Scene November 18, 2020

| clevescene.com | November 18-24, 2020

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| clevescene.com | November 18-24, 2020

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CONTENTS

NOVEMBER 18-24, 2020 • VOL. 52 NO 13 Upfront ............................................ 5 Feature ...........................................10 Arts .................................................14

Eat .................................................. 15 Savage Love ................................. 18

REWIND: i992 Dedicated to Free Times founder Richard H. Siegel (1935-1993) and Scene founder Richard Kabat Publisher Andrew Zelman Editor Vince Grzegorek Editorial Music Editor Jeff Niesel Senior Writer Sam Allard Staff Writer Brett Zelman Dining Editor Douglas Trattner Visual Arts Writer Shawn Mishak Stage Editor Christine Howey

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UPFRONT “AT OUR PEAK SURGE WE MAY be as high as 6,000 to 8,000 new cases a day,” Dr. Amy Acton said on March 26th during the state’s thendaily coronavirus press conference.

This was a shocking prediction to many at the time — Ohio had only 867 total cases as of that day — but the former Ohio Department of Public Health Director said that stunning reality wasn’t a matter of if, “but when.”

“We will surge,” she said.

And here we are. More than 8,000 new cases Friday.

Pilloried by Twitter epidemiologists and sports bloggersturned-infections disease experts (including Kyle Lamb, the Covid truther who claimed masks don’t work and that the pandemic was a Chinese biowar who was hired this week by the governor of Florida to help with coronavirus data in that sad state), railed against and mocked by the Jack Windsors, Jim Jordans and Mike Trivisonnos of the world, insulted by the ‘masks are tyranny’ crowd and the subject of anti-Semitic, gun-toting protests on her front lawn that spurred her June resignation from the position, it turns out the good doctor was, in a real shocking development, right and the fabulist grifters were wrong.

Record-setting infection rates across the country. Record-setting new infections across Ohio.

Record-setting infections in the city of Cleveland. Hospitalizations skyrocketing.

Even the fabulists are, perhaps at last, coming to grips with the truth.

This train doesn’t stop on a dime, of course. The disciples of Jack Windsor, faced with reality, won’t abruptly decamp from conspiracy land much like the MAGA “Stop the Steal!” sect won’t acknowledge the true and factual results of the election once the performance art of the country’s Republicans comes to a close.

And, by all accounts, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who struggled to find a suitable replacement for Dr. Acton and settled on an attorney from the state’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation department in lieu of an actual physician, will use his fireside, statewide chat this evening to politely admonish Buckeye land without taking any steps himself to stop the spread of the virus.

On the plus side, President-Elect

Screenshot

OF COURSE DR. AMY ACTON WAS RIGHT

Joe Biden has already identified experts for a Covid task force and promises to act urgently once he’s officially in office, using this lead time to further spread the message that masks and social distancing save lives.

Which is exactly what Dr. Acton said he should do.

“We cannot wait two and a half months to start leading a messaging,” she told the New Yorker last week. “...Crisis leadership and communication is every bit as science based and crucial.” -Vince Grzegorek

Mike DeWine Draws Ire of Trump for Mortal Sin of Acknowledging Reality President Donald Trump was watching Fox News on his otherwise eventless Monday morning and likely saw the recent clip of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine telling Jake Tapper on CNN that former Vice President Joe Biden should be considered the President-elect.

For this grave indiscretion, (i.e. acknowledging the results of the 2020 election, what has been called the most secure election in American history by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), DeWine drew criticism from the

President.

“Who will be running for Governor of the Great State of Ohio?”

Trump Tweeted, half an hour after the clip aired on Fox. “Will be hotly contested!”

This is just your garden variety Trump petulance, but it should nevertheless be frustrating for DeWine, who has bent over backwards to appease the President over the past several months. He has rarely criticized him during statewide press conferences and even peppered the administration with compliments while taking umbrage at the Federal coronavirus response.

But DeWine’s conciliatory efforts, up to and including the “antilockdown” stance in accord with the Republican party line, has now proven to be insufficient protection.

Loyalty to the supreme leader must be unconditional, and the appropriate response to the 2020 election is to follow Trump’s lead; that is, to keep screaming “I WON” in all-caps like a lunatic and shouting words like “fraud” and “rigged” with no evidence attached.

Those who follow this path stand to do very well in an Ohio gubernatorial primary against DeWine, who has made enemies in the flaming clown car that passes for the state’s general assembly. This summer, a faction of the right wing’s

dimmest bulbs attempted to impeach DeWine for his coronavirus response.

Meantime, they’ve managed not to overturn HB6, the FirstEnergy nuclear bailout passed as a result of a $60 million racketeering scheme.

In Ohio, riling up gerrymandered bases with culture-war nonsense is the main preoccupation of the legislature.

Cleveland.com noted that Jim Renacci, who unsuccessfully challenged Democrat Sherrod Brown in 2018, has been amassing funds and “laying the groundwork” for a campaign of one kind or another.

Scene has also heard that energy on the rightmost fringes has been coalescing around Congressman and Trump lapdog Jim Jordan, who has made headlines for his sycophancy.

His name recognition is off the charts in the Trump-sphere and he will be a dangerous candidate for whatever office he seeks next. -Sam Allard

City of Cleveland to Intensify Mask Enforcement, Adjust Staffing Plan, in Light of Covid Surge In a Friday press conference occasioned by the statewide surge in Covid-19 cases, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson reaffirmed the city’s commitment to enforcing its mask mandate at bars and restaurants and | clevescene.com | November 18-24, 2020

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said a prior plan to bring back City Hall staffers at full capacity has been revised.

Jackson and a number of his chiefs outlined the city’s recent and ongoing efforts to combat the coronavirus. Safety Director Karrie Howard said that in conjunction with the department of health and the state’s liquor control board, police were continuing and intensifying their inspections of local businesses and their weekend enforcement sweeps to ensure compliance of mask-wearing and social distancing.

Alongside the state’s meteoric rise in case numbers, Cleveland is now seeing well over one hundred positive cases per day. These totals far surpass the daily number of cases during the summer surge.

Jackson said that he had planned to bring back City Hall’s staff full-time, five days a week, but that the recent spike had forced him to re-evaluate. He said that all city facilities had been improved with Covid-safe features, including plexiglass barriers and hand sanitizer, but that the goal was now to be at roughly 50 percent occupancy. He said individual departments would be given latitude to develop their own “hybrid models” and staggered schedules for employees, and that service delivery would have to be balanced with worker safety.

Jackson’s Chief Operating Officer, Darnell Brown, said that in addition to physical improvements at City Hall and other facilities, all personnel were expected to perform a daily health assessment, and temperature screenings had been added at employee entrances.

The impression was that a plan had been devised and implemented, but City Hall employees have privately expressed frustration in recent weeks about what is still perceived as an unsafe return to work. Many “non-essential” employees had been working productively from home for months, and they question the wisdom of even a partial return. Some have told Scene that the decision, which has not been formally communicated, is the result of an old-school management style — a “boomer mentality” — in which supervisors prefer to have direct contact with those they oversee to ensure that work is being done.

Jackson stressed that the city prioritizes service delivery, and

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Illustration by John G.

UPFRONT

without naming departments specifically, said that if certain divisions weren’t meeting performance standards, supervisors would have to amend work schedules, presumably bringing in additional employees in-person.

With respect to testing, Jackson and his new Health Director, Brian Kimball, said that testing was being conducted citywide in partnership with MetroHealth and the County.

And in partnership with the National Guard, 12 testing events have been scheduled in areas designated as “testing deserts” on the east side.

Kimball said the city would attempt to improve communication and messaging related to Covid safety at those events.

During a Q&A, Jackson was asked why, during the crisis, city residents have seldom heard from the Mayor and City Council.

“An empty wagon makes a lot of noise,” Jackson responded, “and I don’t intend to be an empty wagon making a lot of noise. I’m going to do my job.” He said that there’s much the public does not see, and the fact that the city has not laid off employees or reduced routine services should be evidence that he and his team have been working hard. -Sam Allard

Opinion: After Disappointing Cleveland Turnout, Cuyahoga County Dems at a Crossroads As we face down a close election at the national level, the results from Ohio leave little room for doubt.

The Democratic Party in Ohio and Cuyahoga County did not perform well.

| clevescene.com | November 18-24, 2020

Donald Trump is on pace to win statewide with a higher percentage of the vote than in 2016. In Cuyahoga County, Trump garnered 10,000 more votes than in his last election. Even when accounting for population changes, that means Trump won a larger percentage of votes in Cuyahoga County—the supposed Democratic stronghold of the state.

Perhaps the most startling numbers come from Cleveland proper. Turnout across the country and in Ohio is generally up. But turnout in heavily Democratic Cleveland did not even hold steady based on initial numbers. It declined.

Overall, Democrats did not have a good night in Northeast Ohio.

We are still in the throes of understanding this election, but one thing has become very clear to me: Local Democrats have to take a hard look at our party and make changes.

I say this as a proud Party member and a Ward 12 Leader – making me one of the 70 official City/Ward Leaders who make up the backbone of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.

I have worked inside the Democratic Party. I see how it is failing Ohioans and Clevelanders in particular.

I believe that a better Party is possible. But only if we have a cleareyed assessment of what happened this election cycle.

Cleveland started out at a deficit.

The Biden campaign wrote off Ohio.

We had few resources, little support and no field offices. Strategy does change when you are campaigning in a global pandemic, but the apathy towards the state was palpable.

We did not have an assigned field

organizer in Cuyahoga County until the fall. In a normal campaign you would be starting paid field organizers early in the summer.

When my ward was finally assigned an organizer, it turned out she was based in DC. Until mid-October, we had so few yard signs we had to ration them. Until the last weeks of the campaign, there was no Bidenspecific campaign literature to hang on doors.

The Ohio Democratic Party and Chairman David Pepper had little to offer either. There was no statewide strategy communicated to us, no statewide goals. We could not access even basic campaign resources through ODP. When some of my fellow wards wanted to begin a textmessaging campaign, they got the runaround for weeks before being told they could not get access to ODP’s texting platform.

And so, it became apparent early in the cycle that those of us in the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party were on our own. No longer propped up by national attention or a statewide campaign, we had to see what we could muster on our own.

If we had a healthy local party, here is what that might have looked like.

Party leaders could have engaged Democrats early in the spring to design a plan for the cycle that everybody bought into. Most likely, each Ward or City Leader would have been given clear responsibilities and goals to hit starting in June.

Each City or Ward Leader would then have mobilized their precinct representatives for their area and doled out responsibilities. We would have had regular check-ins on who

was hitting their numbers. If an area was not looking good, we would send in additional help.

Here’s what it looked like instead: There was no consistent direction or resources given from Party leadership. Each Ward or City Leader was allowed to set their own course. Because many of the Leaders are also the city councilperson for their ward or the mayor for their city, many did not have time to get any electoral work done. Many

DIGIT WIDGET 2 Days of suspension for Cleveland Police Officer Janell Rutherford, who detained Tamir Rice’s 14-year-old sister Tajai as Tamir lay dying in the snow outside Cudell Rec Center in 2014. Last week, Safety Director Karrie Howard overturned the decision by Police Chief Calvin Williams to impose no discipline of any kind.

29.1% Percentage of hotel rooms occupied in Cleveland on a nightly basis during the third quarter in 2020, down from nearly 80% over the same period last year, but up from 17% during the second quarter.

$45.3 billion Estimated personal wealth of Cavs’ owner Dan Gilbert, whose fortune ballooned by more than $38 billion after he took Rocket Mortgage public this year.

5% Percentage of Cleveland Cavaliers / Canton Charge / Lake Erie Monsters business staff laid off last week, in a cost-cutting measure the teams say was planned before the pandemic.

precinct slots are unfilled. There is nobody to call on. Other precinct representatives just will not do the work, having been in the role for years without having to knock a door or make a call.

In sum, there was no county-wide plan and no sense that there would have been the resources to execute it if there had been one.

Of course, some wards and cities still built successful turnout programs. Indeed, hundreds of people – including dozens that I organized personally – did show up to get work done. And I will say that where a Ward Leader, precinct representative, or a volunteer expressed interest in engaging, CCDP provided resources as best they could. Without these efforts the turnout numbers could have been even worse.

But some Democrats doing good work on an ad-hoc basis is not the same as the Party having run a successful campaign in Cuyahoga County.

Looking at the turnout numbers and specifically the decline in Cleveland, it seems clear that the lack of political organizing had a material effect on the election.

Some will read this argument and think I’m advocating for the rise of machine politics. I am not.

The everyday mechanics of good political organizing—the door-knocking, the neighborhood meetings—are not about bullying our neighbors to the polls. They are about engaging people who have given up on the political process because they no longer believe it has the power to improve their lives.

Organizing is about giving people reason to believe that their act of voting is a meaningful decision that is worth doing.

As I worked with the Cuyahoga County Democrats this cycle, that drive, that reason for being, felt far away. The Party felt like a shell of what it could be, like it was merely going through the motions of offering walking packets and call lists without a coordinated vision of how to turn out the vote.

Yes, this election has taken place under the most unusual of circumstances. But I do not think we should write off this election cycle as an outlier. The Party is taking the voters of Northeast Ohio for granted and it is taking its own political power for granted in the process. Democrats deserve better and Clevelanders deserve better. -Rebecca Maurer

Rebecca Maurer is a local attorney and Ward Leader in Ward 12 for the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.

Her writing on voting and political engagement has appeared in The Plain Dealer, Belt Magazine, and Cleveland Scene.

Regarding the Disenfranchisement of Cleveland Voters, the Call Is Coming from Inside the House In the wake of Donald Trump’s decisive victory over Joe Biden in Ohio — a margin (~8%) virtually identical to Trump’s victory in 2016 — many have scratched their heads and speculated about the city of Cleveland’s low voter turnout.

Cleveland is the largest city in Cuyahoga County, the state’s socalled Democratic stronghold, yet its residents showed up to the polls in uninspired numbers. Only about 53% of Cleveland voters cast ballots, compared to nearly 70% countywide.

Cleveland City Councilpeople in the lowest-turnout wards across town told Cleveland.com that there were a number of reasons for the lack of participation on election day: poverty, racism, inflated voter rolls, apathy, the pandemic. Democratic Ward Leader Rebecca Maurer wrote in Scene that the Ohio and Cuyahoga County Democratic Parties failed to effectively coordinate a ground game in the absence of official Biden campaign offices.

All of these factors are significant.

But among the most critical, and overlooked, factors is the degree to which Cleveland’s own leaders have ensured that residents do not get to participate in how they are governed. For Cleveland’s leaders, the electorate is a thing to be marshalled and deployed every four years, at which time they are expected to fill in the bubble for the Democratic candidate. This is what voters mean when they say that they are “taken for granted.”

For voters, it is not only a sense of

apathy and despair over presidential politics that keeps them at home.

It’s no doubt true that impoverished Clevelanders are so accustomed to their misery that they’re unlikely to be convinced that a vote for one or another candidate will improve the material conditions of their lives. It has not in the past. But it’s also true that they’ve tried to improve their lives, and every time they’ve done so at the local level, they’ve been shut out.

Though they’d deny it up and down, Cleveland City Council has made shutting out voters its preeminent mission. They communicate nothing with as much regularity and strength. Any councilperson bemoaning low voter turnout should recall that they forbid residents from offering public comment at council meetings; that they appoint their own successors, robbing residents of the ability to elect their own representatives; and that they work tirelessly to ensure that citizen petitions are invalidated or sabotaged.

Council President Kevin Kelley has been the architect, in recent years, of this textbook disenfranchisement. He and his allies on council have ensured that Clevelanders could not vote on a $15 minimum wage, a referendum on the Q Deal, citizen-led lead-safe legislation and a proposal to cut the size and pay of city council itself.

Well, those efforts have ripple effects. You cannot continually forbid the involvement of constituents and then expect them to show up for national elections. Any analysis of low voter turnout, then, must include not only the macro-level disenfranchisement borne of poverty, racism and gerrymandering, but the micro-level disenfranchisement’s borne of the city’s contempt of the electorate. -Sam Allard

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FEATURE WE KNOW. WE SERVED ON ONE.

We heard over 1,000 cases in four months. We were devastated by what we learned about the process and its results. Our country must do better.

by Shari Nacson, John Filkorn, and Elaine Bayless THE RECENT RELEASE OF TAPE recordings from the Breonna Taylor Grand Jury and public statements by two of the anonymous Grand Jury members have offered America a rare look into an opaque system. The tapes and the public statements are unique in that they concern a case of nationwide interest and a police shooting. In other ways, however, they illuminate issues common throughout the process as a whole, in regular cases heard across the country every day by citizens called up through the jury pool.

From what America heard and read about Breonna Taylor’s case, it’s painfully obvious that the Grand Jury played a subservient role to the will of the prosecutors. Where Kentucky Attorney General David Cameron deflected responsibility for the unpopular outcome to the Grand Jury, the members themselves told quite a different story.

Our country is seeing renewed energy behind efforts to reform our criminal justice system. Increased knowledge and awareness of the problems inherent in the Grand Jury process are critical in this examination. Grand Jury reform should be part of criminal justice reform. Like all the other pieces of this giant machine, Grand Juries too often are tools for injustice.

The general public knows very little of the Grand Jury process, except that it is controlled by prosecutors under a shroud of secrecy. That’s a key part of the problem.

After four months of service on a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury, during which time we heard more than a thousand cases, we want to help lift that shroud now, sharing what the public should know as conversations about reform continue.

THE THREE OF US FIRST MET in May 2019. Two of us came up for selection through the regular jury pool. One of us was appointed by a Common Pleas judge to serve as foreperson (this is a common practice).

Much like regular (petit) jury

selection, the Grand Jury version is a bewildering process that only makes sense the further you get into it.

After being selected, we were sworn in and took an oath to keep proceedings secret — which is, ostensibly, to protect the privacy of citizens who are being accused of crimes and also for the safety of the Grand Jurors themselves. We received a couple of days of orientation, during which we met the two prosecutors assigned to our Grand Jury. The training is wholly designed by and coordinated by the prosecutors. Some aspects of training were helpful; some aspects seemed a waste of time; and no aspects came from a defense perspective. Specialized instruction – such as the dynamics of domestic violence, the use of confidential informants, or the difference in the various murder charges – was extremely beneficial. Touring the casino and the morgue felt like public relations stunts. Other seemingly vital information, such as the intricacies of Ohio’s gun laws, was never detailed for us, despite repeated requests.

It is important to understand some context upfront. In Cuyahoga County, Grand Jury is a four-month assignment of two full business days per week. (We could write pages about how the structure fundamentally disallows this cohort from truly being a jury of one’s peers for many possible defendants.) There are three Grand Juries serving at a time, usually on different days. Each Grand Jury includes 14 members, all of whom hear every case, and 9 of whom (the first 9 chosen from the pool based on their lottery number) deliberate and vote on the charges.

Each Grand Jury is assigned a pair of prosecutors who present the vast majority of the cases. (Some cases have a special prosecutor assigned due to the severity of charges or the domain/intricacies of the cases.) In the room with the Grand Jury and the prosecutor is a court stenographer.

A time-intensive endeavor,

the sheer volume of cases would probably shock regular citizens. With approximately 50 cases per day, and three Grand Juries each serving two days a week, roughly 300 possible felony cases enter the system per week. In four months of service, our particular Grand Jury heard more than 1,000 cases. That’s an average of 9 minutes per case. Nine minutes to hear, deliberate, and vote on each one.

THERE ARE SOME LEGAL standards that are important to know, too. The decision to indict is based on the standard of probable cause. Did a crime probably happen?

Is it more likely than not that the person accused is the person who committed that crime? We were often given the guidance that if there’s a 51% chance on both factors, then we must indict and trust that the subsequent jury (the trial jury) would comb through the evidence more deeply to get to a verdict that meets the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.

In other words, the Grand Jury is the beginning of the process, in theory. It’s the first step, the introduction of the case into the system, where a defense would follow and further evidence would be introduced that might not have been available to us. Unanswered questions would be addressed at trial.

What we didn’t know, because it was omitted in our training, is that over 95% of indicted cases in Cuyahoga County never go to trial.

There is no further step. The Grand Jury, essentially and unknowingly, acts as the case’s only jury.

We had to discover that later, on our own. Most defendants plea bargain. In anticipation of this, the prosecutorial process includes the stacking of charges, which is basically a chess game tactic. An individual is charged and indicted with a laundry list of charges so the plea bargaining process has more room for negotiation. The Grand Jury, in essence, is there to create prosecutorial leverage in those

negotiations.

When we talked with community leaders last summer, we learned about the psychology of coming to the table with charges stacked against you.

Attorneys explain all of the charges and the potential maximum sentences.

The total number of years is daunting.

Many defendants plea out because they worry about their odds of success at trial. Many plea because they are being held in Cuyahoga County Jail, cannot afford bail, and simply want to receive their sentence and go home or go to prison. Many of these people are innocent. Research has shown people who are not guilty actually plead guilty at a significant frequency — whether because of inadequate legal representation, personal issues, or because the overwhelming prospect of facing a jury and a maximum sentence is a gamble not worth the risk.

Knowing what we know now, we’re left feeling devastated that we unwittingly helped to stack charges to create plea bargain leverage.

DURING THEIR DELIBERATIONS, Grand Juries and Trial Juries look closely at the definitions of charges and compare these definitions with the evidence they have received. Trial Juries receive definitions of charges from and bring questions directly to the judge — an independent, neutral arbiter. Grand Juries, meanwhile, receive definitions from and bring questions to the prosecutors — who are actually a party to the case (i.e. the accusers).

Jurors who have been trained by prosecutors, oriented to cases and processes by prosecutors, and whose workloads, seating arrangements, and bathroom/lunch breaks are governed by prosecutors — well, it is no surprise they end up deferring to prosecutors. It takes a very bold juror to resist the pressure to conform in this group context. It takes profound assertiveness to look up the Ohio Revised Code (ORC) definitions (on one’s phone or in the 5-inch thick law book that sits on the | clevescene.com | November 18-24, 2020

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prosecutor’s table). And it takes an incredible amount of wherewithal to be the voice(s) that slow the pace of churning-out the hefty indictment docket. The expectation is to indict.

There is one-sided guidance to indict. There is pressure to indict.

A much healthier structure and organizational culture is required for a Grand Jury to be truly empowered to wrestle with and apply the law in every case. Some cases are simpler to decide. The evidence and charges are clear. But many cases per day bring uncertainty. Relying on the idea that a Trial Jury will get more time to look closely, Grand Jurors can easily make peace with the 51% certainty and indict someone without much evidence.

We wonder whether members of our Grand Jury cohort would have voted the same way had they been taught that over 95% of these cases would never see a Trial Jury.

COMPOUNDING THIS PROBLEM – the Grand Jury acting as a de facto Trial Jury by way of providing prosecutorial leverage based on the 51% framework in cases that largely never actually go to trial – is that Grand Juries see little of the evidence that would be presented to a Trial Jury. The prosecution is not required to present all the evidence it has, even exculpatory evidence that would shed doubt on the charges.

To understand how evidence is presented requires an understanding of law enforcement roles. There are specialty units like financial crimes, sex crimes, child abuse, the gang unit, homicide, etc. where cases are presented by officers and detectives who work the cases hands-on. These cases have been built over time and are presented with ample evidence.

Those presenting are extremely familiar with the case and are thus able to answer the jurors’ questions.

That is not the case for regular patrol officers.

Patrol officers rarely present their own cases to Grand Juries. There is a role within police departments called Grand Jury Liaison. This role entails one officer presenting several cases from their department to the Grand Jury. While there is an admitted element of efficiency to this grouping of cases and one skilled officer presenting in a way familiar to the Grand Jury, this means that cases are presented by proxy. The liaison reads the police report and other evidence to the Grand Jury (occasionally we would get a printed document to review, but only for unique cases — otherwise it’s all oral presentation). If there is a question that the file cannot answer, the

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liaison might come back on another day after seeking clarification.

During our four months of service, there were times when jurors requested more evidence.

Occasionally this was honored. More often, it was not. In some cases, our request for more information changed everything — leading to true clarity and a just indictment.

In other cases, we did not get much more and were tasked with deciding based on too-little information.

In that regard, cases of resisting, refusing, or assaulting a patrol officer were particularly concerning.

In a city under a Consent Decree due to excessive use of force, we wondered why a self-report by an officer was sufficient evidence for allegations that involve a conflict between citizen and officer.

Of all the thousand-plus cases we

be on the number of cases completed; the focus should be due process.

Grand Jurors should see body-cam and dash-cam evidence for all charges that involve a conflict between a citizen and law enforcement (e.g. resisting arrest, attempting to flee, assaulting an officer, etc.). Indicting people for these charges when the sole evidence is law enforcement self-reporting — this is not justice.

Likewise, camera footage should be required for any felony allegation that is based on consent/cause to search a vehicle. These vehicle searches typically begin with a traffic stop, and as we have seen in recent articles detailing statistics from our own county (University Circle; Bratenahl), it is far too common for vehicles driven or occupied by minorities to be stopped for a small traffic infraction that becomes a

Grand Juries see little of the evidence that would be presented to a Trial Jury. The prosecution is not required to present all the evidence it has, even exculpatory evidence that would shed doubt on the charges. heard that summer, we saw bodycam footage exactly once. And we saw zero body-cam footage on cases of resisting, refusing, or assaulting law enforcement. Cellphone footage from incidents around the country has demonstrated that an officer’s account of a citizen resisting arrest is not always what actually happened.

Cuyahoga County is no exception.

What was initially discomfort over this issue in the aftermath of our service became outrage in June 2020, when we read about Kenta Settles, a mentally ill Garfield Heights man who was wrongfully indicted and detained for more than four months in the Cuyahoga County Jail on charges of felonious assault on a peace officer and obstructing official business. The Grand Jury that heard Mr. Settles’ case was not shown the body cam footage from the incident and voted to indict based on the prosecutor’s presentation.

Eventually, when body-cam footage was acquired by Mr. Settles’ lawyer, the video showed officers beating, tasing, and mocking Mr. Settles.

County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley dropped the charges days after the body-cam video was made public.

Mr. Settles spent four months in jail because that video was not shown to the Grand Jury before they decided whether to indict or not.

That case demonstrated exactly why the Grand Jury’s focus should not

| clevescene.com | November 18-24, 2020

felony charge — because officers saw something dark under the seat, there were furtive movements, or a smell of fresh marijuana. We believe that, without a requirement of video evidence of consent or cause to search, there is room for law enforcement to coerce citizens into consenting to search. As a society, we are obligated to look at the overt racism and abuse of power that is evident in these all-too-frequent cases.

THERE IS A MECHANISM IN place for Grand Juries to serve as an overall check and balance to the system, in theory, as the process rolls onward.

The foreperson of each Grand Jury is required to write a report at the end of jury service. We decided to approach this report collaboratively, as Foreperson, Deputy Foreperson, and Assistant Deputy Foreperson.

We also decided to survey our jury so we could include their words in our report. Assuming that the Court and the Prosecutor’s Office would want to improve the system, we detailed feedback about how we were trained — about laws that need legislative attention, about law enforcement and racism.

In the months that followed the filing of our report, we did not hear back from the Administrative Judge nor the Prosecutor’s Office. This was troubling because the report detailed

not only suggestions on a macro level (on the topics covered thus far), but on a micro level, i.e. how Cuyahoga County specifically could better equip future Grand Juries with training and how county leadership could specifically make the process safer and less stressful for citizens who are called to serve. The lack of response was even more upsetting when we dug deeper, after reviewing over fifty other Cuyahoga County Grand Jury reports. In the 18 years of reports we have thus far reviewed, there are repeated observations, suggestions, and concerns, lodged time and time again with little to no resulting changes in Grand Jury operations.

(Many of the reports are far less substantive, resembling thank-you notes and applauding staff.)

In our research, we found a period in the early 2000s where Grand Jury forepersons and a judge spoke-out about unjust indictments for felonies based on trace amounts of crack cocaine; the practice was unjust because the charge was a misdemeanor in every Cuyahoga County municipality except Cleveland.

We spoke with a researcher, a judge, and a foreperson who played key roles in the pursuit of equitable application of that law. We found a 2016 Task Force, appointed by Ohio’s Supreme Court Justice O’Connor to study Grand Jury operations. The task force’s report included revisions to training that would have benefitted us.

As best we can tell, none of the Grand Jury Task Force’s recommendations have been implemented.

We found that, over at least the past twenty years, our community has experienced resurgences of interest in true reform.

Sadly, most of the recommendations sit in literal or virtual file cabinets, unheeded.

IN ADDITION TO THE REPORT on our overall jury service, the Grand Jury is also charged with auditing the conditions of the Cuyahoga County Jail. This is to occur quarterly, per state law. Each of the three juries serving during a four-month period visits separately.

It is our observation through our Grand Jury training — and through reading countless reports of others before us — that most Grand Juries have not been informed that they are there to audit. The jail visit is treated like another educational tour or field trip. Because we clearly understood our duty to report back on what we saw, we took our auditing function seriously and are deeply dismayed to discover that this is an uncommon stance. We believe this is not due to neglect of duty, but to a failure of the

system to properly orient each Grand Jury to the seriousness of this task.

Seeing the jail conditions is important for the body that indicts citizens, because this is where accused individuals — at least those who cannot afford bail — wait until their cases are heard by the Grand Jury and after indictment, when citizens might appear before a judge during a plea bargain session. The injustice of our cash bail system is blatantly obvious as one walks through the pods at the Cuyahoga County Jail, which has been the subject of a damning U.S. Marshals report and various investigations centering on its inhumane practices and the deaths of inmates.

The jail has also become a de facto mental health provider for many of the poor in our county. Numerous cases came before us in which the accused was reportedly suffering from mental illness. Every time a juror asked about the most humane way to help suspects whose charges seemed to be tied to mental illness, we were assured that indicting chronically mentally ill citizens was the best way to ensure they got the help they needed. This help is supposed to be through a mental health docket which provides specialized support and diversion services. However, that help was not evident in our jail tour, where mental health services consist of medication and crisis intervention. There must be a better way than incarceration to identify these cases and to help people who suffer from chronic mental illness.

There must be a better way for all of this.

WE WRITE TODAY BECAUSE WE realize that the average citizen knows little about the workings of the Grand Jury. This is by design. As required by state law, the prosecutor’s office maintains a veil of secrecy over the Grand Jury, to protect the reputation of the suspect before they have been charged. We believe that this veil is too large, covering-up inefficient and dysfunctional systems that ensure disproportionate rates of incarceration of non-white citizens, of those with low-income, of those with mental illness, and many times of those who may actually be innocent of the crimes that have been charged.

Grand Jurors are told that they are a check-and-balance on the prosecutor’s office, yet are trained and entirely guided by the same prosecutors they are supposed to “check.” There is no presentation from a defense perspective — in training or on cases. The only

scrutiny comes from the jurors themselves, who have been “trained” in a quick and biased way. This means that the true check-andbalance is voiced individually as jurors wrestle with their consciences and educate themselves outside of the jury room. That’s a tall order, and the burden should not be on them.

Unfortunately, in our experience, this means that jurors unwittingly collude with a wrongful process that allows unjust indictments to occur.

This means that the only way of stopping this unjust process is for individual jurors to find each other and unite their voices, and for the public – all of those potential Grand

Jurors and those who are interested in reforming the process – to better know the process.

We ask for a redefining of felony laws and processes. Our prison system is overwhelmed because our society uses incarceration as the punishment for too many crimes.

We need the three branches of government to take a hard look at the results of our current criminal justice system and overhaul the sentencing laws.

We ask for a redefining of prosecutorial success. We, as citizens, don’t want success defined as the number of indictments processed per day/week/month. We

want fair indictments. This means indictments based on actual evidence and with full disclosure of the high rate of plea bargaining. As seen locally in the Kenta Settles case and nationally with the Breonna Taylor case, the Grand Jury system is flawed — leaving plenty of room for the perpetuation of a broken and racist system that is the gateway for mass incarceration.

While we are sworn to secrecy about the proceedings — the people, places, and charges — we feel it is our duty to speak openly about the mechanics of the Grand Jury.

We hope this paves the way for necessary reforms.

How Can the Grand Jury System Be Improved?

Because Grand Juries are not usually provided first-hand review of evidence and because over 95% of defendants plea to avoid a trial, most felony convictions occur without any direct review of exculpatory evidence. For most citizens, the Grand Jury will be the first, last, and only jury that ever hears their case.

There is no “next jury” to look more closely at the evidence.

Through jury service, average citizens — laypeople — are tasked with learning and applying the law. The jury is meant to be part of our government’s system of checks and balances. And, yet, there are operational issues and an over-dependence on the prosecutor’s office that interfere with the Grand Jury’s ability to truly function as a check and balance.

We recommend the following changes be implemented in Cuyahoga County as essential steps toward actual justice.

OPERATIONAL CONCERNS 1. Limited and biased preparation creates a jury that is subjugated by the prosecution.

Despite being conceived as a check and balance on the system, the Grand Jury is not given a full picture of their role in criminal proceedings. They are not privy to the reality of what happens post-indictment, or the true effect an indictment can have on a person’s life. This undermines the Grand Jury’s capacity to be impartial and act as an independent voice.

SOLUTIONS: Operational changes to reduce prosecutorial bias • Training needs to be overhauled to prepare the jury for their responsibilities. At a minimum, this should include presentations by previous Grand Jury members; a defense attorney (public defender); and clarification of the most common charges they will hear.

• Ideally, training should be led by a neutral party.

• Through printed handbooks, swearing-in, and training, educate jurors up-front that very few cases (≤ 5%) will go to trial. If

there is uncertainty about ANY element, the jurors need to slow the process and carefully review evidence.

• Curtail the prosecutorial practice of stacking charges. This process exploits the Grand Jury and manipulates the accused (to elicit a plea).

• The Grand Jury needs to be empowered to directly review and interpret the laws that are being applied. Otherwise, jurors are put in a position of deference to prosecutors, which undermines the impartial role of the Grand Jury. Provide jurors with printed copies of the Ohio Revised Code (ORC), which defines all state crimes. • Bring the ORC up on the screen, showing the definitions for the proposed charges so jurors can view that language directly.

• Prioritize and clarify the jail audit function of the Grand Jury. Provide a checklist and copies of prior Grand Jury reports on jail conditions. Ensure submitted reports are read and actions are taken to remedy issues.

2. Inaccessible evidence leads to wrongful indictments For the majority of cases, the only evidence presented is the initial police report, and often it is presented by a liaison who has no first-hand knowledge of the incident.

In a city with a Consent Decree and multiple instances of excessive use of force by police, additional evidence before indictment does not seem out of line.

SOLUTIONS: Operational changes to reduce wrongful indictments • Third-party evidence (camera footage or witnesses) must be required to charge a citizen with resisting/fleeing/obstructing • Camera footage must be provided to verify any consent/cause to search a vehicle that becomes the foundation of a felony charge • Require prosecutors to honor requests to review evidence. Provide jury recourse if such requests are not honored. This is due process.

• Require law enforcement officers to present their own cases. Liaisons are only

able to furnish the jury with the information included in the written report, which the jury could just as easily read themselves.

LEGISLATIVE CONCERNS

In addition, we call on Cuyahoga County leadership to recognize and address these barriers that perpetuate racial disparities within our criminal justice system.

Systemic barriers and institutionalized racism lead to wrongful felonization of citizens. Our laws are not objective and everyone is not equal under the law. Humans make subjective decisions at every juncture based on their own prejudices: from what actions to criminalize, where to enforce the law, which crimes to prosecute and how to punish those crimes, what evidence to present, and how and when to present it.

SOLUTIONS: Legislative changes to reduce racial disparities within the indictment process • Allow the jury to mark cases that belong on a specialized mental health docket.

• Eliminate cash bail for all non-violent offenses • Reduce the number of crimes that are considered felonies, including drug possession and nonviolent crimes, such as passing counterfeit money.

• Allow for a more representative jury by paying minimum wage or shortening the term.

• In regard to community concerns regarding excessive use of force by law enforcement, camera footage should be regularly audited — not solely when there are complaints. Every municipality should have a citizen review panel to conduct random audits of body/dash cam footage.

• We call upon the State of Ohio to update and implement the changes recommended

by Justice O’Connor’s Task Force to Examine Improvements in the Ohio Grand Jury System. In the interim, we recommend that Cuyahoga County implement the 2016 recommendations even if the state does not. | clevescene.com | November 18-24, 2020

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Courtesy French Lamb Studio Design

ARTS

JUST THE START

Ambitious plans to continue to ‘Elevate the East’ include dozens of public art projects in Kinsman, Buckeye

By Shawn Mishak

clevescene.com

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| clevescene.com | November 18-24, 2020

THE BLACK LIVES MATTER street mural on East 93rd was just the beginning of what will be a yearslong public art project in Kinsman, Woodland Hills and Buckeye called ‘Elevate the East’ that’s being led

by Burten, Bell, Carr and Ward 6 councilman Blaine Griffin.

Bringing together a diverse, vibrant and committed team, ‘Elevate the East’ includes architects, graphic designers, urban design consultants, artists and community members who now have a tentative roadmap of what might be possible, from murals to streetscapes and sculptures and more.

A recently completed report based on surveys, community research, focus groups and data identified 50 Actions to Elevate the East, «a range of exciting opportunities to express the unique character of the area’s people and places through public art.” Key locations have been identified, plans have been set in motion. Now, it’s about money.

“Our next step for implementation is to find funding,” Burten, Bell, Carr executive director Joy D. Johnson said. “We have already worked with LAND Studio to apply for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. ‘LAND’ is also dedicating funding they received from the St. Luke’s Foundation of Cleveland to contribute to a few of the 50 Actions identified in the plan. We are also working with the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority to include public art in their plans to rebuild Woodhill Estates.”

Projects have been loosely placed along a timeline that shows what works could be completed in a short as one year to those that will take five or more. Once projects have been finalized and funded, RFPs will be issued for artists and stakeholders will select the finalist.

Community members have already identified areas of emphasis that the Elevate the East steering committee and projects should follow: Elevate the View, Engage Residents, Include Local Artists, Feel Value and Inspired, African American Identity, Stress Reduction, Safer Streets, Multi-sensory Experiences, and Unique Local Character.

The 50 Plans of Action include landscapes (for example, a sledding hill on Holton Ave.), murals (dozens of possible sites are listed), sculptures (a possible African obelisk, as one example) and streetscapes (an anamorphic fence at Woodhill Homes, for instance).

The steering committee has been trying to get the word out through block clubs, neighborhood walking tours and t-shirts, working to energize residents and keep momentum going.

“We’re going to do something on the Eastside with art-to express people’s emotions and feelings,” said committee member Sherall Hardy.

“Elevate the East is going to bring the community together as one.”

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

EAT SEVENTH LEAVEN

A newly opened European-style Tremont bakery has the crowds beating a path to top-notch pastry WHILE MOST OF US ARE SNUG as bugs in bed, Ian Herrington is as busy as a bee in the hot-box kitchen of his Tremont bakery, Leavened.

Every day, he arrives to work at 3 in the morning to begin tackling the Sisyphean tasks that await him.

There’s the weighing, shaping and proofing of bread doughs. There’s the production of sweet doughs and pastries. And then there’s the actual baking. So. Much. Baking.

“I bake the sticky buns, I bake the pain de mie, I bake the sourdoughs,” Herrington ticks off. “The croissants go in after that and then the baguettes, the scones, the hand pies, the cookies, cookie bars and bread pudding. If I’m in my groove, the bake is usually done by 7:30. And then I immediately switch to prep for tomorrow.”

There’s a reason that new bake shops don’t appear with same frequency as pizza parlors, chop houses or even barbecue joints. Not only are the hours grueling, the work hot, dusty and demanding, and the profit margins battered by the fluctuating price of ingredients, but artisan bakeries also require an extraordinary level of skill to pull off with any degree of success.

“All the specialty equipment is really expensive, to hire good people is expensive, to get good ingredients is expensive,” Herrington explains.

“It takes a lot of planning and good financial backing to make it happen.

I think that’s why a lot of people don’t do it. To make really good bread day in and day out, you really have to devote your life to it.”

Herrington has devoted the last ten years of his life to the art and practice of baking. After eight years, he recently left his job as head baker of On the Rise in Cleveland Heights to prepare for the opening his own European-style artisan bakery, which he did in late September. The sleek, glassy and modern storefront anchors the northwest corner of The Tappan, a new residential building on Auburn Ave. Like all great bakeries, Leavened imbues the neighborhood with heaven-sent scents like freshbaked loaves, still-warm sticky

Photo by Doug Trattner

By Douglas Trattner

buns and fresh-brewed coffee.

In addition to core products like rustic sourdoughs in the form of baguettes, pain d’epi, fougasse and whole wheat loaves, Herrington and his team craft mile-high rosemary focaccia, fragrant cardamom buns and wedge-shaped cheddar and scallion scones. Seductive pastries like million-layer croissants – in flavors of classic, pain au chocolat, walnut cream, and blackberrylavender jam – join drippy cinnamon buns, plum-filled danish

two sandwiches, both of which are ready and waiting for quick purchase. The current soup is a vegan roasted tomato ($5), while the meat sandwich of late is the Italian ($10), a popular item that sells out long before closing time. Built on horizontally sliced focaccia, the weighty rectangular sandwich is filled with pepperoni, salami, ham, provolone, tomato and mild but crunchy giardiniera.

The vegan option recently has been a chickpea salad sandwich.

LEAVENED 1633 AUBURN AVE., CLEVELAND 216-260-1666 LEAVENEDCLE.COM

and buttery chocolate chip cookies.

New arrivals include airy pepperoni rolls, savory hand pies and sugary cookie bars.

In the morning, the café side of the operation whips up coffee drinks (made with Duck-Rabbit) like Americanos, espressos, lattes and cappuccinos. Come lunchtime, chef and general manager Chris Palton offers up one hot soup and

Herrington anticipates expanding the café menu down the road.

Owing to Covid, all of the tables and chairs are stacked up and pushed to one side of the space. But the intent is for Leavened to become much more than the grab-and-go bakeshop it is now. In time, it will doubtless develop into a buzzy neighborhood café where friends will meet in the morning over

coffee and pastries, enjoy midday lunches of soup and sandwiches, and drop by for those crucial lateafternoon caffeine-fueled pick-meups.

Still, Herrington says that he’s been flabbergasted by how quickly his off-the-beaten-path bakery has taken off. Most of his customers hail from nearby environs like Tremont, Ohio City and Lakewood, but the owner regularly meets shoppers from all across the region. And by the time the doors to Leavened close for the day, all that remains are crumbs, which is why Herrington sets his alarm for the middle of the night.

“I haven’t had a day off in about three months,” he says, adding that even on the days the shop is closed, he’s hard at work in back. “I’m just frazzled trying to get everything done. When I was at On the Rise I had experience doing just about everything, but my main job wasn’t to do everything. Now, I’m doing everything.”

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner | clevescene.com | November 18-24, 2020

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Courtesy Doug Katz

EAT BITES

Chef Doug Katz Launches Amba, a New Indian-Inspired Ghost Kitchen

By Douglas Trattner CHEF DOUG KATZ ROLLED out a second restaurant concept from his existing ghost kitchen in Cleveland Heights last week.

Amba will share commissary space with Chimi, providing area diners with an entirely different roster of dishes for pick-up and delivery. Whereas Chimi (216-9323333), which opened in June, is a South American-inspired virtual restaurant, Amba (216-650-9620) offers the chef’s take on Indianthemed flavors, spices and dishes.

Fans of Katz’ recently closed restaurant Fire already have some experience with the chef’s fondness for Indian cookery. The restaurant was one of only a handful in town to be equipped with a tandoor oven, Indian-style items often appeared on the menu, and multi-course Indian dinners were a beloved and recurring staple at the restaurant.

Handcrafted spice blends like Indian Ground Lamb and Tomato Masala are sold through Fire Spice Co. “When we launched Chimi, we were actually debating between South American and Indian, but in the end we thought we needed to work a little bit more on the Indian concept,” Katz explains. “I had a great friend from India who lived in Cleveland who taught me how to make some amazing dishes. My love of the spices and exploring those flavors with Fire Spice Co. really came from those experiences cooking with my friend.”

Like chutney, chimichurri and zhug, amba is a ubiquitous condiment, in this case a pickled mango condiment popular in many different cultures. Katz thought the name (and the condiment) fit seamlessly into a portfolio that includes the Middle Eastern-themed Zhug, South American-inspired Chimi and cross-cultural Chutney B. Katz points out that while the vision and inspiration come from his personal experiences, the menu and execution are the handiwork of longtime chef Cameron Pishnery.

Just like the menus of Zhug and Chimi, Amba offers numerous dishes of various sizes that are meant to be mixed, matched and scooped up with

16

flatbread.

There’s a creamy spinachinfused raita topped with gingered chickpeas, a mixed vegetable pickle with mango, chile and mustard, and crispy chickpea fritters served with spicy plum amba and papayakumquat slaw.

Larger dishes include fried onion topped biryani with saffron, peas, golden raisins and almonds, whole roasted eggplant with quinoa and peanut chutney, and chicken masala with chiles, cucumber and cilantro. The grilled chicken kofta features ground chicken quenelles in chickpea korma sauce while the keema stars simmered ground Ohio lamb flavored with garlic, lemon and scallion. Many of the dishes are vegetarian and/or vegan. In place of steamed basmati rice, most dishes come with naan.

For dessert there’s a sticky yogurt cake topped with strawberry preserves and yogurt or fried doughnuts soaked in green cardamom and rose water syrup.

Katz states that he and Pishnery are not attempting to create a socalled “authentic Indian restaurant,” but rather a delicious and exciting outlet for their creative culinary whims.

“We are not pretending to be experts in Indian cooking or to pretend that we are bringing authentic Indian into the community,” Katz stresses. “We are bringing a fun take on Indian and using the flavors that are inspired by my travels and my experience with Indian cooking.”

Diners should know that because Zhug, Chimi and Amba are separate entities, dishes from more than one cannot be combined into a single order. That said, customers can place orders from different restaurants and schedule them to be picked up at (or near) the same time.

As is the case with Chimi, this ghost kitchen roll-out gives Katz the opportunity to test out a concept in hopes of developing it into a fullservice brick-and-mortar restaurant.

“In the back of my mind, I always wanted to create sort of an Indian cocktail lounge and hopefully this

| clevescene.com | November 18-24, 2020

will become that one day, but for now it’s a ghost kitchen in Cleveland Heights,” Katz says. “This is a chance for us to do our research and development to see what people like and don’t like.”

Kate’s Fish Expands its Seafood Footprint at the West Side Market with New West Side Seafood Stand When Classic Seafood made the decision to not return to the West Side Market after shutting down in March, Kate’s Fish owner Tom McIntyre saw an opportunity for quick expansion. He took possession of the stand on the opposite end of the market hall and today opened West Side Seafood.

“It’s like one of the most unique stands in the market,” McIntyre says of stall E1, D1. “It’s kind of sweet.”

The decision to go with another business name as opposed to simply Kate’s Fish Too or whatever is to make a distinction between the two shops, while still increasing selection and sales.

“This is America,” he says.

“People want choices so we’re going to give them choices. I just want to make the pie bigger and sell more seafood at the West Side Market.

Kate’s Fish sells a good amount of seafood, but I think we can sell even

more seafood.”

McIntyre says that there will be very little overlap in selection. The additional display space will allow Kate’s to focus on certain items while expanding others at West Side Seafood. For example, the new stand will offer a larger shellfish inventory than Kate’s, with items like oysters, crab, lobster and giant head-on prawns, which Kate’s has never offered.

One interesting line of products will be at-home seafood boil kits that include everything a customer needs to prepare a seafood feast at home.

“These seafood boil places are doing well and popping up all over the place,” says McIntyre. “We’ll sell seafood boil packages with crab, shrimp, potatoes, corn and sausage for a set price with different butters, sauces and oils. You just choose your sauce, take it home and cook it up.”

Kate’s Fish and West Side Seafood currently are the only seafood vendors at the West Side Market, says McIntyre, but he welcomes new competition.

One interesting distinction between Kate’s and West Side are the hours of operation. West Side will be open from Friday through Monday but closed on Wednesdays (Kate’s is open on Wednesday).

“Wednesday is an island day at the market; it’s surrounded by days

off,” he explains. “You have to do a full set up and a full shutdown for one day and it’s really difficult.”

Chicken Run, the New Fast-Casual Spin-Off of Soho, Now Open in Ohio City For months, Soho Chicken + Whiskey (1889 W. 25th St., 216-2989090) owners Nolan Konkoski and Molly Smith have been preparing to reopen their popular full-service restaurant in Ohio City as a new fastcasual concept. They finally got to open the doors on Nov. 11.

Soho – short for Southern Hospitality – opened nearly nine years ago, but the fried chicken and whiskey restaurant has been closed since March. Rather than shift like so many of its brethren to a take-outfocused business built around the original menu, management opted to reinvent (at least for the foreseeable future) the entire concept.

“We were actually planning a second, more casual biscuit concept that would have been more breakfast and lunch focused, so we’re trying to view the current challenge as sort of a way to introduce that,” Konkoski told Scene back in April.

Management busied themselves the past few months with menu planning and construction, which has converted the bar to a walkup counter with menu board, order station and pick-up area.

Additionally, a window will be added on the patio to facilitate walk-up service. For the time being, there will be no seating inside, only on the patio while weather permits.

The new menu is built around Soho’s signature “fried chicken and fixins” combined with salads, Soho classics, biscuit-based sandwiches, crispy chicken sandwiches and cocktails.

“We’re doing basically the same style food that we’ve done, just tweaked it to be more to-go friendly and pared it down to make it easier for our staff,” Konkoski explains.

Planted Offers Clean-Eaters Wholesome Options from Virtual Kitchen in Kamm’s Corners So-called “clean eaters” have a new option on Cleveland’s west side. Planted (17446 Lorain Ave., 216284-6090), which operates essentially as a ghost kitchen in the presently shuttered Red Lantern restaurant in Kamm’s Corners, began offering food on October 22. According to partners

Erica Carlberg and Eric Nugent, the concept originally was conceived as a full-service brick-and-mortar restaurant, but those plans stalled with the arrival of Covid.

“Eric and I met at the perfect time,” Carlberg explains. “I agreed to bring the concept to life through a virtual restaurant. We felt healthy food would be perfect for the community. We developed the plan to open.”

Carlberg, a practicing vegan for the past decade, recently returned home to Cleveland from New York, where she managed a vegan organic café.

“I have always had a passion for plant-based food,” she adds.

Planted is billed as a “virtual, flexitarian, plant-based restaurant that offers wholesome, nutritious, sustainable, and delicious food to the local community. In devising the menu, chef Devon Locigno avoids the presence of gluten, dairy, eggs, preservatives and processed foods, focusing instead on fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains. Clean meats and animal products are used sparingly. All items are made from scratch.

On the menu are snacks and starters like avocado toast with olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh lemon; chickpea fritters tossed with confit tomatoes, lemon, olive oil, and kale; and “cheesy fries” that consist of hand-cut potatoes topped with fauxcheese sauce, walnut-bean chorizo and caramelized onions.

The mac and cheese is made with brown-rice penne, cashews and butternut squash and capped with a portabella mushroom. A “krabby patty” is a faux-crab cake burger made with hearts of palm on cauliflower bread with kale, sprouts, tomatoes and roasted garlic aioli.

It’s served with root chips and lemon hummus.

Diners can design their own bowls by mixing and matching bases like brown rice and quinoa, super-food greens, zucchini noodles or brown rice penne with proteins such as shredded spiced free-range chicken, Alaskan blackened salmon, vegan walnut bean crumble or tofu.

Additional sauces and toppings are also available.

Those same proteins and toppings also are available in pizza form atop a cauliflower crust ladled with San Marzano tomato sauce and faux parmesan.

Planted’s food is available for pickup and delivery 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

Monday-Saturday.

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner | clevescene.com | November 18-24, 2020

17

SAVAGE LOVE ADD IT UP

By Dan Savage

clevescene.com

18

| clevescene.com | November 18-24, 2020

Hey, Dan: I’ve always been excited

by BDSM but I’ve only minimally explored this side of myself until very recently. I’m a straight woman and it was difficult to find men who wanted more monogamish relationships on the traditional apps and a challenge to be honest about what I am looking for where kink is concerned. I’d often get through a month or so of seeing someone before finding out they wanted a completely monogamous relationship and that they were very vanilla in the bedroom to boot. I was tired of wasting my time and needed to find a partner who wanted to enjoy a kinky relationship so I moved from traditional dating apps like Bumble and Hinge and to apps like #Open, Fetlife, and KinkD. While I’ve had a few amazing conversations and meet ups, they’ve primarily been with men in open relationships, couples, or guys only looking to hookup. And it seems most people on kinky apps want to only talk about sex. While I do feel drawn to this lifestyle, I am also looking for a partner. I want someone to spend my life with who can also enjoy the kink community with me. How can I find a guy that wants a life partner and a fun and kinky sex life?

Seeks Partner And Needs Kink P.S. One more question: I’m currently enjoying casual sex with a male partner who only buys magnum-size condoms but who does not need magnum-size condoms. It’s like fucking a halfempty grocery store bag. How do I tell him regular condoms would be soooooo much better without making him feel bad?

Whether you’re on kinky dating apps or mainstream dating apps or both, SPANK, you’re gonna have a lot of interactions with a lot of guys who aren’t right for you before you find the guy (or guys) who are right for you. And since there are plenty of kinky people on mainstream dating apps — you were one of them — you should be on both. Of the happily partnered kinky people I know, SPANK, half met their partners in “traditional” spaces (bars, workplaces, mainstream dating apps) while the other half

met their partners in kinky spaces (munches, fetish parties, kinky dating apps). And while no one should be meeting anyone in a bar or at parties right now — there’s a pandemic on — the more places you advertise online, the likelier you are to line up a compatible partner for when this is all over.

And you shouldn’t be surprised — or put off — when someone you meet on KinkD wants to talk about their kinks. When you meet someone via a dating app that brings people together around a shared interest, it’s only natural that your initial conversations revolve around that shared interest.

If you were posting ads on Farmers Only or Christian Cafe, your first chats would very likely revolve around, I don’t know, the price of corn or the exact moment you sold your soul to Donald Trump.

Whichever kind of app you meet a guy on, you’re going to have to do the same two things — the same work, the same vetting, the same screw diligence — just in a different order. When you meet a guy on Bumble, SPANK, you establish baseline emotional compatibility first and then eventually you have a conversation about sex. With guys you meet on KinkD, you establish baseline sexual compatibility first — by talking about your mutual sexual interests — and eventually get around to determining whether you’re emotionally compatible.

And, again, since you could meet someone with whom you are emotionally and sexually compatible on either kind of dating site — mainstream or kinky — you should keep your ads up on both.

P.S. Loose condoms come off and loose condoms leak, SPANK, so a guy who uses XXL condoms on a medium dick puts you at greater risk of contracting an STI or having an unplanned pregnancy.

And for what? To impress the checkout clerk at CVS? Don’t worry about making him feel bad. Tell him he gets condoms that fit or he finds someone else to fuck.

mail@savagelove.net t@fakedansavage www.savagelovecast.com

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| clevescene.com | November 18-24, 2020

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