May 5, 2014, - 5:46 pm
Man Goes to Court to Name Bar What?!
I have two thoughts on this guy, Lawrence Blatterfein, who went to court over his First Amendment right to name his bar, “Buck Foston” and won a $1.5 million judgment:
1) Our soldiers died for this?!
2) I wonder if he tried to name his bar, “Uck Fislam” (or “Uck Fobama”), would the First Amendment still prevail in court?
A New Brunswick club owner hit a homerun Wednesday when a federal jury ruled against the city of New Brunswick in his suit over the naming of a new sports bar and awarded him more than $1.5 million. Lawrence Blatterfein, a dedicated Yankees fan who owns other clubs in New Brunswick, wanted to open a sports bar in New Brunswick in 2011 and name it Buck Foston’s Road House, which is a twist on the sports rivalry between the Yankee’s and the Boston Red Sox.
But New Brunswick officials opposed granting Blatterfein a liquor license for the new sports bar, which would have been at Routes 1 and 18 in the former Benningan’s Restaurant. “This has been a long, grueling and expensive process to have my day in court and tell my story, but I remained confident that one day a jury, presented with the same evidence I saw, would agree that my rights were unconstitutionally infringed” Blatterfein said.
Blatterfein blamed Mayor James Cahill, an avowed Boston Red Sox fan, who he said orchestrated the liquor license rejection by the city council because he believed the name was “vulgar,” and “didn’t belong in New Brunswick.”
A jury really took TWO WHOLE DAYS to deliberate this? Really?
The seven-person jury deliberated two days after a six-day trial in Trenton before U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson before reaching its verdict, according to Blatterfein’s attorney, Brett Joshpe of New York.
Your thoughts? Also, your ideas for a sports bar name? (My favorite name for a bar–any kind of bar–is “Beer Goggles Vision Institute.”)
Tags: Beer Goggles Vision Institute, Boston Red Sox, Buck Foston, Buck Foston's Road House, First Amendment, First Amendment rights, Free Speech, James Cahill, Judge Freda Wolfson, Lawrence Blatterfein, New Brunswick, New Brunswick Mayor James Cahill, New York Yankees, Uck Fislam, Uck Fobama, Yankees
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dangerous-minds/201404/why-isn-t-anyone-calling-terrorism
Mr. Man on May 5, 2014 at 6:16 pm