KC Confidential

Think of it as Area 51 meets Area Code 913…

It won’t be easy, but on the heels of running Leawood eatery Trezo Vino the past eight months, Colby and Megan Garrelts have reportedly lined up backers for a second run at turning around the Park Place eatery at 115th and Nall.

That after the Italian and Mediterranean restaurant bought the farm Saturday.

The Garrelts’ game plan: to reopen a new dining concept with the working title Native 34 in the same space.

The couple famously operates the acclaimed restaurant bluestem in Westport.

And while mum’s the word on the specifics, some diners were disappointed by the turnaround results at Trezo Vino. It’s one thing to run a tiny, in town, upscale operation, another to accomplish the same on a grand scale in the subburbs.

Trezo Vino was thought to be losing as much as $30,000 a month by some sources.

As for what the name "Native 34" might hold…

Best I can tell, there are two possibilities, the Roswell, New Mexico helicopter company Native 34 that serves the alien-happy desert southwest. And then, as pointed out by someone far smarter than me, the fact that Kansas was the 34th state to join the Union.

Naturally, I prefer the former.

Art Bell and Coast to Coast radio devotees no doubt recall the 1947 UFO incident at Roswell in which an extraterrestrial spacecraft complete with aliens aboard allegedly crashed sparking decades of conspiracy theories that live on to this day.

Not surprisingly, Native 34’s Facebook page is titled "The Screaming Alien."

I’m talking about the ‘copter company.

Guess we’ll see.

So much for the streets of Leawood being paved with gold…

Sources say, the ghost town known as the Trezo Vino closed quietly Saturday after business.

It’s no secret that the upscale Italian and Mediterranean eatery located in Leawood’s swishy Park Place near Leawood Town Center struggled from the get go.

Vaunted bluestem owners Colby and Megan Garrelts rode to the rescue last summer, but that wasn’t enough to save the troubled eatery.

Had Trezo Vino changed it’s name to better get the word out that two of KC’s top chefs were running the show, that might have helped.

However sans a name change and a cuisine one foodie described as "dumbed down bluestem" and a "morgue" vibe, the die was pretty much cast.

Colby Garrelts confirmed the closing but declined further comment other than to hint that there was more to the story that soon would come out.

Did you happen to catch that snowstorm earlier today?

In Prairie Village I pegged it at zip, but KSHB weather wonk Gary Lezak says the offical count at KCI was .3 inches.

So can we put away the ice scrapers and start searching for the hay fever meds?

"No, there’s still a chance we’ll get some more snow," Lezak cautions. "There’s a chance that something like this will happen again and there’s a chance of another cold rain or snow next week.

"The most amazing thing about the weather this year is all the tornado stuff. Today there was a major, major outbreak. There were five tornadoes today before noon. And while it was snowing here there was a tornado in Southeast Missouri."

I hate to piss off any Republicans, but might it possibly be climate change related?

"I think there’s some pretty big evidence that some of these (weather) events might be a symptom of global climate change," Lezak says. "It is warming up and that’s a fact."

Remember how smoking hot it got last July?

"I think the floods will be worse, the droughts will be worse, tornadoes will be stronger," Lezak says. "And hurricanes will be stronger, heat waves will be hotter. I mean, these kind of things are all happening. It’s a fact."

Incidentally, for the ninth year in a row weatherate.com  has ranked Lezak’s casts highest among local stations.

In the scheme of things, as of today, KC’s "snowfall" stands at 3.4 inches for the season.

The lowest ever being 4.5 inches.

"But we’ve had snow as late as the first half of April," Lezak says. And we’ve even had an accumulation into the first few days of May. In fact, the biggest snowfall ever was March 24th and 25th when we had 25 inches of snow and that was in 1912."

The ducks are lined up, but nobody’s home…

Just last week Robert McCain and Joseph Fulgenzi appeared poised to take a brief victory lap and step back into the limelight as the saviors of the jazz club known as Jardine’s.

The club has been closed since late last year after a staff and musician revolt against owner Beena Raja.

Then on New Year’s Eve eve the two dudes announced in the pages of the Pitch and on Fox 4 News they’d bought the club from Raja and were the proud new owners.

Just one problem; contrary to that reporting, McCain and Fulgenzi had not purchased Jardine’s.

Ever since though, they’ve been negotiating with Raja, Jardine’s founder Greg Halstead and landlord American Century to make their dream of reopening Jardine’s a reality. The latest being that they’d been approved to take over the lease once they’d settled with Raja and Halstead.

However at this stage of the game, it appears that all bets are now off!

"I don’t know what’s happening," says prospective club manager Pat Hanrahan. "Beena’s ready to sign the deal. The buyers said they wanted some revisions. Beena agreed…"

Then nothing.

Meanwhile, Raja defaulted Monday on the monthly payment owed Halstead re the purchase of the club several years back. McCain and Fulgenzi had made the January payment but opted not to make the February payment.

And both Halstead and Raja don’t understand why the buyers haven’t gone to Raja’s lawyer’s to complete the paperwork necessary to buy the club.

The latest: Halstead says American Century took possession of the club today, March 1st.

As for McCain and Fulgenzi, "What they’re doing is gently fluttering down to another planet," Halstead cracks. "They don’t return calls. They were supposed to close today but they haven’t. American Century has taken it over and changed the locks and it is now the property of American Century."

McCain did not return a call requesting comment or clarification.

And while a deal still might yet be struck, things appear to be getting dicey.

"Robert and Joseph have 20 investors and American Century checked ever fucking investor out," Halstead says, "ran background checks on them . That’s nuts."

In Halstead’s mind, the chances of saving Jardine’s grow slimmer by the day.

"I don’t think it’s fair to the people of Kansas City who love Jardine’s and what came out of that place," he says. "And I’m sad and I’m disappointed and I’m pissed off."

Halstead gives the dudes credit for trying but after more than two months…

"What it sounds like is they don’t have the money," Halstead says. "If it looks like a skunk and smells like a skunk, it must be a skunk."

What Halstead thinks might happen?

"At 5:20 p.m. on March the first, what do I think’s gonna happen?" he says. "I don’t think the deal’s gonna get done. I’m a pessimist and I think we’ve seen the last of Jardine’s. It’s disappointing. I’m hoping these guys can get something done, but I’m looking at the dark side…

"What my lawyer has told me is to close the books and go away, you’ve been (screwed)."

Talk about undignified deaths…

The final rape, pillaging and plundering of classical radio station KXTR will be complete sometime later today when what’s left of the beleaguered "Radio Bach" at 1660 AM goes business.

And while for fans of – not just classical music but the station’s ties to the local arts community – a certain sadness is in the air, there was little doubt this day would one day come. That after the station that signed on in 1953 on 96.5 FM was sold by civic leader Robert P. Ingram to Heritage Broadcasting in 1997.

"Today is our last day on the air," a voice on the station told listeners Wednesday..

And while most locals still think of the station as KXTR, since last spring it’s gone by the handle Radio Bach and the semi-secret call letters KUDL AM.

That’s becauase when parent company Entercom blew up KUDL last spring it needed a place to park KUDL’s legendary call letters so another station couldn’t get its mitts on them and pit them against what is now The Point.

"They knew KUDL’s call letters didn’t really fit with this Radio Bach thing but they didn’t want anybody else to get get them," says one radio insider. "But the funny thing is they have to give the new call letters on the air every hour on the hour, but they hide it. They say, Kansas City’s HD classical station in a normal voice and then they say KUDL really fast, almost in a whisper. They’ve been doing that since they switched over."

By giving away its music library to Kansas Public Radio in Lawrence and directing KXTR listeners to that station, Entercom hopes to deflect any furor over pulling the plug on the voice of Kansas City’s arts community.

For good reason.

The last time the company shafted local arts affcionados there was hell to pay.

Thousands of letters, emails and calls flooded Entercom’s offices, head dude Bob Zuroweste said at time.

Then it got ugly…

"Nobody wished me dead, but they wished me homeless and out on the streets at Christmas," Zuroweste told me then. " ‘And I hope your family suffers.’ It was pretty ugly."

Someone even threatened to egg Zuroweste’s car, he got flipped off at a local restaurant and a car salesman recognized his name and said, "You’re the guy who blew up KXTR!"

As I mentioned earlier, even Z’s wife was pissed.

"My wife finally took the ‘Keep Out’ sign off our bedroom door," he joked.

Zuroweste boasted that despite the AM signal at 1660 AM, when KXTR went HD it would sound even better.

However, Entercom is also blowing up Radio Bach’s HD signal.

One victim of the jettisoning of KC’s lone classical signal is Westport’s Tivoli Theater.

"We advertised a lot on KXTR, Radio Bach or whatever," says Tivoli main man Jerry Harrington who appeared on longtime host Patrick Neas farewell show earlier today. "It was one of the few places we could let people know what we were doing because we not only show movies, we show satellite broadcasts of ballet, opera and theater from around the world. So it’s not only kind of sad, it makes my life harder now."

Speaking of Neas, mum’s the word on his feelings about KXTR’s passing, owing to a severance package that forbids him from speaking out.

"He’s crushed," says a source. "He may get out of the business altogether now. He’s just so very discouraged at the whole industry now, but he took the money so he can’t talk."

The final indignity: On KXTR’s final night it switched over from classical to broadcast the KU Women’s Basketball team’s game against Oklahoma State. Fittingly, KU lost.

Consider the imminent killing of legendary classical radio station KXTR aka Radio Bach is a promise broken…

That’s because as former local Entercom boss Bob Zuroweste stated in the past, Entercom founder Joe Field "promised" to keep the classical music format on in Kansas City when he blew up the station on FM and moved it to 1660 AM where it resides today.

On death row.

As the guy at the helm when Entercom first assassinated classical music here, Zuroweste’s take on the company’s plans to drop classical on 1660 and replace it with – zzzzzzzzzzz – business news and Mike Shanin:

"Well, the company assassinated it, not me, " Zuroweste laughs. "I was just the henchman. I’m the one who had to do the act, but I agreed with it because classical music wasn’t appealing to advertisers and the demo that appealed to advertisers and there were not a lot of listeners. And that happened all over the country. So it was a good move to put The Buzz on and it was a success."

Zuroweste declined to revisit the subject, but several sources confirm it was Entercom boss and founder Joe Field – a classical violinist – who was credited at the time with saving classical radio in Kansas city by ordering that KXTR be moved to 1660 AM more than a dozen years ago.

Entercom blew up KXTR in the year 2000 and following months of controversy in when even KCPT Channel 19 considered picking up the format rolled it back out on 1660 AM.

It wasn’t much, but it was something, a promise from a corporate chiefain that classical music would always remain a part of the fabric of Kansas City radio.

"Because we wanted to have some exposure for classical music listeners," Zuroweste says. "It wasn’t because of the controversy, it was because we wanted to give the classical lsiteners something."

As for the pending move from classical to business on 1660, "I think it’s a good move," Zuroweste says. "Because listening to music on AM makes no sense."

Will the controversy arise again now that Entercom is breaking its word and taking classical off the air?

"Yeah, it was a controversy when KXTR had a 2 or 3 share back then," Zuroweste says. "But it’s been less than a share or half share for quite some time now. I mean, they lost 80 percent of their audience when they moved to AM."

And the breaking of Entercom’s promise?

"Shift happens," Zuroweste says. "Nothing is forever, all good things come to an end – that’s life. Besides, I’m not there anymore. At the time I was speaking for the company, but obviously it’s out of my hands now.

"I mean, if somebody wants to listen to classical music in Kansas City they can find it. There are so many other alternative forms, whether it’s on your computer, your phone."

Back when Zuroweste pulled the plug on KXTR FM, he confirmed that his wife was highly irrate about it.

"She didn’t kick me out of bed, she locked me out of the bedroom," he says. "But that was tongue in cheek. Hey, all of my kids learned to play classical piano – every one of them. And my son plays classical guitar. But classical music just isn’t commercially viable anymore."

It’s a brave new world in Westport…

As evidenced by the fact that it’s poised to put Kansas City on the map in the weirdest way imaginable; by officially designating April 20th as a holiday. But not just any holiday, mind you.

For the uninitiated, April 20 is Carmen Electra’s birthday (she’ll be 40), the day Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament, when Louis Pasteur completed his first pasteurization test and was opening day in 1912 for Fenway Park.

But forget about all that, that’s hardly what the party hearty types in Westport had in mind when they ran this baby up the flagpole.

Because in street parlance 420 Day is known as the day (and the time 4:20 p.m.) that a group of California teens agreed to meet to smoke pot. From that humble, if vague, 1971 origin the date has evolved into something of a counterculture holiday that people gather on to “celebrate and consume cannabis.”

By the way, according to ProCon.org “medical marijuana” is legal now in 16 states.

One of which is not Missouri.

Which brings us back to Westport’s tentative holiday.

“It’s not official yet because one of the the landlord’s not sure about it,” says Westport businessman Bill Nigro. “And because it does support an illegal activity.”

Then again, “The whole purpose of the event is to bring up the smoking issues Kansas City has,” Nigro says. “Not just with pot but with cigarettes as well. And as different states realize the economic impact (illegal pot) has on their states it becomes an easier decision to medicinalize marijuana.

“It eliminates black markets and helps keep people out of prison and it’s really no different than prohibition was in the 1920s. I think eventually almost every state will legalize it and tax it and it will pay for roads, education and all of the infrastructure needs cities and states have.”

Besides:

“What good is it doing as a black market now?” Nigro asks. “And it’s just like alcohol – not everybody drinks alcohol.”

Studies show that while 67 percent of adults drink alcohol, only 20 percent of white males – the highest category – get drunk at least once a month. Since smoking any amount of pot is akin to getting drunk, it stands to reason that relatively few people would smoke pot were it decriminalized, Nigro says.

So pot jokes aside, 420 Day in Westport well could happen, Nigro says. Here’s why.

“It brings out the realities of what’s going on in our world today. We’ve got so many big issues concerning smoking, whether it’s marijuana or tobacco. You know, one’s completely legal but you can’t smoke it inside. And the other is mostly smoked inside because it’s illegal. But it’s so prevalent now that that’s why all the other states have legalized it – so they can control it.

“And as a bar owner, I would much rather babysit a room full of people high than a room full of people drinking. The people that are high are quiet and peaceful and listening to music and talking quietly. Where the people drinking are loud and obnoxious.”

Stay tuned…