. heck theres probably even a way for the city to help him procure those properties. but it would require being responsible. something he claims he wants from the council body he sits on.

but hey in this role repay is a businessman so i guess we dont need to expect more out of him, even though he says hes willing to be a responsible politician as well. the real shame here is poland. forgoeing her responsiblity to everyone in the neighborhood, the patrons, and the city in exchange for the appreciation of a political benefactor. its everything her party leaders claim to be against. and here she is leading the way in showing the corrupt morality that has given lake county politicians a bad name.

the oracle wrote:

nope. ya see mike repay, the dino helped poland, the rino, get elected 4 years ago. both by hosting fundraisers and lending what little electoral influence he has. and now with repay number 1 puppet disposed of in the primary. poland finds it more in her interest to back the bar owner then to help either the residents or the bar patrons.

the real shame here is poland. forgoeing her responsiblity to everyone in the neighborhood, the patrons, and the city in exchange for the appreciation of a political benefactor. its everything her party leaders claim to be against. and here she is leading the way in showing the corrupt morality that has given lake county politicians a bad name.

IMO,The way Poland carried on Monday night looked to me that they've got her in their back pocket.

come to find out mr repay already owns at least a partial stake in the property adjacent to his bar on calumet avenue...i think its a mechanics shop or used car lot if memory serves. well mr repay there's your solution. all the parking your bar will ever need is available to you if you want it, without inconvieniancing your nieghbors. sure it might mean having to lose whatever rent ya get from the property currently. but isnt the safety of your patrons, and the well being of your community worth it?

nah probably just easier to support the republican again and let her stick it to the residents for you.

Which came first, the bar or the houses? If you're buying a house in a mixed zoning neighborhood, you would ask questions about that.

well the bar had been empty for several years before repay bought it 5 or 6 years ago.

I stopped there a couple of years ago. I wouldn't go back because there appears to be shady dealings going on there in a back room that they only let certain people into as well as people hanging around in cars outside that appear to be selling something. The place needs to be closed down.

Poland had a fund raiser at Flat Rock. She makes money from that bar. And it is a bad place that is rumored to be the place for drug sales.

Janiec is to blame.

Everytime I passed that bar on a Sunday,it was packed. I was under the impression that politicians hung out there. Fowler explained that one.

It still amazes me that commercial equipment takes up Kenney May's place, yet I never see cars parked there patronizing any of the "Precious", "Vanity", etc.

Actually, he advertises for those waitresses (dancers that don't dance), every month; seeking new dancers.Tell me about that business with no business.

NWITimes.com ran an article in the past year about undercovers going in there. If memory serves me correct, the undercovers asked them to dance. The girls said, "we don't dance, would you like this or that done?" Why they never followed up amazes me. I know someone who use to be a prostitute, who had connections with a Hammond cop that got his "urges" gradified by telling her where she could continue her business without other cops "knowing".

True? Who knows. She was dope addict, has felonies and warrants and resides on the very block I lived at for 10 years.

Question is...how does KENNY MAY's make enough money to even cover property taxes when you never see cars there? I assume money laundering occurs there after almost 8 years of observing a vacant lot. Except for big equipment parked there on various days.

Check the bathroom vanity or the top of the toilet...that's where people SNORT. The few that stick around long enough.

If I was a detective, I'd get the real names, find out where they "moved on up" and close the books on Kenny Mays. No way he has business that can support that bar.

Back to Flat Rock, sorry folks..public streets are public. When people take up MY SPACE, I simply park down the street from whatever destination I am arriving at. There's not a darn thing you can do about it. If you are a business person, if you want the business, you make sure you have the parking spots for your customers. Otherwise, I don't buy the crap about rubbers, etc. I find that crap in my alley. It's the punks in you neighborhood, duh!

Buy a tazer, register it and taze them. Problem solved. Quit depending on cops...it isn't worth the wait.

Robin Banks wrote:

Janiec is to blame.

Janiec is to me, the most stupid politician-wanna-be. He's running on his "almost defeated McDermott" theory.

Can't run a school board. How come you don't report names like you used to, TIGER? Afraid of admitting he is incompetent, but "anyone but McDermott!"?

He (I feel bad he is in a wheelchair), is delusional. If it was me, I would realize long ago reality. He can't toot his own horn even being on the school board.

But, I suppose since my kids went to Catholic Schools at great expense, I don't know anything about a public school.

Wrong..I knew Latin in the Catholic School, I learned the piano from a Nun, I learned discipline, respect, empathy, determination, not goals, but progress. If YOU tried, and won, good. If you lost, you lost nothing, but won "trying".

Then my dad got transferred to Chicago, settled us in PUBLIC SCHOOL, and talk about transformation - it was a total shock to not just me, but all my siblings.

I sacrificed to send my kids to Catholic school. 99% of the graduates from 8th grade fom St. Victor's went to college. 100% of the parents moved far away from the parish and area after that.

The best money spent was for Pre-K thru 8th grade. But, back then, my kids could read, write, memorize and knew adding/subtracting, before entering Pre-School at St. Victor's. I hated paying, but it paid off. I also credit their father, my mom, dad, and their other grandparents who were smart whips with a great sense of humor and wisdom.


One of the thousands of fond memorie I recall, is my son being less than 18 months old, sitting on his grampa's streched out body on the couch. He said, "Grampa, read me this book and don't leave out any parts, because I know the whole story!"

"Geech" was their favorite comic strip. His real first words were learned from Grampaw. Asked if he wanted to go into deeper water at 15 months old, he told me, "Hell, NO!"


Cursive writing was encouraged among all of us growing up. Homework came first. Being grounded meant 100 lines of "I will not...etc". (Until we got caught using carbon paper, it doubled. Using our friends to help write it out, tripled it.) I escaped through my bedroom window, slid down the downspout, landed on the A/C, and really never served time. Those siblings were so stupid....

Dad would show us how to write fancy, so "no others could duplicate our handwriting". (Did he forseee "FRAUD" decades ago?) Sure came in handy for me when I needed a note for being "absent".

I feel sorry for those that attended school board meetings for years, and never got anywhere.

Simon wrote:

Poland had a fund raiser at Flat Rock. She makes money from that bar. And it is a bad place that is rumored to be the place for drug sales.

NO SH&T! Yu just found that out? It isn't rumor. t occurs at almost all bars.

well it seems poland has back peddeled and now decided to side with the residents on the parking issue. better late then never i guess, but will the fact that her first inclination was to support her sugar daddy donor over her constituents come back to bite her later on? id bet on it.

oh wait i already have

I wish they would not renew the license to operate that place.

the oracle wrote:

well it seems poland has back peddeled and now decided to side with the residents on the parking issue. better late then never i guess, but will the fact that her first inclination was to support her sugar daddy donor over her constituents come back to bite her later on? id bet on it.

oh wait i already have

I'd bet on it too. It wasn't until after the residents showed up at the council meeting that she decided that it might be a good idea to meet with them.

I hope that the police are monitoring that place. Maybe they can send them packing like McTaverns.

If they go to the bathroom...that's the "old way of snortin' - if they use the "backroom or office", - that's the new way of doing it.

If they have windows all around (they do), it's to give the impression "everything can be open and seen". NOT.

How embarrassing Maybe next time Kim Poland will listen to the voters instead of her political connections...
City makes Mulberry near Flat Rock Tap resident-only parking

Quote :

HAMMOND | The City Council suspended its rules to allow for instant passage of a plan placing resident-only parking signs near Flat Rock Tap at Calumet Avenue and Mulberry Street.

The plan passed with no opposition.

Janet Venecz, a 4th District Democrat who ran for the council in the May primary, helped residents on Mulberry petition the city's Board of Works and Public Safety for resident-only parking signs for the block west of Flat Rock Tap at Calumet and Mulberry.

The bar legally can accommodate 190 customers but has parking spaces for only 14 vehicles, leaving patrons who arrive by car to search the surrounding area for a spot.

The city Street Department approved the change and posted six signs on the block in June. That angered Councilwoman Kim Poland, R-4th, who said Venecz went outside the established process for changing signs.

City ordinance requires district council members be notified of sign changes in their district.

Residents from the block spoke at a council meeting earlier this month and asked Poland to drop her opposition to the change.

The signs came down after the meeting, but Poland said she would poll residents and introduce an ordinance to change the signs if that's what the majority desired.

She later told the Board of Works she was fine with resident-only parking.

The bar will still have on-street parking from the alley east to Calumet.