Cuppacafe

As I sit here in Houston, I'm pretty displaced with events in Dallas, but I do have a bit to share about today's big explosion in Dallas. First, a recap

At least three people were injured Wednesday by a massive series of explosions of acetylene tanks and 18-wheelers at a plant south of downtown Dallas. Huge balls of fire were shooting into the air and thick, black smoke filled the sky near the Trinity River and Interstate 35.

Dallas Fire-Rescue Lt. Joel Lavender said the fire started on an 18-wheeler on a loading dock on the back side of Southwest Industrial Gases complex in the 500 block of Industrial Boulevard. The fire then spread into the building, where tanks of oxygen tanks, helium and acetylene began blowing up.

Two people suffered burns and a third sustained a back injury. Lt. Lavender was unclear where they were when the injuries occurred. Another spokesman, Paul Lara, said he was told they were in stable condition..

Image Dallas Morning News

As you can see, the map puts it pretty close to the Hyatt hotel that hosted the RWA conference a couple of weeks back. However, as we were leaving Dallas, we went to visit a old friend of mine who owns a business there. The business is directly across the street from the site of today's massive explosion that caused the evacuation and shutdown of at least two major freeways. My friend, the owner, was running an errand at Kinko's and was about five minutes away when the explosions happened. Some of the tanks were shot over a thousand yards away. The security company that my buddy uses for his business told him that their sound sensors detected large things hitting his building, presumably the roof.

That's pretty much the end of the story.

If you wish to be bored with a short rant on a related topic, read on.

My buddy's place is a nightclub. An "exotic dance" club, actually. Well, no, that's not correct any more. The city of Dallas revoked his sexually oriented business license because the back of the club's parking lot backs up against the Trinity River. Apparently, the land that's 20 feet nearly straight down is classified as a "park" and as such puts the business in violation of some regulation. (This park has no public access and is separated from the river by a 40 foot tall levee.) So, this park is actually a swampy ditch about 90 feet wide. That's enough to shut his business down, however. The business had been an "exotic dance club" for many years, so it took the change in land status behind (and below!) him to cause the conflict with current sexually oriented business regulations. Whether you agree with the concept of sexually oriented businesses or not, shutting down in this fashion smacks of prejudice, and that's why I went to visit the place when I was in Dallas for the RWA.

I took Alison inside so she could see the inside and what remodeling had already taken place -- the owner is converting it to a Hispanic dance hall club. Parts of the old titty bar will be left behind, such as the brass dancing poles. The dressing room for the dancers is still untouched, with the lockers for the individual dancers still marked with their stage names:

Pseudonyms aren't just for romance authors...

Enough ranting. Oh, one more thing. I'll revisit the visit with my friend, the owner, in another post in the future. It's about the music that I once helped midwife over 20 years ago...

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 2:17 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.