R’ Place gives an OK first impression. Some regulars buzz in the corner, telling stories about their day as they sip their drinks. There is a game on TV and the liquor cabinet is fairly stocked. On an early Thursday evening in March, it’s nice, but nothing exceptionally remarkable or out of the ordinary.
But R’ Place’s owner Rick Flowers has a problem.
The south side bar recently defended its alcohol license to the city’s Alcohol License Review Committee after violent incidents in recent months, including fights and gunfire. However, Flowers said he thinks threats to the bar’s existence are rooted in racism – not with any potential safety problems within the establishment.
Flowers is currently in the process of making his case to the committee, but in the meantime, he said his bar’s troubles with the city have driven away clientele and staff from one of the only “Afro-centric” establishments in Madison – a city that is trying to “strangle the life” out of him.
He said bars that cater to the black community are few and far between in Madison, and the lack could be detrimental to diversity. He added there are 26 black churches in the area, and there should be just as many bars.
“Madison can’t attract a young black teacher because nobody wants to live here. Black students from [the University of Wisconsin] get out of Madison,” Flowers said. “There’s nothing to do.”
Hip hop in Madison
Flowers’ bar has a regular older clientele that does not always gel with a younger crowd. Flowers argues young patrons might come to R’ Place when the venues they normally go to close down. Often those places are the ones that offer hip hop.
Even though the city’s hip hop offering is not big, the market exists for it.
“Quite honestly, live music entertainment … is lacking in the city. People would like more venues to listen to hip hop,” said Mark Woulf, the city’s Alcohol Policy Coordinator.
At the moment, UW acts as a relatively large hot spot for the hip hop scene. Danez Smith, a UW student and First Wave member, said the hip hop culture, even though it is small now, has grown since he got to campus in 2007.
“I think students would be surprised to see how much good hip hop is coming out of Madison right now. As people keep on making music, the local scene is going to continue to grow. I think it’s bigger than it used to be, and I just think it’s going to get bigger,” Smith said.
Phasing out the music
Charlie “Sleepy” Campbell is a Madison MC whose lyrics and poetry tend to veer from the mainstream hip hop most people are familiar with. He
has performed “all over the place,” and has had no problems at his shows, but he said not every artist is so lucky.
Hip hop, Campbell said, often gets equated with violence.
“I know some bars, ask them to play hip hop and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy. I don’t think it’s so much the music. It is a few individuals making bad choices and it gets translated to hip hop,” Campbell said.
Violent incidents have caused at least one city venue to phase hip hop out of their offered entertainment.
Frida’s Mexican Grill on State Street used to have Club Frida on weekends, which was open to the public after they were done with regular dinner service for the night. Friday was salsa night and Saturday was hip hop night.
Saturday nights were the times when Club Frida would get packed, manager Sam Lambert said.
There were several incidences of violence during the club nights that attracted the attention of the city, and officials instituted a plan for Frida’s to follow that amped up security measures, said Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4.
“There would always be some problem here in the morning,” Lambert said.
One Saturday night a fight broke out during Club Frida and, soon after, the nights were called off, Lambert said. Salsa night continued for awhile after hip hop night was disbanded, but soon that too went the way of hip hop night and Club Frida, which had been a part of the restaurant for years, is no more.
Verveer warned against equating the type of music with the incidents.
“I have always rejected the idea that it was the music that is causing the problems,” Verveer said.
The ‘Magic Words’
During his time on ALRC, Chair David Hart said some bar owners have felt pledging to not play hip hop are the “magic words” to get a liquor or entertainment license. Some are worried about hip hop’s “perceived constituencies,” added Hart, now the organizer of Urban Spoken Word, the longest running poetry slam for adults in Madison.
“I think there is some sort of perception that if you don’t offer hip hop that’s some sort of good thing for your patrons and business,” Woulf said. “It’s not about the type of music offered at your establishment. It’s how you manage your bar.”
Last year during an ALRC meeting in April, the owner of Whiskey River, then called the Pub, told ALRC their bar would have a few ground rules: no hip hop and a dress code, said Austin Buerosse, the a non-voting member of the ALRC appointed by the Associated Students of Madison.
One reason for this was because the owner did not want to attract “that crowd” to the bar. Buerosse said the comments made some members of the ALRC uncomfortable, and it seemed “ridiculous” to not want to attract “that kind of crowd.”
Whiskey River manager and co-owner Josh Hurley said the bar plays top 40 hits and sing-a-long songs and has a core list of groups that the bar flies in to play. Hip hop and hip hop artists are not part of Whiskey River’s regular musical line up.
“That’s not what we do here,” Hurley said in an interview with The Badger Herald. The music played there fits what Whiskey River is aiming to be – a “party bar,” according to Hurley.
The dress code has been a part of all of the owners’ bars, Hurley said, and wasn’t brought on by any incident. It has been part of the institution since its beginning and is a uniform policy used in each of the bars across the country that the owners of Whiskey River maintain and run.
Patrons are not allowed to wear over-sized shirts, plain white t-shirts, bandanas, long or over-sized jewelry or tilted hats. Other downtown bars, including Monday’s, Madison’s and Brothers, have similar dress codes.
‘Dress Smart’
ALRC has a list of best practices and recommendations for how bar owners should handle live performances, and one condition is that dress codes be strictly and uniformly enforced.
There are several bars in the city with dress codes, but when Plan B, a popular gay bar on the east side, instituted a dress code as part of their weekend club nights they were criticized because many thought the code was aimed at minority communities, and debate about the meaning of the dress code reverberated across Facebook.
Common complaints from commenters were about the ban on bandanas, jerseys and hats, which club owners have since backed off of, said Rico Sabatini, one of the co-owners of Plan B.
“This dress code will be equally enforced across all race, color or creed. It was equally created for the well being of all my patrons regardless of race, color or creed,” Corey Gresen, one of the owners of Plan B, said to patrons in a statement made on Facebook.
AJ Blanchet, a Madisonan who frequents Plan B , said the dress code being labeled as racist was extreme, especially since the code was created after some disruptive incidents.
Blanchet, who is a friend of the owners, said there was rowdiness at Plan B, and the owners wanted to curb it.
Now the owners of Plan B have backed off how strictly the dress code is enforced, saying patrons need to “dress smart,” Sabatini said. As the current code stands, no backpacks or athletic gear are allowed at their club nights.
Despite the change to politically correct and sensitive language, Andy Pham, Madison resident and another Plan B patron, said the initial dress code seemed short-sighted for a place that is supposed to be a haven for people who are part of one of the minority communities in the city.
