Evanston, Illinois. Yes, it was originally the home of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and was dry until the 1970s. But a lot of stuff has changed since then. Or so I thought. :smack:
A downtown Evanston landlord wants to open a bar, a chain sports bar called the Tilted Kilt, where the waitresses wear a kilt (as you would expect) and rather abbreviated tops. It’s a Hooters knock-off that would be absolutely unremarkable in a white-bread sprawling McMansion suburb, much less an socioeconomically and racially diverse city of urban density right next to Chicago with a university in the middle of it. Should be unremarkable, but isn’t.
(Am I the only one who thinks that some of the phrasing in the petition is vaguely creepy, in the vein of preachers who incessantly wring their hands about the temptations of gay sex? The phrase “girl children” leaps out at me.)
So Evanston has plenty of bars, including one (the Keg) that I gather has a reputation for underage drinking and violence. This is a bog-standard sports bar, not a strip club or adult video store. Evanston has bathing beaches and public swimming pools where, as far as I know, bikinis are permitted. As far as businesses projecting a sexy if not exploitative image, there’s an American Apparel store in the block between the Davis Street (downtown Evanston) Metra and L stations. But this particular bar is one step too far?!
I have no dog in this fight, as I don’t live in Evanston. I do live in a suburb (Des Plaines) where the downtown retail market well and truly busted in the recent recession and where I doubt any significant number of residents would blink at opening a Tilted Kilt. While I’ve never been in a Tilted Kilt, I’ve walked past the one in downtown Chicago plenty of times and saw nothing unusual, certainly not the crowd of slavering predators standing out front that the opponents are seriously positing. :rolleyes: My reaction to all this is pure puzzlement.
I grew up in Evanston and have family and many friends there. I have no problem with this decision. There’s a Tilted Kilt near my office, and it’s about like Hooters, only with less class. It’s bad enough how many national chain stores have moved into downtown Evanston; the place has lost nearly all its original character. They don’t need the sleaze factor, too.
What’s so bad about national chains?! I certainly wouldn’t want a downtown with all chains and no local businesses, but IMHO “original character” doesn’t pay taxes or employ workers. If you’re in a town where seemingly half the downtown retail space is vacant, as in Des Plaines, the fact that a business is a national chain rather than a small business isn’t something to get sniffy about.
As to the sleaze factor, that horse is already out of the barn: it’s wearing a sheer blanket marked “American Apparel” and was last seen in Church Street by the Metra station.
:o That’s so they can discriminate on appearance and even be further protected from legal lawsuits. Sorry that fat chick doesn’t meet the requirement for the role we were casting.
I don’t like the way Evanston has changed over the past 20 years. Not every town has to be composed of identical strip malls; Evanston has gotten more and more so. They’ve ripped down lovely old buildings and replaced them with hideous high-rises. Apparently many Evanstonians feel the same way; I’ve been inundated with petitions, etc. re: Tilted Kilt, banning further high-rise development, etc. Yes, there are a few vacant storefronts downtown, but the place isn’t exactly a ghost town.
Apparently enough people are against this type of development that the Mayor has put the kibosh on Tilted Kilt. That’s democracy for you.
P.S. I don’t see American Apparel as being at all in the same league as Tilted Kilt. half-naked mannequins aren’t the same as half-naked people.
Since when does national chain = strip mall?! There are national chain stores in city and suburban downtowns on the first floor of buildings built to the sidewalk with no parking lot, adding to the lively foot traffic, and there are small locally-owned businesses in strip malls, set back from the road by an acre of parking.
I don’t like strip malls either, but because of the pedestrian-unfriendly pattern of the entire development rather than which stores are in them.
You’re going to get high-rise residences and offices in a town right across the border from Chicago served by an L line and a Metra line. :rolleyes: Evanston was never going to stay a sleepy college town.
No doubt, I’ve been to downtown Evanston to shop, dine, and see movies. If you look back at my posting, I expressly referred to Des Plaines.
The Tilted Kilt here has been the scene of several huge fights, stabbings, and several date rapes. And that was all within the first year of it opened.
No where else is town is as bad as the Tilted Kilt is here.
I never said they were equivalent. However, they both represent types of development that I am personally not fond of.
Evanston has been a college town connected by rail to a major city for over 100 years. It’s only been the past, oh, 20 or so that the types of development mentioned above have been such a huge issue.
I am making a comparison, as I don’t generally hang out in Des Plaines. I am in Evanston on a regular basis, however, and have been since my family moved there when I was a toddler in 1971. So I’m pretty well-placed to comment on its evolution.
The town I live in mightily resisted a Hooters going in on more than one occasion. The restaurant/nightclub in question underwent many changes in ownership, or at least in names. Under the last few names, it’s been closed down several times on account of violence and fighting. It’s now closed.
In the meantime, a barbecue place went under, and a Hooters, at long last, went in there. There has never, to my knowledge, been any trouble there.
(Probably just as well they waited – the former Barbecue joint had more floor area)
I don’t know anything about the Tilted Kilt, but, for all its reputation as a low-class joint, Hooters has been a better neighbor than the places they allowed in at first. And the atmosphere and the costumes aren’t even as risque as the place’s name.
There are two other Celtic-themed pubs within a couple of blocks of the proposed location, plus several other places that serve pub-type food. There’s no need for this joint.
But do they dress their cast in similarly scantily clad uniforms?
Does Evanston even have enough of a talent pool from which to pull from to make this place even worth going to over the other Celtic themed pubs in the area?
Seriously, if you’re gonna pit Evanston, pit them for the lack of 21-27 year old hot girls, not because the town council wouldn’t award this place a liquor license.
Uhhhh… there is a decently sized university a few blocks away. Speaking as a young male alum of NU, I’m guessing there might be a few potential patrons a Tilted Kilt would appeal to.
I certainly wouldn’t want a downtown with all chains and no local businesses, but IMHO “original character” doesn’t pay taxes or employ workers. If you’re in a town where seemingly half the downtown retail space is vacant, as in Des Plaines, the fact that a business is a national chain rather than a small business isn’t something to get sniffy about.