Last nights SesquiJam was a good party, great weather, and we raised nearly one thousand dollars for our little towns
centerpiece: The David A Howe Library. Everyone enjoyed the fireworks show at dusk presented by the
Sesquicentennial Committee and it was a good prelude to the NoiseGods show. For the rest of the night we enjoyed alot
of loud music and everyone behaved for the most part. Big thanks to Peter Van Tyne of INK printing for letting us use
his power source for the band. The village police were again good enough to be on site for the party to provide security.
Another thank you to the Sesquicentennial committee for working with our event, great job on organizing our towns little
birthday party.
We only had two minor problems and since everyone likes drama I'll discuss this mischief further. The first problem was
underage drinking, facilitated by an overage boyfriend, complicated by lies. A young girl, who applied for a job a few
weeks ago, was allowed entry after her boyfriend promised the door guy that she was of age. Seeing that she wasn't 21
when applying for work and didn't have proper ID a red flag was raised by the Ranger. When I approached the liar she
was drinking a beer and told me her ID was in the car. After asking her to fetch that ID from the vehicle she turned to
her "boyfriend" and began crying, knowing she was in a pickle. Once she had run off I asked her boyfriend(who is a
good customer and not a bad guy) how she got in.
"I don't know, they just let her in" he said defiantly.
So I questioned whether or not he was aware of her age and why he would allow her to be drinking underage. His reply
was "I'll just leave then..." Good answer. We can add him to the list of jerks who are not allowed in the bar for 90 days
unless we receive a $50 check made out to Community Action Inc, the agency that manages the local rape crisis center.
The next jackass was just drunk and belligerent and after we shut him off for the third time and asked him to leave he got
angry. This is the same jerk who I watched throw a beer can into the Beef Haus cafe before entering the party. When I
confronted him he seemed surprised that I was going to require him to pick up his litter before coming in the party. I
should have known then we had a lemon in the bag. Anyway as I was asking him to leave the party he decided he'd
rather stay and fight me then leave. Being about ten yards from the police detail made changing his mind easy. So ya
little jerk you too must pay $50 to our charity or you must stay away until 11/11/07 which won't hurt our feelings any at all.
Discussing all this mischief and our method for deterring this kind of behavior needs some clarifying. Better Days is a
peace loving, laid back place where anyone can come to have a nice time, free of nob heads and nitwittery. We
absolutely don't allow any kind of strife, conflict, or personal violence. We don't allow our customers to put our business
at risk by fighting, acting unkind, or drinking underage. Those customers are better off frequenting establishments who
have a greater threshold for bullshit. With that said we have one absolute rule: If you strike someone in violence
then you are banned for the life of the business. Since we do operate a gin mill, and alcohol does make some
good people act squirrelly, we can't ban everyone who just acts up and causes a scene. Repeat offenders, the people
who seem to generate some level of mischief, are also not welcome. For the folks that just get drunk and have a bad
night we want to make sure they know they screwed up by giving them 90 days to grow up. For the first time offender
and generally good person we offer a second chance but require a gesture of good will. This gesture is to simply
donate $50 to our charity of choice, Community Action/Victim Services of Wellsville. By doing this it shows an effort to
make good on a bad decision and that we can trust the mischief won't be repeated without harsher punishment. It's not
to much to ask and I am sad to say that since we adopted this policy a few months ago we have had no donations made.
Out of the five jerks we have kicked out for the first time and provided a change to build karma and do something good
not one of them has donated and not one of them can return until their 90 days are up. This actually speaks volumes
about them and I wish I could post names so you all can tell them what dip shits they are. Ask me sometime....I'm happy
to talk about it but for legal reasons I can't name names online.