Jackson Free Press

The first week of September was a turning point for the Left Field Sports Grill, says President Dan Keith. Katrina blasted through the streets of Jackson, and the grill suffered the same power outage as everybody else. When the lights came on again days later, however, the pub's troubles had only begun.

The city curfew that some city officials called "unenforceable" hurt Left Field when JPD threatened to jail customers in the bar after midnight.

"I've lost about $10,000 over the last week," Keith said. "I'm way beyond the gun right now."

Last Saturday, Keith, along with Smith-Wills Stadium General Manager Craig Brassfield, agreed to help the Red Cross by allowing them to set up a staging area for a relief effort in the middle of the stadium's parking lot.

Keith says the deal itself seemed painless enough. "They were supposed to come by 7 a.m. the next day, in the morning, and be done by 3 p.m. in the afternoon. I figured I could live not opening an hour earlier. We'd be more ready when we did open. But they showed up Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. and started telling everybody we were closed without telling us we were closed. That's where the problems began."

The police, according to Keith, were not permitting anyone into the parking lot so long as the Red Cross was there. Keith says an agreement to let the Red Cross occupy the east side of the parking lot went sour.

"They shut off the entire parking lot, and they were doing it at 10 at night and not telling me. I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting any business," he said.

The Monday night LSU game, always a big money maker, was stifled by armed members of the National Guard closing the parking lot late afternoon, followed by JPD vehicles cruising for squatters seeking to sleep the night and hop into early lines next morning. Tuesday and Thursday ran the same gauntlet. On Thursday, JPD would allow Left Field patrons entry, but only if the patrons took it upon themselves to explain their presence. Nobody bothered.

On Friday, a very desperate Keith met with Red Cross officials, JPD Asst. Chief Roy Sandefer and Gov. Haley Barbour to work out a deal, and left the meeting with high hopes.

By 6:30 that night, however, Keith says somebody with JPD phoned and informed him that unless the governor called off the state of emergency they had the right to shut his business down.

"Again, I have to bother Haley Barbour in the middle of dinner to call Mayor Frank Melton to tell the JPD to back off," Keith ranted. "This is ridiculous. By this time I have lost a solid week of great business because of the lack of communication in the JPD."

On Saturday the managers were able to broker another deal with Red Cross officials, but on Sunday, Keith arrived to a workplace with another roadblock sitting in front of it. He eventually convinced Red Cross and JPD to pull the roadblock further into the parking lot by 11:30 a.m., but Sunday football that day started at noon, with most customers preferring to get a table and food at 11 a.m.

"I lost my Sunday football crowd for the second week in a row," Keith shouted. "A few people fight the questions and come in, but the topic of conversation among my patrons is 'how can you run a bar behind a roadblock' my answer, of course, is 'you can run it into bankruptcy,' which is where I am heading if they don't stop."

Asst. Chief Roy Sandefer says the JPD acted at the request of the Red Cross officials. "They've had security issues at their service centers. People who discover they're not entitled to Red Cross benefits after waiting in line have had harsh verbal reactions," Sandefer said.

This Monday, the roadblocks were gone, but the crowd at Left Field was a skeleton of what it has been.

"We have about seven people here tonight, but usually we're crammed," explained Asst. General Manager Nick Barrack. "It'll take us probably about six weeks to get our momentum up again. We make great money usually, but last night we made about $80. We're really hurting, and we'll be hurting for some time."