Doc Howard’s Lounge is losing its lease, but the rest of the situation is unclear

UPDATED – Doc Howard’s Lounge is losing its Old Town lease at 252 N. Mosley.

That much is clear, but not much else is.

When initially contacted about the situation on March 5, owner Bryan Shapiro said he no longer owns the business and referred calls to the new owner, which he said is his brother, Keith, who couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Early afternoon on March 6, building owner Dave Burk said the Doc Howard’s lease is expiring at the end of the month and that he chose not to allow the business to renew it.

The bar has been a lightning rod for critics due to violence and other issues in and around it.

It sounds like there’s a chance the business is reopening elsewhere in Old Town, but Bryan Shapiro said he didn’t have any information about it.

Burk said he’s still considering what to do with the 26,000 square feet Doc Howard’s is leaving.

“Well, I can’t tell you for sure what I’m going to do with it. I’ve got some ideas,” he said. “I just know what I’m not going to do with it.”

That means, Burk says, the space “isn’t going to be a large bar with a lot of capacity.”

He says it’s possible the area could be divided.

“It’s something I’m looking at.”

Keith Shapiro called later to say he’s not the owner of the business. He wouldn’t say what his role is.

“I can’t tell you anything other than we have other plans for this building with Dave Burk,” Keith Shapiro said. “We’re reconcepting and doing something different with this whole building itself.”

He further said, “There is nothing happening with the business. We are doing other things.”

In a follow-up call with Bryan Shapiro, he said he forgot that he is the owner of the business.

“I’m just mentally retarded,” he said. “We got a lot going on.”

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You don’t say

“I need him to narrow that down. Maybe cut a couple of more hours.”

– Mayor Carl Brewer on the success of downtown development, which he says causes Wichita Downtown Development Corp. president Jeff Fluhr to get only about five hours of sleep most nights

Costco has a top pick for Wichita property

WICHITA — Costco has identified a top pick for property to open its first store in Wichita, but no one with the cost-cutting competitor to Sam’s Club is talking yet.

Sources says the Issaquah, Wash.-based Costco is interested in the northeast corner of Kellogg and Webb Road, which is Hawker Beechcraft property.

“We do not have any information or comments to provide at this time,” Hawker spokeswoman Nicole Alexander said in an e-mail.

Hawker’s bankruptcy doesn’t appearing to be hurting a potential Costco deal, although it sounds like it may be slowing things.

In April, Have You Heard? reported that Costco was once again seriously eyeing Wichita – as it had several years ago before a deal fell apart.

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Mayor Carl Brewer to sell barbecue sauces

WICHITA — Before he was known as a politician, Mayor Carl Brewer was known for his barbecue.

He and his wife, Cathy, have entered barbecue competitions since the 1990s and have been perfecting their sauces since then. Now, they’re almost ready to start selling them.

“We have some businesses that have agreed to sell them,” Brewer says. He says they’re businesses he buys barbecue supplies from.

“I don’t think they’re ready for me to say who they are yet.”

One is the Spice Merchant, where the Brewers will be kicking off sales with some barbecue samples on Sept. 22.

There are three sauces the Brewers will sell under the Brewer’s Best label. There’s a mild sauce, a sweet one and a hot sauce.

“I like the mild,” the mayor says. He says it’s sweet and tangy. “All these different flavors will capture you as you’re eating it.”

As the Brewers traveled the country for competitions, they learned the differences between northern and southern sauces.

“We just kept going back and forth, asking people, ‘What is it you like about it? What is it you don’t like about it?’” Carl Brewer says.

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City of Wichita produces a video in response to Jimmy Kimmel’s Wichitawesome spoof of the city

UPDATED — Take that, Jimmy Kimmel.

The city of Wichita has produced an official response to a recent skit on Kimmel’s show that spoofs the city as a “Wichitawesome” place for spring break.

The video itself isn’t so official, though. Instead, it takes off on a spring break theme where a cardboard cutout Jimmy Kimmel gets drunk off a beer bong at an Old Town bar, vomits by the Arkansas River and gets some handsy treatment from a TSA agent at the airport.

“It went right there to the edge, but it does have natural attention, and individuals are looking at it,” Mayor Carl Brewer says.

He says staff in the city manager’s office, including spokeswoman Lauragail Locke, produced the video. Brewer first saw it Tuesday. By this morning, it had 3,000 views.

Brewer says if he and City Council members had produced the video, “we’d probably have been a lot more conservative than that, but then if we had done it, we’d have a lot less than 3,000 hits.”

Locke says she hears the video went over well at “Jimmy Kimmel Live!

“So I think we were on the mark,” she says. “Our goal was to produce a video that would appeal to his late night talk show television audience in the hopes of getting on national TV. … We just want to draw more attention to our city and show that we are a fun place, and we have a lot to offer.” Locke says the main point was to invite Kimmel here.

She adds, referring to the city’s cable network, “It was definitely not meant for a City7 audience.”

Locke says she’s not sure how much the video cost, but she says money spent was mainly for the cutout that a company produced and a sound effect that was used in the video. It was shot with city staff and equipment.

The mayor’s response was to call Kimmel field producer Sarah Robe, a native Wichitan, and invite the talk show host to town. That’s when he says he heard that “many of the staff there thought Wichita was a fictitious city.”

“She had to educate them and tell them no, whoever did it did their homework, and it was a real city.”

Robe tells Have You Heard? that staffers do in fact know of Wichita, but they didn’t realize that places in the video, such as Scotch & Sirloin, are real.

“That’s why it’s funny, too, and why it resonates because it’s a town that everyone’s heard of,” she says.

Writer Jonathan Bines is responsible for the original Wichitawesome video spoofing Wichita as a great spring break destination.

“Whenever a comedy writer thinks about the top anything, they immediately try to think of what the bottom might be,” he says. “It’s nothing against Wichita.”

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You don’t say

“For the record, Ms. Miller does not have cooties.”

Wichita City Council member Pete Meitzner, joking about the vacant seats between himself and Janet Miller, who is acting mayor while Mayor Carl Brewer and Vice Mayor Lavonta Williams are out of the country on an economic development trip

Coleman Co. eliminates positions; how many is unclear

UPDATED — The Coleman Co. is doing more than moving 25 top executives to the Denver area.

When the company last week announced that it’s moving its headquarters — though that’s not how it puts it — it only mentioned that the top executives would be affected.

Employees report, though, that some workers are losing their jobs.

Spokesman Paul Baltzer confirms that.

“There have been a minimal number of positions that have been consolidated or become redundant, so we made the difficult but necessary decision to eliminate those positions,” Baltzer says.

He won’t discuss the number of people who have been or will be affected. Nor will he characterize what he considers a “minimal number.”

“What we are saying is the vast majority of the 800 positions will remain in Wichita.”

Mayor Carl Brewer spoke with Coleman CEO Robert Marcovitch last week. He says Marcovitch didn’t mention anything about employees losing jobs.

“Well, I’m surprised, and I’m going to just start doing some checking,” Brewer says.

He says he’d like to “see if we can get them to define to us . . . what those minimal numbers — or whatever terms they want to use — what type of jobs those are or how many it’s affecting.”

Brewer says city officials are remaining in contact with Coleman over the issue of jobs.

“We’re still working on this, and we have been ever since the announcement.”

Coleman CEO: ‘Coleman’s headquarters is in the United States of America’

WICHITA — Robert Marcovitch, the new president and CEO of the Coleman Co., doesn’t characterize the relocation of 25 key executives from Wichita to the Denver area as moving the company’s headquarters.

“Well, I think Coleman’s headquarters is in the United States of America if you ask me. I think on the global scale.”

That’s not how Wichitans are taking the news, though.

At a 3 p.m. news conference, city leaders expressed surprise and dismay at the move.

“I’m not happy,” Mayor Carl Brewer said. “I’m not happy any time we lose jobs in Wichita.”

Coleman notified the city this morning around the same time it told employees of the news.

“I had a nice conversation with the mayor,” Marcovitch said. “Of course, I think it’s very appropriate that he be made aware of it.”

In the brief conversation, Marcovitch said, “I didn’t talk about headquarters, and I know some people have characterized it that way.”

He said, “We’re moving a number of offices and decentralizing some of our offices to Colorado.”

That includes sales, marketing and creative services such as graphic design work. It also includes financial support.

However, accounting, technology and human resources will remain in Wichita.

The majority of Coleman’s 800 Wichita workers won’t be affected.

Coleman has more than 1,000 workers in Kansas out of about 3,000 worldwide.

Coleman, which was founded in Wichita in 1901, has manufacturing, distribution, marketing and sales operations in 20 countries.

In an initial release to The Eagle today, Coleman said the company also is investing in its Wichita and New Braunfels, Texas, facilities with a multimillion dollar capital initiative.

That won’t be in the form of additions or expansions, though.

“Really, it’s along the lines of product development,” Marcovitch said.

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Pixius to move headquarters to Second and St. Francis

WICHITA — Pixius is planning to move its headquarters to the northwest corner of Second and St. Francis.

That’s where Mayor Carl Brewer currently has his re-election headquarters.

Pixius, a wireless broadband service provider with more than 7,000 customers in Kansas and Missouri, currently is on East Central near Hydraulic.

The deal for the new space, which has more than 14,000 square feet, isn’t done yet.

No one is talking officially yet, but if the deal goes as expected, Pixius should move in by the fourth quarter along with affiliated companies Scotland Group, an insurance agency, and Sinclair Masonry.

Scotland Group and Sinclair Masonry would be placeholders of sorts, meaning they’d use space there until Pixius grows and needs more room.

The plan is to remodel the building and add a mezzanine, which would increase the building’s square footage.

Look for more information on the project in coming weeks.

You don’t say

“It’s gotten to the point I’ve almost memorized their phone number.”

— Mayor Carl Brewer on staying in touch with the governor’s office on the Hawker Beechcraft situation