Ok, Ok, I know some of you are sick of me railing on about the Trinity. But I just can’t help myself — that deal was a turkey, and every time someone pulls the carcass out of the refrigerator to take another nibble, I get that nauseated feeling all over again.

The latest offender: The DMN story talking about the city’s big plans to rebuilt Riverfront Boulevard, which in its original incarnation was called Industrial Boulevard until some of the guys Downtown thought that calling it Riverfront might make the area more appealing to the developers who were going to build around the Trinity Tollway. Even with the Tollway now on the rocks financially, and perhaps permanently, and even with the city sucking budget wind last year, this year, next year and for another few years (see the recent county property value drops stories), somehow many of our city leaders still see the pressing need to spend what the News reports is $54.5 million rebuilding and dressing up Riverfront.

The area has a beautiful view of Downtown, no doubt, and that view is best seen from the front porch of the county jail, which is probably the area’s largest employer, tax generator and tourist attraction. Bail bonds shops naturally line the street, and more than a few downtrodden souls can be spotted walking to and fro in the vicinity, too. That’s why when the executive director of the Mixmaster Business Association (who knew there was a bustling business organization there?) says “it wouldn’t be a bad thing to add walking paths and landscaping along the jail, along with new shops and restaurants” sounds a little like a pipe dream to me, at least during most of our lifetimes.

There are a lot of places in our neighborhood that could use $54.5 million worth of “rebuilding and dressing up,” and I have to think that with the Tollway in question, maybe we should be considering spending this money on neighborhoods that actually already are neighborhoods; the return of tax dollars might be a little more accelerated that way. Of course, this won’t do much for all of the speculators who bought land along Riverfront when the politicos Downtown promised them a Tollway and all of the attendant economic benefits, but that’s just part of real estate development. You win some, you lose some, and the city doesn’t need to be bailing these guys out with more of our tax money.

And one more note, this one a little more ominous: Trinity kingpin and councilman Dave Neumann told the News that “I would hope that the property owners would be a part of this stakeholder process, looking at what Riverfront Boulevard could be vs. what it is now.”

Hmmm. If the property owners don’t want to be a “part” of this exciting process, is Neumann suggesting that the city might shoot first and ask questions later?

I told my wife it was a scam when she first told me that a local electricity provider would pay for a company to come to our home, audit our energy use, seal HVAC connections points throughout the house to prevent air loss, weatherstrip doors, install foam insulators behind light switches and plugs, and seal plumbing penetrations beneath the sinks — all at no cost to us. All of that sounded like a lot of work (work that needed to be done, but work nonetheless), so why would anyone do that for free?

But she scheduled the company, E3 Solutions, to stop by the house anyway after a friend’s recommendation, and after about three hours of testing and sealing and fixing, the friendly four-man crew packed up and left — all without asking for any money from us whatsoever.

There’s lots more, after the jump…

There are a couple of catches to the deal: Your house must have been built prior to 2002, and you must be in a "qualifying service delivery area" paying your electricity bill to TXU, Stream, Gexa, Green Mountain, Reliant or any of a host of others selling electric service in the Dallas area. And you must be able to give the company access to attic ducts — if all of your air ducts are in the floor, they can’t help. There are some other potential exclusions, too, but the company generally needs to stop by your house to check it out before making a decision — but it’s all done right there at the same time, no rescheduling or coming back later.

Again, I was skeptical, but no money changed hands, and a bunch of work that I could have done myself but probably never would have was completed. And now our air-handling system and most of the other obvious energy issues in the house should be leak-free. After experiencing the process first-hand, I don’t see a downside. The guy did mention that from time to time, if a house doesn’t have enough attic insulation, the company will offer to blow some in at a "heavily discounted" price, but there’s no obligation to do so (for what it’s worth, they didn’t try to sell us any insulation, either). And although the explanation was a little vague, it sounds like the "local electricity provider" has an annual budget to pay for this work, and when the budget’s gone, the gravy train is over.

If you’re interested, visit the Take A Load Off Texas website, send an email to mrnewnham80@yahoo.com or call 214-995-9581. When the crew finished at our house, they drove down the street to a neighbor’s (they couldn’t help there because of the home’s HVAC layout), then returned to work on our neighbor’s house next door.

A few months ago, we told you that West Coast burger icon In-N-Out was nosing around Dallas, looking for spots to locate its popular restaurants. At that time, we had confirmed non-confirmation from In-N-Out’s real estate people that they were looking around the area but nothing more specific than that. And we knew that the former Steak and Shake spot between Lovers and Caruth Haven on the east side of Central Expressway’s access road was one of the potential locations.

Now we’re hearing that In-N-Out has six locations "under contract" in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, making the rumors that much stronger.

More after the jump…

One of the sites under consideration is in Garland; we don’t have confirmation on the location of the others, but it’s fair to assume that they’re likely to be spread throughout the area.

And remember: Having sites "under contract" means only that the In-N-Out people are serious about opening restaurants here in Dallas; it doesn’t mean they’re coming here for sure. But the pieces are starting to fall into place: A beat-up commercial real estate market means great deals on prime locations, and a chain-type restaurant like In-N-Out is not going to open just one location in a new market (the cost to staff up would be prohibitive).

What we don’t have is a confirmation from In-N-Out, and I wouldn’t expect that until they’re ready to move forward — from a business perspective, it makes perfect sense to keep future location plans a secret until the company has snapped up all of the properties/locations it needs for its initial push into a new area; once the company announces they’re coming, property owners will jack up the prices when In-N-Out comes calling.

And this is completely a guess, but prime pieces of real estate generally can’t be tied up indefinitely, because having something "under contract" generally prevents it from being sold to anyone else; that means we’re probably looking at finding out something official from In-N-Out within three to six months if, indeed, we’ll be chowing down there later this year or early next year.

… more

In a city that never seems that interested in historical properties, this story is almost laughable except that it’s apparently true: The DMN is reporting that the biggest impediment to the Trinity Tollway may be a pending historical designation rather than funding. Read the story yourself to understand the logic, but it seems to boil down to the Army Corps of Engineers determining whether or not the historical contribution of the levees to Dallas is so great that the levees themselves shouldn’t be pierced with a highway. It’s hard to know what to think about this, but I had to laugh at the first comment made at the end of the DMN story by a reader: "Are you kidding me? Levees as a historical site? They are smoking crack at the Corps!!" It makes me wonder if the parking garage torn down to make way for the new convention center hotel should have been considered for historic designation, too …

The businesses on Tyler Street had their best sales numbers of all time this weekend during Oak Cliff Art Crawl’s Better Block installment, Jason Roberts tells us. And Matt Spillers of Eno’s says businesses in the Bishop Arts District were slammed all weekend — one of the top five weekends of the year for them, he says.

The Hispanic leaders who started the push to rename a Dallas street after Cesar Chavez must have breathed a sigh of relief when the short Downtown stretch of South Central Expressway was renamed last week. (Here at Back Talk, we’re written plenty about this topic; check out the links at the end of this post to read just a few of the stories.)

After all, these same leaders put a lot of time and energy into renaming first Industrial, then Ross and finally this tiny stretch of downtown. And the non-Hispanic leaders who backed this charade from the beginning also must be relieved, since they can take credit for "bringing the city together" with the renaming, and all of the associated nonsense that politicians claim when things go their way. But this entire process was an embarrassment for the city and for its leaders, if you ask me.

From the botched online vote to rename Industrial for Chavez, which was quickly negated because guys like Mayor Tom Leppert couldn’t stomach renaming the companion to the Trinity River Tollway after Chavez (it eventually became Riverfront) to the coarse political landgrab when these same people tossed Ross Avenue up for graps without even consulting the businesses that line the street, there are a lot of people Downtown who should be ashamed of their conduct.

If they were looking to pad their resumes, I guess it was a success. If they were looking to sincerely honor Chavez for his work on behalf of farm workers, renaming a dinky street virtually no one lives or works on after Chavez and calling that an "honor" is a sad joke.

The DMN headline says it all: "Overbuilt and under a cloud". And then there’s this quote from George Roddy with the Foreclosure Listing Service: "The hotel market here got overbuilt and overfinanced. There are just too many of them." Among the hotels posted for foreclosure recently are the Four Seasons Hotel & Resort in Las Colinas. Analysts say the trend is nationwide, and North Texas is no exception. But the numbers don’t appear to be affecting the city-financed convention center hotel market: A quick internet search shows that city governments in Columbus, Ohio, and Austin are working on their own projects.

Two interesting tidbits from those cities: Austin is looking to build a second city-funded convention center hotel, with proponents saying the first one has been such a success that a second hotel will make the city even more competitive for large conventions. The story in the Austin American Statesman pointed out, however, that the 1998 city study commissioned to justify the first hotel predicted the expansion would result in 332,600 room nights per year, while Austin instead has averaged 152,000 room nights per year.

The other note of interest comes from a Columbus, Ohio, story about that city’s convention center hotel construction. I’ll simply quote a sentence from the Other Paper’s story: "Also unlike Central Ohio, however, Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert decided the public taxpayers should have a say in whether to use tax revenues for the construction of a convention center hotel. His proposal was met with resistance, but passed by a narrow margin." I know it’s not Leppert’s fault that the paper mischaracterized his completely unwilling involvement in the hotel referendum, but again I have to hand it to the guy — even when he’s not trying, he’s a master of the media.

It’s almost impossible to overemphasize how momentous the upcoming wet-dry petition drive and referendum will be for Dallas, especially for those of us in dry neighborhoods. Most of Dallas has been dry since Prohibition ended, and a wet vote in November would change the social, cultural and economic fabric of the city. In this, it’s probably the largest wet-dry vote in state history, and is one of the largest in recent U.S. history.

That’s why we’ve already written about this here and here, and we’re going to write a lot more, on the blog and in the magazine. Ironically, I’ve been writing about wet-dry issues in the U.S. for more than a decade, for a variety of magazines and newspapers. This also means I know more about the subject than many of the people I have talked to who are involved in the petition drive and possible election, which is probably not a good thing. One misconception: If the referendum gets on the ballot and passes, only grocery stores will be allowed to sell beer and wine. Not so.

As you’ll see below, any retailer that can obtain a state-issued liquor license, whether convenience store or beer barn, will be allowed to sell beer and wine in the previously dry areas. That means there could be an unlimited number of retailers selling alochol in areas where there have not been beer and wine sales in 80 years. This, needless to say, might present zoning and planning issues, especialy in neighborhoods like Oak Cliff. Also a key part of the equation: Turnout in city elections is traditionally low in this part of town, and Oak Cliff runs the risk of having this issue decided for it by neighborhoods north of the Trinity where turnout is much higher, like Lakewood, Preston Hollow and Far North Dallas.

The petition organizers have timed their effort to get the issue on the November ballot. That means this will be a long, nasty and expensive nine months of charges and counter-charges. Hopefully our efforts, starting with this, will help explain what’s going on so you can make up your mind in a sensible fashion. After the jump, nine questions and answers about the petition drive and election:

Q: Wet? Dry? What is all this?

A: When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, each state was allowed to set up its own liquor laws (and, in, fact, each state has different laws). Texas’ system is called local option, where counties, cities, or justice of the peace precincts can vote to go wet, dry or moist. Wet means that all kinds of alcohol can be sold in restaurants and by retailers, while dry means all alcohol sales are illegal. Moist is in the middle — alcohol sales in dry areas in restaurants, for example, using a concept called private clubs. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission explains all this here.

Q: So what does this mean for Dallas?

A: Currently, much of Dallas — Oak Cliff and most of the city south of the Trinity River, Lake Highlands and Far North Dallas — is moist. Retail alcohol sales are illegal, but you can buy wine, beer or spirits in a restaurant that has a private club license. Dallas is wet in an area that roughly extends from I-30 to Walnut Hill/Northwest Highway and White Rock Lake to Irving.

Q: That’s stupid. We must have the most ridiculous laws in the country.

A: Actually, our liquor laws are no sillier than those in the rest of the United States. I wrote about this here. For example, New Yorkers can buy wine and beer in a liquor store, but can’t buy it in a grocery store (and they can’t buy gift bags for their booze in the liquor store, either). In Pennsylvania, there are no "liquor stores;" rather, you buy alcohol from state-owned retailers. Michigan regulates pricing.

Q: What would we be voting on?

A: The petition drive organizers want to get two issues on the ballot. First, to abolish the private club requirements, which are more restrictive than state law for restaurants in wet areas, and which restaurants in dry areas hate. Second, they want to allow retail wine and beer sales throughout Dallas.

Q: If nothing else, that should help with the city’s budget crisis, shouldn’t it? We’ll bring in more sales tax money.

A: Far North Dallas city councilman Ron Natinsky, who supports the petition drive, told me that he sees beer and wine sales as a way to spur economic growth, especially in the parts of Dallas south of the Trinity River. He said the studies he has seen say beer and wine sales could add $20 million annually to sales tax revenues, or about 10 percent of the what the city takes in now.

Q: Besides, I don’t like Unicards — and I really want to be able to buy a bottle of wine in the grocery store.

A: Which you’ll be able to do if the issue gets on the ballot and passes. You’ll also be able to buy that bottle of wine in a convenience store, gas station or any other retailer, like a beer barn and a wine- and beer-only liquor store, that qualifies for a state-issued liquor license.

Q: You’re kidding me, right? I thought I read that the referendum would permit wine and beer sales only in grocery stores.

A: Nope. State law (you can look it up in section 501.035 of the Texas Election Code) doesn’t allow for that sort of distinction. You can vote to go wet or you can vote to go dry. You can’t vote to allow retail sales in only certain kinds of stores.

Q: But the city can regulate that, right? After all, there must be thousands of convenience stores in Dallas.

A: More than 15,000 actually. And the city’s hands are tied, said attorney Andy Siegel, one of the state’s foremost authorities on liquor law (and no relation). He says state law trumps local law, so the city council can’t restrict retail sales to certain kinds of retailers. There are zoning tools available, Siegel says, but this is one of  those situations where the council has to do the zoning very carefully and even-handedly, or the city will end up in court losing yet another lawsuit.

Q: Are you trying to scare me?

A: Nope. In fact, I’m a wine writer in one of my other lives, and I personally think most dry laws are outdated and should be abolished. But if the retail issue gets on the ballot and passes, Dallas is going to face a situation that is unprecedented in its history. As a voter and a taxpayer, that’s something I want to know more about.

The Inland Port has always been a difficult concept to understand, what with the word "port" mentioned in the same sentence as "Dallas" pretty confusing in and of itself. But the 6,000-acre land purchase by the Allen Group in southern Dallas has always represented an opportunity to bring jobs to the area, which in turn would build home values and retail opportunities and all kinds of other good things that improving neighborhoods need. The landowner just filed for bankruptcy, though, and Jim Schutze winds through a bit of the history and talks about what might happen in his Dallas Observer column this week.