There’s more to former Kansas City mayor Kay Barnes red ink machine than meets the eye…
Not only will the Power & Light District cost the city and taxpayers millions in subsidies to pay off bonds issued to pay for it, further financial hits are being taken by other parts of the city and businesses. Take the Plaza and Westport nightclubs and restaurant that have closed, are poised to or have suffered sharp business drop offs since P&L’s opening.
Tax paying – as opposed to taxpayer subsidized – businesses.
It all hit home Sunday as former Westport businessman Jeff Glazer gazed into the window of Kelly’s Westport Inn.
“I was looking in Kelly’s window when Kyle Kelly came by and we were reminiscing about Westport,” Glazer says. “I haden’t seen him in four or five years and I said, ‘How are things going in Westport?’ And he said, ‘It’s been very slowe since the Power & Light District opened.”
Kyfan
Wow, what a dumb jerk Kyle is for saying all that. Isn’t he suppose to be promoting Westport, not putting it down. By wrong crowd, he means blacks, I take it. Yeah sad to say its true. I loved Westport, but its too scrary after mid night anymore. I hate the police blockade too. To hard to park, just a hassle. Don’t blame Glazer for moving.
bschloz
Barnes and Wayne C. say…don’t worry P&L will come back to projections in next 10 years…just had a little bump in the road…LOL…I’m sure it’ll come back when GE and Citigroup are trading in the 40’s again.
MGarr
Hi Jeff, sure miss you guys in Westport. I hate to admitt it you are right, its not like when you and Dares was there. I still go to Kellys and Harry’s sometimes. I am out of Westport by ten, due to as Kyle said “wrong crowd.” He’s right Kelly’s is about half as busy as it was when Stanfords was there. I think you fed off each other. Shocked Kyle said these things.
KCMO staffer
If the city had given Westport l0% of what they have wasted downtown on Power and Light, you would all still be there and doing well. Barnes was an idiot.
Jerry Arnoldy
Talk about saying dumbshit, my gosh Kyle.
KellysGuy
Hard to believe Kyle would say those things. I love kellys
Whitney Tucker
Read the front page of KC Star. Power and Light is l5 million in debt. We pay their bills? For what? Jeff your father was right NO NEW AREANA and no to Power and Light. They have failed. Nobody goes downtown except on Saturday night or for an event. Nobody lives there, NOBODY. I had five friends move to condos since 2006. Only one still there, cause she can’t sell her place and she is willing to lose 50,000 on it. My friend Terri says its still not safe after dark, nowhere to park and no shops, gas stations or grocery. She hates it. And lots of crime you never hear about. Her was broken into twice.
Westport was better when it rocked in the 80’s and 90’s. I for one am sad to hear that Kellys is not doing well, very sad.
DowntownDavy
Hearne you and Glazer are two of a kind. Give Power and Light a chance gentleman. Let it grow. Whitney I live downtown and I enjoy it very much. Its true that we have need of the things you mention, but Rome wasn’t built in a couple years.
As for Westport, come on as Kyle said its about gone, a loser. Doesn’t matter why, I agree with Kelly. I hung out there in the 80’s but no longer. Is it dead on weekends? My God. I guess so if the owner says that. Boy the times have changed.
if only…
I’m guessing Kyle didn’t think he was “on the record” here.
pointing fingers
wait a second. I’m still trying to figure out what he said that was soo bad? The quote “No, all we get down here is the bad crowd.”
Why is that so terrible. Maybe it means black crowd. Maybe it means the people who get too drunk and start trouble. That isn’t just blacks. Here in KC everybody just HAS to ASSUME any comment is race directed.
GET A LIFE
Eric
Whitney, I live downtown too. We’ve had a grocery store here for over a year (Costentino’s) there are several gas stations and I see WAY less crime than I did the 7 years I lived in Midtown. There is plenty of parking and I have lots of friends that live downtown too and love it.
Ross
First of all, Hearne – way to go on landing an interview with a Glazer. I don’t know how you do it.
Second – “And that the Power & Light District had pretty much wiped Westport out
jojo
Hey dumb fucks…the strong survive.
Was in westport this afternoon. Talked with
one of kellys bartender and he said business
was good. The deck is filled on weekends…
the place still makes money…but what retail
business is doing the same they did last year
or the year before.
Westport died because it did nothing to keep
its customers. Had they done things differently
like positioning it as more than just a bar
area they may have survived. Had they kept out
the bad crowd it may have survived.
Theres tremendous competition out there for
bars and restaurants right now and people are
staying at home drinking good wine at $15
a bottle…beers for $1.00 instead of paying
the $5-$6 for drinks that places like kellys
charge.
And theres less people drinking because of
dui enforcement.
Westport could have been a winner even with
the power and light. They lost their focus.
Johnny dares went broke and so did these
magnificent “business people”….
They didnt survive because they didnt adapt…
change their operations…they became dinosaurs…but those places are stilol making
money.
I never hear a promotion or ad for these
places. Never hear of them promoting their
businesses.
They are bad business people . We found that
out when competition came in. When they had
no competition in joco or up north they
had crowxd.
All these owners are complete marketing
losers. Don’t change…you die. Its that
simple.
Now lets see what happens to the comedy
kings when their competitor opens again up
north and brings in some huge shows again…
they either change or die…its that simple.
And lets stop thinking about the good old
days…they are gone.
You can’t drive a car looking in the rear
view mirror.
Jim Fitzpatrick
What Glazer got from Kyle was, in court parlance, “hearsay” testimony.
“Objection, your honor!”
“Sustained, counsel.”
Somebody with the vast kcconfidential staff (come on, now, Hearne) should have talked to Kyle and gotten “first-hand” testimony.
Kyle’s probably pulling his hair out. He’s a first-rate businessman and all-around good guy; doesn’t deserve that kind of treatment…Case dismissed.
Rainbow Man
I am not really in the mood to listen to Kyle Kelly wine.. He has made hellajack for years down there. JoJo hit the nail square. The Westport bar scene is over. Every neighborhood has a sports bar and a brew pub. And the people who actually have money will go to places like those. The ones who have no money… you know… the ones who have ravaged their bodies with tats and javelins through their noses, they will have their little artsy joints.
I met my wife at Stanford’s 20 years ago.
But now people are scared to death of DUIs and getting kidnapped. Those ridiculous dance clubs attracted a lot of loiterers. On line matchmaking is not for losers anymore. Legit people use it.
Kansas City is a heavily segregated city. This issue goes back a loooong way. Yes, race does play a part in all of this as well.
Kia Zi
OK guys, JOJO usually has something pretty intellectual to say but many of the people who go to Kellys say that they were druged and date raped in the basement there. The Westport has become a haven for abusive weirdos, it’s probably why no one but fucked people hang out there. Those pictures that hang on the walls at Kellys, that guy that painted those pictures family say that he wasn’t a drinking man and probably wouldn’t aprove. That family spoke out against the owner of Kellys on a documentry of their grandfather. KC should tell the truth, even if it’s not so pretty. America looks up to us as one of the last standing revelutionary towns breathing. We owe them some kind of glory, some kind of truth to what it is like to get up in the morning and fight for every single thing we have.
Kia Zi
Is it me or is Fitzpatrick just some kind of a babbling fool that stumbles around in the darkness just waiting for some fool to stick the big staminga up his his ass!
hearne
Dear Kia,
No offense, but it’s you
jweinberg
In case you guys didn’t read closely it was Jeff Glazer, not Craig Glazer Hearne spoke to.
Kia Zi
Hearne, if you knew half as much as you pretend to know people might actually give a shit about what you have to babble about.
Jim Fitzpatrick
Kia — Have you considered anger management classes?
Kia Zi
Why Jim, is that where you spend all your extra time?
Point
Here’s the deal that so many of you retards don’t understand – WE (assuming those of you reading this actually pay taxes, which is probably a big assumption) are subsidizing businesses that a. siphen profits out of Kansas City and b. are putting local business owners (who’s money stays here in KC) out of business. And the worst thing is that Cor-fucks don’t want to play on a level playing field – they have lobbiest in Jefferson City that try and tilt the field in their favor. They don’t want other places to have 3:00 licenses, don’t want other “festival” style locations, and they simply bent the city over and WE are left holding the bag. And how did they all simply just get 3:00 a.m. licenses to begin with? I’m all for revitalization of the urban core, but this whole thing downtown stinks. Wake up!
Rainbow Man
Not cool with the word “retard.”