Dumoulin's decision to fight pays off

By SCOTT SMITH
Tribune staff writer

October 10, 2008 10:46 pm

— Dan Dumoulin II isn’t saying how much he spent to keep his southside strip club in business, but the high-powered Indianapolis law firm Baker & Daniels doesn’t work cheap.
On the other hand, those trying to close Dumoulin’s Ultimate Place 2B club had Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter’s office — and the state’s taxpayers — handling their legal claim.
Sept. 30, the Indiana Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in Dumoulin’s favor, in what could signal the end of the three-year legal battle.
The attorney general’s office has until Oct. 30 to decide whether or not to appeal the case to the Indiana Supreme Court.
Mark Hurt, the local attorney who performed legal work for the remonstrance, mostly on a pro bono basis, doesn’t think the AG’s office will pursue the matter further.
Neither does the Indiana Alcohol & Tobacco Commission chairman.
That would be just fine with Dumoulin, who said he’s just trying to rebuild his business.
“It should have never started to begin with,” Dumoulin said. “It just shows you some people think they’re above the law, when the law was on our side to begin with.
“They just wanted to find loopholes, find reasons to put me out of business, just because they didn’t like me, or I didn’t support certain people or certain politics.”
Hurt said he was simply disappointed with the appeals court ruling, which upheld an earlier trial court ruling.
“After three days of hearings [before the Indiana Alcohol & Tobacco Commission] in Indianapolis, we felt there was ample evidence to prove the [Dumoulin] family had perpetuated some deceit,” Hurt said.
“And there was deceit in how they converted a family diner into a strip club.”
That’s not how the appeals court or Special Judge Rosemary Higgins Burke saw the case, however.
The judges disagreed on every material point with earlier rulings by the Howard County Alcoholic Beverage Board and the Alcohol & Tobacco Commission.
Friday, ATC chairman Dave Heath said his agency is disinclined to push the issue further.
“I think we’re done fighting this thing,” Heath said.
“It is clear from the record that the remonstrators’ concern and the ATC’s determination that [Dumoulin II] lacks good moral character and is not held in high esteem in his community were ultimately based upon the fact that [Dumoulin II] converted Ultimate Place into an adult business establishment,” the appeals court ruling states.
In other words, the simple fact the remonstrators don’t like strip clubs was no reason to withhold Dumoulin’s liquor license, the judges decided.
“It hindered everything, not only in my business and my life, but my parents got dragged into it, too,” Dumoulin said. “Everywhere you go, you’ve got to hear about it.”
Dumoulin said he decided to convert the business in 2005, because his parents wanted to retire, and the flat, concrete roof, built for basketball and volleyball games, had become a nightmare.
“The roof kept leaking when I [took ownership]. Water was running down the walls. I put a new roof system on it, but that got rid of the basketball and volleyball. And I had to do something to make a building that size profitable,” he said.
On top of that, Dumoulin said the bad publicity stemming from the 2001 remonstrance made it hard to convince new customers to give the place a try.
“We had a label from day one,” Dumoulin said.
Many of the 2001 remonstrators returned to the fray when rumors Dumoulin was converting the club surfaced in 2005.
The first round in the renewed battle against the Ultimate began when former Mayor Matt McKillip ordered Kokomo-Howard County Plan Commission director Glen Boise to file a zoning violation against the club.
The reason given was that the club was too close to a “church or other place of worship” — specifically a closet area at a nearby walk-in doctor’s office which had been converted into a reflection chapel.
Boise told McKillip the zoning violation “wouldn’t pass the smell test” with the public, but McKillip persisted.
“[McKillip] realized I was uncomfortable with it, but we didn’t have any other potential ways to address [the Ultimate] and he wanted to address it,” Boise said. “So we let it run its course.”
That course was the first of two court battles. The local zoning appeals board upheld the zoning violation, but Dumoulin appealed in court, and Tipton County Special Judge Thomas Lett ruled in his favor.
With that hope of shutting the Ultimate down gone, McKillip and the remonstrators turned to the Howard County Alcoholic Beverage Board.
The board members, after hearing testimony on the 2001 remonstrance against Dan Sr. and Joan Dumoulin, Dan II’s parents, decided Dan II did not possess the “moral character” needed to hold a liquor permit, and that the club’s services were not needed or wanted by the community.
That local ruling was upheld at the state level, after three days of testimony before the Indiana Alcohol & Tobacco Commission.
But again, Dumoulin II appealed in state court and has prevailed at the trial and appeals court level.
Hurt said “it would be great” if the attorney general’s office attempts to have the Indiana Supreme Court hear the case, but said it was doubtful.
He said the Supreme Court does not hear new evidence, and there are now two rulings which state there was no “substantial evidence” to deny Dumoulin II’s liquor license.
Dumoulin II said he’s not declaring victory yet, but he is trying to build back up the business he said he lost. For 10 months, while the liquor license controversy was winding through the courts, his liquor license was revoked. He kept the club open as a “juice bar,” which also allowed him to lower the minimum entrance age to 18.
“One guy had a vendetta against me, and it cost me a lot of money,” Dumoulin said. “They put me down for 10 months, and how long is it going to take to build it back up to what it was? It’s like starting over again.”

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