Dr. Ronald Ross has been heaving his clout and money for nearly two years in his battle against the Tiki Bar, which has wasted thousands of taxpayer dollars. Not to mention it’s costing the bar thousands every month to fight the frivolous battle.
The whacky doctor is running out of arguments as the issue moves at a snail’s pace through court rooms and board rooms.
The cards are slowing falling in Tiki’s favor, but Ross continues to push his house-of-cards arguments at every step of the game.
With three court cases pending, the end is nowhere in sight.
People of importance (you decide what that means) in Calvert are “polarized” on the issue. There are powerful people gunning against Tiki, and there are less powerful, but numerous and rational, that support Tiki Bar’s right to prosper.
It all comes down to the $64 Question: “Why would you move next to a bar that has been in operation for 20+ years, then try to shut the bar down?”
Yes, Tiki broke the rules two years ago when they added the “courtyard” in the rear for their annual opening day. But that’s it. The appropriate approval was not yet attained. But is has since.
The Board of Appeals has already decided that Tiki has a right to use that area, and the Planning Commission is right now considering the specifics of the preliminary site plan.
At this point, the liquor license has been approved and the bar is allowed to use that back area with an additional bar.
There is a Planning Commission meeting tonight at 7 p.m. to consider the preliminary site plan, a continuation of last month’s meeting, which dragged on for 5 hours while Ross hurled insignificant arguments that were repeatedly “objected” to by Tiki’s lawyers, and “sustained” by the board attorney David Yacovelle.
The hearing, for a simple site plan that already has the legal OK to be sought, was turned into a pseudo court hearing because Ross demanded.
The meeting was conducted as official court hearing, with each side choosing representation, and swearing-in, and submitting evidence that is marked and filed. Tiki’s legal team, V. Charles Donnelly and Regis Johnson, followed the rules of the courtroom and only spoke of issues relevant to the issue at hand.
Ross chose to represent himself and gave the board a steady blathering from the podium that was like a recurring nightmare for anyone following all the legal proceedings.
Ross insisted on showing scores of pictures on the overhead projection that had nothing to do with the issue at hand. Like pictures of people drinking on opening day, aerial shots of the property, pictures from his porch, pictures of weeds.
Tiki’s attorney’s objected to nearly every picture as being irrelevant, and Yacovelle, the hearing’s conductor, agreed to nearly every objection, but Ross was allowed to continue with his slideshow and other unsubstantiated “evidence”.
Ross claims to have decibel meter on his porch that points directly at the Tiki Bar.
Ross presented evidence from his sound meter, and shockingly the statistics show the decibel level at 2 a.m. on any given Sunday is almost as loud as an “F-18 going over head” (see attached videos for