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UPFRONT
CLEVELAND CITY COUNCIL ENTERTAINS SIGNIFICANT LAWS TO LIMIT GROWTH OF SMOKE SHOPS, REGULATE THEM
WHEN DAVE MARGOLIUS took the helm of the Department of Public Health in 2022, he arrived with cleareyed agenda.
There were lingering concerns for particle pollution and air quality. There was the typical worry about food deserts. But nothing seemed to haunt Margolius more than one unsettling fact: Cleveland has the highest smoking rates, for a city of its size, in the country. (About one in three Clevelanders are smokers.)
On Monday, City Council’s Health, Human Services and Arts Committee heard from Margolius and Chief Zoning Administrator Shannon Leonard heard the latest proposal on how to curb those numbers with the most stringent legislation of its kind since Cleveland upped the legal age for tobacco purchases to 21 in 2015.
Margolius and Leonard helped introduce a suite of new laws designed to monitor and curb the growth of smoke shops and their paraphernalia. Which, in everyone’s mind, seem to have gotten out of hand: Cleveland has roughly 200 to 400 stores that hawk vapes and kratom. (The city’s received 75 permit applications for new shops since January alone.)
“A lot of us have been waiting a long time for this day,” Ward 12 Councilwoman Rebecca Maurer said at Council’s meeting Monday morning.
“We were already behind the 8-ball on this,” she added. “We’ve already had a proliferation of these open, even in the last few weeks, months. We need to get a grip on this—and move along as quickly as possible.”
Ground-floor retail vacancies and the state’s legalization of adult-use marijuana in December of 2023 have melded together to spark a flooding of perceived opportunities for shop owners wanting to cash in on the market.
The difference is that, as Margolius made note of Monday, other Midwestern cities—Detroit, Columbus, Cincinnati—have had regulations in place to stymie oversaturation. Columbus’ ban on flavored tobacco, which has led to closed stores for violators, has long been on Margolius’ wishlist of legislative tools that could cut down on vaping rates in teenagers, for example. Council has long been cautious
of approving, fearing it might hurt profit margins for already struggling corner stores.
But as far as any laws whatsoever, Cleveland is relatively dry.
“We don’t have anything,” Margolius told Council. “We don’t currently regulate for smoke shops.”
If passed by Council, smoke shops—defined as any store more than 20 percent devoted to such product— would be required to register with the city. They’d have to pay for and renew a license every year, which could cost anywhere from $300 to $500, Margolius said. And those that don’t register would get a cease-and-desist letter placard pasted on their door.
And shops would agree to two random health inspections annually. Anyone selling kratom, Delta-8, or vapes to adults under 21 could face fines up to $1,000. Fail your fourth inspection in a year and a half? Your license will be revoked.
Smoke shops covertly selling THC products are also targets. Those that brought councilmembers to the edge of their seats: many had stories to tell about shady and opaque “dispensaries”—by name only—advertising “blunts,” “flower,” “dabs.” And all were taken aback when Leonard and Margolius pulled out the data: there are only seven dispensaries in the city legally allowed to sell adult-use THC.
The potential violators’ names came up instantaneously from various members in attendance.
“I mean, that’s become problematic,” Ward 5 Councilman Richard Starr said. “They’re popping up every day. I get calls. Calls about young people buying marijuana from these locations. And there’s nothing that’s helping us regulate” them.
Shops interviewed by Scene seemed both cautious and curious about the suite of laws designed to keep closer watch on their businesses. But none flinched at a $500 license, or the law preventing new shops being built less than two miles from existing ones.
“I don’t think we would have a problem with that,” a manager at Vapeland on Euclid Avenue told Scene when asked about the license requirement. “I think it would be okay.”
Over at Ashes Smokeshop on West 6th, where you can buy kratom pills and Delta-8 by the bud, general manager Sam Chahda shared a similar shoulder shrug when read a list of changes proposed by Margolius.
IDs are already checked religiously, he said. A $500 fee to stay legal wouldn’t be a big deal. The only irritation would be if the city was able to cut away, say, vape sales altogether. “You take that away,” Chahda said, “that’s, like, 50 percent of my business.”
But put the kibosh on new shops a few blocks over? Chahda’s totally in line.
“They need to limit them!” he said, with a laugh. “I mean, all my friends run smoke shops, and we say the same thing: there’s too many of them already.”
The legislation will head to the finance committee in the coming weeks before a possible hearing before full council. – Mark Oprea
Made Cleveland Has Closed as Vendors Wait for Overdue Payments, Merchandise
Made Cleveland is officially closed as some vendors wait for payments, others wait for money due from six small claims court suits, and others wait to retrieve merchandise from the store.
Owner Ash O’Connor has been under fire after she was sued by six vendors for more than $4,000 in unpaid revenue. Others chimed in online to say they had similar incidents.
One of the plaintiffs, Gina Wilkolak, confirmed to Scene on Tuesday that, despite the public statement, a handful of artists and artisans have not been able to reach O’Connor since she decided to effectively abandon the store following a curt court appearance in Cleveland Heights.
O’Connor, who’s owned and operated Made Cleveland on Coventry since 2022, has run what seemed on the surface to be a viable incubator for upand-coming local creators. Below the surface, O’Connor has struggled to keep to a payment timeline—a deposit on the 15th of every month—for the vendors she welcomed into the store. It’s unclear exactly how many are owed backpay and overdue pay.
State records show that O’Connor filed in August 2023 to form a new business entity called “Kona Collectives LLC,” though it’s unclear exactly how that business is being used.
O’Connor is no stranger to financial straits.
County records show there are currently 43 judgment liens against her from January 2021 to last year.
And a lawsuit filed October 2023 by Vox Funding claims that O’Connor owed the small business funder $25,586 after ending automatic payments to the company that September. – Mark Oprea
Photo by Mark Oprea
FEATURE
ON A MISSION FROM GOD
Inside the Movement to Redirect Billions of Taxpayer Dollars to Private Religious Schools
By Alex MacGillis
Originally published by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power, and The New Yorker. Republished here under Creative Common licensing.
ON A THURSDAY MORNING last May, about a hundred people gathered in the atrium of the Ohio Capitol building to join in Christian worship. The “Prayer at the Statehouse” was
organized by an advocacy group called the Center for Christian Virtue, whose growing influence was symbolized by its new headquarters, directly across from the capitol. It was also manifest in the officials who came to take part in the event: three state legislators and the ambitious lieutenant governor, Jon Husted.
After some prayer and singing, the center’s Christian
Engagement Ambassador introduced Husted, asking him to “share with us about faith and intersecting faith with government.” Husted, a youthful 57-year-old, spoke intently about the prayer meetings that he leads in the governor’s office each month. “We bring appointed officials and elected officials together to talk about our faith in our work, in our service,
and how it can strengthen us and make us better,” he said. The power of prayer, Husted suggested, could even supply political victories: “When we do that, great things happen — like advancing school choice so that every child in Ohio has a chance to go to the school of their choice.” The audience started applauding before he finished his sentence.
George Voinovich|Official Photo
The center had played a key role in bringing about one of the most dramatic expansions of private school vouchers in the country, making it possible for all Ohio families — even the richest among them — to receive public money to pay for their children’s tuition. In the mid-1990s, Ohio became the second state to offer vouchers, but in those days they were available only in Cleveland and were billed as a way for disadvantaged children to escape struggling schools. Now the benefits extend to more than 150,000 students across the state, costing taxpayers nearly $1 billion, the vast majority of which goes to the Catholic and evangelical institutions that dominate the private school landscape there. What happened in Ohio was a stark illustration of a development that has often gone unnoticed, perhaps because it is largely taking place away from blue state media hubs. In the past few years, school vouchers have become universal in a dozen states, including Florida, Arizona and North Carolina. Proponents are pushing to add Texas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and others — and, with Donald Trump returning to the White House, they will likely have federal support.
The risks of universal vouchers are quickly coming to light. An initiative that was promoted for years as a civil rights cause — helping poor kids in troubled schools — is threatening to become a nationwide money grab. Many private schools are raising tuition rates to take advantage of the new funding, and new schools are being founded to capitalize on it. With private schools urging all their students’ families to apply, the money is flowing mostly to parents who are already able to afford tuition and to kids who are already enrolled in private schools. When vouchers do draw students away from public districts, they threaten to exacerbate declining enrollment, forcing underpopulated schools to close. More immediately, the cost of the programs is soaring, putting pressure on public school finances even as private schools prosper. In Arizona, voucher expenditures are hundreds of millions of dollars more than predicted, leaving an enormous shortfall in the state budget. States that provide funds to
families for homeschooling or education-related expenses are contending with reports that the money is being used to cover such unusual purchases as kayaks, video game consoles and horseback-¬riding lessons.
The voucher movement has been aided by a handful of billionaire advocates; it was also enabled, during the pandemic, by the backlash to extended school closures. (Private schools often reopened considerably faster than public schools.) Yet much of the public, even in conservative states, remains ambivalent about vouchers: Voters in Nebraska and Kentucky just rejected them in ballot referendums.
How, then, has the movement managed to triumph? The campaign in Ohio provides an object lesson — a model that voucher advocates have deployed elsewhere. Its details are recorded in a trove of private correspondence, much of it previously unpublished, that the movement’s leaders in Ohio sent to one another. The letters reveal a strategy to start with targeted programs that placed needy kids in parochial schools, then fight to expand the benefits to far richer families — a decadeslong effort by a network of politicians, church officials and activists, all united by a conviction that the separation of church and state is illegitimate. As one of the movement’s progenitors put it, “Government does a lousy job of substituting for religion.”
In the early 1990s, Ohio’s Catholic bishops faced a problem. For more than a century, religious education had been deeply entrenched in the state; in Cleveland, the parochial system was one of the largest in the country. For decades, though, the Church’s urban schools had been losing students to suburban flight. To keep up enrollment, many were admitting more Black students, often from non-¬Catholic families. But these families typically could not afford to pay much, which put a strain on church budgets. Catholic leaders elsewhere faced the same challenge, but Ohio’s bishops had an advantage. The new Republican governor, George Voinovich, was a devout Catholic who went to Mass multiple times a week, an expression of a faith that was inherited from his Slovenian
American mother and deepened by the loss of his 9-year-old daughter, who was struck by a van that ran a red light. An unpretentious Midwesterner who loved fishing in Lake Erie, Voinovich had worked his way up from state legislator to mayor of Cleveland before becoming governor in 1991.
In office, Voinovich corresponded frequently with the state’s most prominent bishops, in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. Their letters, which are collected in Voinovich’s papers at Ohio University, show a close and collaborative relationship. The bishops wrote to thank Voinovich for the regular donations that he and his wife made to the church, which ranged as high as $2,000. They traded get-well wishes and condolence notes. “The last two times I’ve seen you, you looked a little tired,” Voinovich once wrote to Anthony Pilla, the bishop of Cleveland. “Please take care of yourself.”
Most of all, they strategized about increasing state funding for Catholic schools. As a legislator, Voinovich had worked to launch a set of programs that helped private schools pay for administration, special education, transportation and other services. His support for these expenditures, which by the early ’90s amounted to more than $100 million, stood in contrast with his aggressive efforts to cut the rest of the budget. At one point, he banned peanuts and other snacks from official state flights. Legislators passed around a story about seeing him pluck a penny out of a urinal.
But Voinovich saw spending on parochial schools as fundamentally different, driven by his belief in the value of a Catholic upbringing. “If we could reconstitute the family and get everyone into Church, about 60% of the problems we are confronted with would go away,” he wrote to James Griffin, the bishop of Columbus. “I can assure you that the money you spend to deal with all the problems confronting the community is much better spent than the way government would spend it.”
Soon after Voinovich became governor, he and the bishops began discussing another way to fund Catholic schools: vouchers. The notion of publicly funded subsidies for private schools wasn’t totally new. After courts ordered school integration in
the South, in the 1950s, some municipalities helped finance “segregation academies” for white students. At around the same time, the economist Milton Friedman argued that education should be subject to market forces, in part by paying parents to send their children to a school of their choosing. But no city or state had funded a true voucher initiative.
For the state government, there was an obvious risk to funding Catholic schools; the Ohio Constitution says that “no preference shall be given, by law, to any religious society.” Voinovich and his aides worried not only about political repercussions but also about the potential for legal challenges from groups like the ACLU. In April 1991, Voinovich intimated to Pilla that he was recruiting proxies who could obscure their alliance. “We are quietly lining up ‘heavy hitters’ in the business community and are trying to identify someone in the legislature who would be willing to become our advocate,” he wrote. Voinovich had an ideal partner in David Brennan, a well-connected local businessman. A towering presence at 6-feet-5 (not counting his customary cowboy hat), Brennan had attended Catholic school in Akron before earning degrees in accounting and law, and made a fortune forming corporations for doctors seeking tax benefits. When Voinovich ran for governor, Brennan was a major fundraiser for the campaign. Now he started cultivating allies, donating heavily to a Republican from the Cincinnati suburbs who was a promising sponsor of voucher legislation, as reported by the Akron Beacon Journal, which covered the early voucher push. In May 1991, Voinovich and Brennan met to discuss creating a commission on school choice, which Brennan would chair. Soon afterward, the bishops provided 18 suggestions for possible members. Six of them ended up on the commission — with no mention of the fact that they had been selected by the church. As word of the commission spread, it raised concerns. The following spring, an executive at Procter & Gamble, one of the state’s largest employers, urged Voinovich to couch “this sensitive issue” in a broader effort at school reform. “Vouchers on their own could lead to unneces -
sary divisiveness,” he wrote. The head of the Ohio teachers’ union warned that unilateral action “could explode any chance at building a statewide consensus.” Voinovich responded that he was prepared for discord: “I am confident that whatever recommendations they come back with, it will be difficult for the Ohio Federation of Teachers to support.”
The commission was moving fast. Brennan “is doing an outstanding job,” Voinovich wrote to Pilla. “He is on a mission from God.” Voinovich and Brennan took care to disarm political objections. One briefing document argued that any plan the commission produced “must be substantially tilted in favor of low income ¬parents and children” and must require private schools to administer the same -proficiency tests as public schools. By year’s end, the commission produced its recommendation: Ohio should create a voucher pilot program.
Representative C.J. Prentiss monitored the commission’s work with foreboding. Elected to the Ohio House in 1991, Prentiss had distinguished herself as a leading defender of public education and was steeped in the struggle for school integration. Her father had belonged to the Congress of Racial Equality, and after Prentiss graduated from Cleveland’s Marshall High School — where she was one of six Black students — she attended the 1963 March on Washington. Later, she joined local battles against school segregation, during which she met Michael Charney, a white teacher and union activist who became her third husband. She taught for a while in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights and served on the State Board of Education. In 1993, she and other Black officials in Cleveland condemned Voinovich’s plan. “It is difficult to see how subsidizing private schools will improve public education,” she said. “Private schools have selective entrance requirements, serve only private purposes, and are not accountable to the public.”
Brennan deflected the criticism, noting that the plan was still provisional: “We believe when the education choice bill reaches the final stages, these
fine legislators will feel differently than they do today.” In fact, he and Voinovich knew that it would be tough to secure backing for a stand-alone voucher bill; school board members, teachers and administrators were already sending letters to legislators to object. In May 1994, Voinovich contacted Brennan to strategize about how to slip a voucher pilot into the next state budget. “We are going to have to crawl before we walk,” he wrote. “I believe if we can really get it underway in one or two districts during my second term, we will have accomplished more than what [has] been accomplished thus far.”
A few weeks later, Voinovich’s assistant for education policy, Tom Needles, sent him a strategy brief on a forthcoming lunch with the bishops. “The Catholic Conference will continue to maintain a low profile in terms of its formal position on voucher legislation,” Needles wrote. “At the same time, the Conference recognizes that parent organizations in each diocese will play a very active role in lobbying for its passage.” On the last day of January 1995, voucher proponents paid for six buses to carry some 300 children and parents from Cleveland to the Capitol in order to lobby legislators. As parents walked from office to office in the Statehouse, one declared, “The public schools are preparing Black children for prison, the welfare office or the graveyard. As a Black parent, that’s unacceptable.”
Prentiss and a state senator from Cleve¬land decided to address the throng. With the parents visibly angry, she knew better than to dismiss concerns about their children’s schooling. “There is a crisis,” she acknowledged. “The question before us is, how do we improve the public schools?”
The bishops, though, were far more organized, with efforts unfolding parish by parish across the state; a list in Voinovich’s papers records hundreds of phone calls and letters to legislators, making the case for vouchers and inviting them to visit local parish schools. Voinovich urged them to do still more. “I really need your help and would appreciate being kept informed as to what is being done so I can convey that to the leadership in both the House and Senate,” he wrote to Daniel Pilarczyk,
the archbishop of Cincinnati, in February 1995. The next month, Pilarczyk responded with another list of the church’s actions, including some 20,000 letters sent to ¬legislators.
Two weeks later, Voinovich let Pilarczyk know that the House had not only increased funding for Catholic schools but also authorized a “limited scholarship program in the City of Cleveland.” The program would start small, with several thousand vouchers worth about $2,200 apiece. Yet Voinovich recognized that it was a “significant pilot project.” At the time, the only other city that allowed private ¬school vouchers was Milwaukee, and the initiative there had initially barred religious schools from participating. Cleveland’s program, in contrast, had been designed from the start to benefit Catholic schools.
In June, the budget won final approval. Six bishops wrote Voinovich to express their gratitude. “Everything we asked you to do was included in your budget,” they told him. “Without your leadership and gentle nudging of legislative leaders, none of this would have been possible.”
Prentiss and Charney quickly grasped the pilot’s import. “This is the beginning of the end for public education,” he told her, only half joking. Prentiss resolved to monitor the program to make sure that the money was spent as intended. After one voucher recipient, an Islamic school, was found to have housed students in unsafe buildings, she successfully sponsored a bill requiring schools that received vouchers to meet the same minimum standards as public schools.
Meanwhile, Prentiss kept pushing for public school reforms: all-day kindergarten, smaller classes, mentorships for at-risk boys. She and Charney were encouraged by test results showing that kids in public schools were performing at least as well as those with vouchers at Catholic schools.
In 1998, Voinovich was elected to the United States Senate; Needles, his aide, went to work as a lobbyist for Brennan. And the push for vouchers entered a new phase, as an aggressive generation of proponents took
up a battle in the courts.
In both Ohio and Wisconsin, opponents, led by teachers’ unions, were challenging the programs on the grounds that they violated the separation of church and state. The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld vouchers; a federal appeals court in Ohio ruled against them.
The U.S. Supreme Court took up a First Amendment challenge to vouchers, based on one of the Ohio cases, in February 2002. Robert Chanin, a lawyer for the National Education Association, told the court, “Under the Cleveland voucher program, millions of dollars in unrestricted public funds are transferred each year from the state treasury into the general coffers of sectarian private schools, and the money is used by those schools to provide an educational program in which the sectarian and the secular are interwoven.” Chanin noted that ¬virtually all the students in the voucher program were attending religious schools, rather than secular private schools.
But Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the likely swing vote in the case, interrupted to pick up on a point made by a state attorney who’d defended the vouchers. In evaluating Cleveland’s choice program, shouldn’t the court consider not only private schools but also other options available to students, such as public magnet schools and charter schools?
The question caught Chanin off guard. The issue was the constitutionality of private school vouchers, yet O’Connor was evoking public school options. The state pressed its advantage, with its lawyer stressing the limited scope of the pilot: “It didn’t take too much money away from the public schools, but gave enough for a limited program that is targeted to the most needy, to the poorest of the poor.”
On June 27, 2002, the Court announced that it had ruled, 5-4, in favor of the Ohio program, arguing that it was “part of a broader undertaking by the State to enhance the educational options of Cleveland’s school children.” Clint Bolick, a leading lawyer on the pro-voucher side, declared on the Supreme Court plaza, “This was the Super Bowl of school choice, and the children won.” Later, he and others gathered at the office of the
Institute for Justice, a conservative organization, and toasted with Dom ¬Pérignon.
Prentiss was on vacation with Charney in Washington state when she got word of the ruling. “PBS NewsHour” invited her to come to a studio in Vancouver and record a response, but she was too upset to think about what she would say on camera. “I’m not going to be the one,” she told Charney. “Let them get a lawyer.”
After the Supreme Court ruling, the momentum in seeking alternatives to traditional public schools shifted to charter schools — publicly funded institutions that are administered separately from school districts. Many Democrats had championed charters in the ’90s as a more palatable way to offer school choice, and Republicans had adopted the idea, too; Brennan, the chairman of Voinovich’s school choice commission, launched a for-profit charter ¬school venture.
In 2005, with charters threatening to cut into parochial school enrollment, Ohio’s Catholic bishops secured a crucial expansion of vouchers beyond Cleveland: a new statewide
program called EdChoice, which offered vouchers to students assigned to schools that were judged to be failing, many of them in Columbus and Cincinnati.
Prentiss stayed in the legislature until 2006, becoming the second Black woman to serve as Senate minority leader. Up until the end, she led the resistance to vouchers. As she left the legislature, though, an impassioned advocate for vouchers came in: a Republican representative named Matt Huffman.
Huffman was a lawyer from Lima, a small industrial city in western Ohio. Like Prentiss, he had grown up among activists, but with different political aims. His father, a lawyer and a county prosecutor, took a case against a local cinema that was showing “obscene” movies all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court; his mother co-founded one of the state’s first pregnancy ¬crisis centers after abortion was legalized.
Huffman was the fifth of nine children, all of whom went to Catholic schools. This was possible, he said later, because the parish schools were so affordable in those days. But, as tuition climbed (partly to cover the salaries of lay teachers who
replaced nuns), the student body skewed wealthier. “The middle class was pretty much shut out of alternatives in education,” he told the Columbus Dispatch in 2022.
One of Huffman’s brothers became the principal of a Catholic elementary school. Huffman, after following his ¬father into law, served as a fundraiser for Lima Central Catholic High. He also got involved in local politics, rising to president of the City Council. In 2000, he endorsed a young former Ohio State wrestling coach named Jim Jordan as he ran for the state Senate. Jordan, who is now one of the most stridently conservative members of the U.S. House of -Representatives, later returned the favor by backing Huffman’s campaign for the state legislature.
By this point, school choice was becoming Huffman’s overriding priority. In Lima, he participated in a standing gin rummy game with the Rev. David Ross, a local Catholic priest, and Leo Hawk, the owner of a metal-forming company, who, in Ross’ recollection, repeatedly pressed Huffman on the issue. “Leo Hawk was very influential in terms of trying to inculcate him with ‘Let the
parents decide where to spend their tax dollars,’” Ross told me. “Leo was very forceful in those gatherings.” (Hawk could not be reached for comment.)
During Huffman’s first four years in the legislature, the governor was a Democrat, and the focus was on protecting existing vouchers. But after the Republican John Kasich took office, in 2011, Huffman proposed a significant expansion: making vouchers available to middle-¬class Ohio families, too, regardless of whether they were in a failing district. “This is starting down the path of looking at funding education in a fundamentally different way,” he said.
The proposal met with impassioned resistance. Opponents pointed to a ¬report in the Plain Dealer that showed voucher students had performed worse than students at the public schools that they would have attended. Among the critics were public school administrators in Lima, where hundreds of students were already receiving vouchers because a few local schools were rated as failing. The exodus of students resulted in a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in state revenue. As Lima’s school superintendent at the time, Karel Oxley, explained to
Matt Huffman|Courtesy the Ohio Channel
me: Even if a class lost students, the school still had to pay for their classroom and teacher. To complicate matters, the students who left tended to be motivated kids from stable families, while special-needs students stayed. This made it harder for public schools to improve their poor test scores. “You have to have your A-team to help the school be as good as possible, but the A-team moves over to the other school,” Oxley, who also served as president of the state superintendents’ association, said. “It’s almost impossible to catch up.”
Oxley is herself Catholic, and consults for a Catholic school in retirement, but she testified against vouchers at a committee hearing around this time. She recalled that Huffman was adamant. “There was nothing I could have said that would have allowed him to see that he might be stripping resources from the greater community,” she told me. “He said, ‘You pay taxes, I pay taxes. Why can’t my taxes go toward my children’s school?’ I said, ‘Because you chose that private school.’ He said, ‘That doesn’t make sense, Karel. My taxes should pay for my child’s education.’” (Huffman did not respond to requests for comment.)
Huffman settled for a partial victory: In 2013, the state allowed EdChoice vouchers for families with incomes up to twice the poverty line in any district. It was a step forward, but Huffman wanted the program to be available to wealthier families, and it would take another ally to help him realize his full ambition.
Phil Burress was always candid about what had brought him to Citizens for Community Values: He was a former pornography addict. Burress had fought the addiction from the age of 14, until he finally swore it off, at 38. “I became a Christian that day,” he told me. From then on, he said, he was a “better father and husband” and “started speaking out about things that are wrong.” His background gave him insight into the enemy. “You have to look at your communities through the eyes of a pornographer and stay ahead of them,” he once told reporters. Burress, a former organizer with the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks, joined Citi-
zens for Community Values in 1983. By then, the organization, which started as a Cincinnati prayer group, had devoted itself to fighting pornography and strip clubs, including various enterprises belonging to Larry Flynt, who launched his Hustler brand in Ohio. In 1990, it gained national prominence by leading the opposition to an exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs at Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center. Not long afterward, Burress took over as president. “We are not some radical, right-wing, fundamental bunch of Bible-¬thumping nuts out there yelling and screaming,” Burress said at the time. “We do our homework.”
The group grew under Burress — by 1997, it claimed to have 25,000 supporters — and started taking on nationwide causes, such as pressuring hotels to stop offering pay-per-view porn. In 2004, it led a successful petition drive for an amendment banning same-sex marriage in Ohio, a factor in George W. Bush’s narrow win over John Kerry there. “I was thinking, No way we can get that many signatures,” Lori Viars, a conservative activist in the Cincinnati exurbs, told me. “But we ended up doing it.”
The victory attracted more funding, which the group used to hire full-time lobbyists in Columbus. Its top issues were abortion, same-sex marriage, gay rights and, increasingly, school choice. Though the members were mostly evangelical, not Catholic, they shared the conviction that the public should pay for kids to attend religious schools. Still, Burress told me, the group struggled to persuade legislators to expand voucher access. “We could not get any traction whatsoever,” he said. What changed matters was “electing the right people to office.”
In 2017, Matt Huffman arrived in the state Senate. He had served the maximum eight years in the House and, like many other Ohio legislators, simply ran for the other chamber. In the Senate, school choice remained his primary cause. That year, he sponsored a bill to expand eligibility for vouchers to families that made as much as four times the poverty level. Catholic leaders were thrilled. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a legislator who did more for school choice,” a
former employee of the Catholic Conference of Ohio, the church’s public policy arm, said. “He’s just been a rock.”
Huffman still faced resistance from public school officials, but he now had influential assistance from Citizens for Community Values. In 2016, Burress was succeeded by a new director, Aaron Baer, who signaled a more expansive mission. Baer was a 29-year-old graduate of Ohio University, a hip-hop enthusiast raised by a single parent. “This is a Christian conservative movement for the next generation,” he told the Dispatch. “We talk about poverty, human ¬trafficking, opioids, while still talking about ¬marriage.” The organization moved its headquarters to Columbus and gave itself a forthright new name: the Center for Christian Virtue. Burress welcomed the change. “I was glad to see them admit that without God we’re nothing,” he told me.
Baer and Huffman were unlikely ¬allies. Huffman liked to do impersonations and had a profane streak; he was once forced to apologize for making an ¬off-color joke at an office party. But on vouchers they were effective partners, with Baer far more willing to advocate in public than the bishops were. In the next couple of years, Baer fought to get the state to define “failing” schools as broadly as possible, and called out suburban districts, many of which opposed vouchers, when they resisted accepting students from struggling city schools.
By early 2020, Huffman was still trying to make the case for a major voucher expansion. That January, he met with a few dozen public school officials in western Ohio. Craig Kupferberg, the superintendent for Allen County, which includes Lima, told me that he’d raised his hand and asked Huffman, “Have you put anything in the bill to stop the David Dukes of the world from starting up their own private schools and having our tax dollars fund their hateful ideology?” Kupferberg recalled that Huffman had looked at him “like I was from outer space” and said, “What stops homeschooling parents from doing any of that?” (Never mind that vouchers weren’t going to home-schooling families.) Then Huffman embarked on a lengthy complaint about how many peo -
Huffman’s proposal stalled again that term. But, two months later, the pandemic arrived and schools closed. After nearly a year, about a third of Ohio’s 609 districts still hadn’t returned to full in-person instruction. The holdouts included many of the largest districts, Cleveland and Columbus among them.
The state’s parochial schools, in contrast, had mostly reopened after a few months. The Catholic Conference of Ohio highlighted students’ educational gains in the legislature. “A lot of legislators appreciated what we did for children, because a lot of legislators were frustrated, too,” the former conference employee said. “We were sort of a beacon in the COVID era.” It helped proponents that many legislators had their own children in Catholic schools. Although Catholics account for only about 17% of the state’s population, they constitute more than half of the Senate and a third of the House. As the pandemic wore on, school closures inspired similar outrage in other states. They “sparked a parent revolution, because families saw that school systems didn’t care about them all that much,” Corey DeAngelis, a leading voucher proponent, said on “The Megyn Kelly Show,” last May. “This is the silver lining of the pandemic.”
Many parents were alarmed by virtual instruction. It was not just that lessons conducted by Zoom seemed frustratingly inadequate; they also offered a glimpse of what their children were being taught, which in some families caused consternation over a perceived progressive agenda. Viars, the Cincinnati-area activist, noticed a surge of interest in Christian schools. “The books being pushed on these little kids were so objectionable,” she said. “It was really sexually explicit material for little kids. We heard that a lot: ‘No, these kids should not be seeing any of this.’”
In May 2021, two Republican representatives in Ohio introduced a “backpack bill,” which would give every ¬family voucher money to spend as they saw fit: $7,500 for each high school student and $5,500 for each
younger one. At a press conference announcing the bill, Baer stood beside its sponsors. “In the pandemic, we saw the need to have innovative and different learning environments,” he said. “You had some families who, because their local public schools decided not to open for in-person education, they were forced into an online environment that wasn’t ideal for them.”
The bill went a step further than Huffman had before; whereas he had pushed for vouchers for all but the wealthiest families, the backpack bill included everyone. It was a bold move, but proponents had a new advantage: earlier that year, Huffman’s Republican colleagues had elected him president of the Senate. In that role, not only was he able to push for vouchers — he could also block efforts to reform Ohio’s redistricting system, which had produced maps heavily slanted toward the GOP. By 2022, the Senate had 25 Republicans and eight Democrats; the House was split 64 to 35. “We can kind of do what we want,” Huffman told the Dispatch.
Yet Huffman and his allies decided not to advance the backpack bill through regular legislative channels, which would require stand-alone votes in both chambers. Opposition lingered, even within their own party: Some rural Republicans were conscious that there were few private schools in their districts, and so their constituents’ tax dollars would go toward vouchers used mostly by wealthy suburbanites. And, if more private schools did open in rural areas, that would drain enrollment from public schools that often served as centers of the community.
Instead, Huffman and his counterparts used a maneuver that would have been familiar to George Voinovich: they slipped an expansion of vouchers into the budget, a 1,200-page document that they sent to Gov. Mike De¬Wine just before the deadline. Families with incomes of up to 450% of the poverty level would qualify for full payments: $8,407 for high school students and $6,165 for younger ones. These sums came close to covering tuition at many Catholic schools, and far exceeded what many public districts received in per-capita funds from the state. Even families making more
than that income threshold, which was $135,000 for a family of four, would qualify for some funding. “Every student in Ohio will be eligible for a scholarship worth at least 10% of the maximum scholarship, regardless of income,” Huffman’s office said.
More than 30 years after Voinovich and the bishops proposed vouchers as a solution for underprivileged children in a single city, public subsidies for private ¬school tuition were now universal in Ohio, covering tens of thousands of families. “We’re going to have the money to pay for it,” Huffman said afterward. “I hope more people take advantage of that if they want to.”
C.J. Prentiss died last April at 82. She had spent her retirement with Charney in a cottage on Lake Erie, in Ashtabula County. In her final years, declining health kept her from engaging much in the battle over public education. But she did have a confrontation with Huffman when she returned to Columbus for a Senate reunion in 2022. Several speakers had been chosen for the event, and when Prentiss saw that they were all white she asked Huffman about it. According to Charney, Huffman responded that he didn’t have enough time to line up others. “Don’t lie to me,” Prentiss said, and walked away.
That same year, a coalition of school districts, now numbering more than 200, filed suit against the voucher expansion. The suit alleged that the program exacerbated racial segregation, by essentially allowing private schools to select their own students; 90% of the new voucher recipients are white, in a state where only about twothirds of students are. The suit also alleged that the vouchers violated two principles of the state constitution: a bar against religious control of public school funds and a promise of an adequate education for all. A judge denied the state’s motion to dismiss the case; a trial is expected in the coming months.
Among the districts that joined the suit is the one in Lima, Huffman’s home town. Virtually all the students enrolled in Catholic schools there now receive vouchers. Enrollment at these and other parochial schools has not increased
dramatically; as is true across the state, they have limited capacity, so they accept only those students they prefer. This undermines the narrative that vouchers allow families to escape their public school. But public schools still suffer. Kupferberg, the superintendent, estimates that in his county the voucher expansion is costing schools millions of dollars a year. Federal pandemic relief aid has helped mitigate the damage, but that is coming to an end. “We’re starting to feel the impact,” Kupferberg said.
Meanwhile, some private schools are raising tuition, knowing that vouchers allow families to pay more. In Centerville, south of Columbus, the principal of Incarnation Catholic School told parents last year that it would no longer offer a discount for families that had multiple students enrolled there. “Our parishioner tuition rate is nowhere near the true cost to educate,” she wrote. “This increased revenue will allow us to increase teacher and staff salaries, address deferred maintenance, and hire additional staff.” Huffman and his allies are pushing for more. Huffman (who has now moved back to the House, and was recently elected speaker) inserted funding for new construction at private schools into the last state budget, with an eye toward creating private school options in rural areas. Also on the table is legislation to create education-savings accounts for families with children in unregulated private schools that now can’t receive vouchers.
For these coming fights, the Center for Christian Virtue is stronger than ever. The organization has assembled a network of dozens of religious schools, which pay the center $5 per enrolled student, up to $3,000 per school, to lobby on their behalf. In effect, the state’s religious schools can now use some of the public money they receive to advocate for the flow of funding to increase.
Between 2020 and 2022, the center’s revenue more than tripled, to $4.2 million. It used some of the money to purchase two buildings opposite the statehouse — one previously owned by the Dispatch — for a total of $2.35 million, giving it space to accommodate a staff that has grown to 20. (The Center for
Christian Virtue did not respond to a request for comment.)
In early October, the center held a policy conference, called the Essential Summit, at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. A main topic of discussion was Christian education, with sessions led by the executive director of the Center for Biblical Integration at Liberty University, the college founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. One session would address the question “How should we plan for teaching knowing that humans are inherently corrupt?” Another asked, “Why do Christian educators have the most dignifying approach to all humans?”
Huffman was slated to join a discussion with the president of Hillsdale College, a small Christian school in ¬Michigan that has become a powerful incubator of conservatism. Also in attendance was Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, which produced the policy blueprint for the second Trump administration. The plan, called Project 2025, includes a strong endorsement of vouchers, and Roberts’ presence was an affirmation of Ohio’s role as a model for the school choice movement. In Florida, the number of voucher recipients approached half a million this school year, up 74%. (The state distributes the same voucher — about $8,000 — regardless of income.) In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott helped to defeat nearly a dozen anti-¬voucher Republicans in state legislative primaries last year. He had $10 million in campaign funding from Jeff Yass, a Pennsylvania hedge fund billionaire who has made expanding vouchers his central policy goal.
At the convention center, conference staff turned me away, even though I had paid to register. I hung around as attendees emerged from the morning session, their tote bags filled with brochures for Christian schools, investing advice and health coverage. Many of the event’s discussions were aimed at religious schools that were now supported with public funds. But, as I was about to approach Roberts, security guards blocked the path and told me to leave.
GET OUT Everything to do in Cleveland for the next two weeks
WED 03/26
Come from Away
This musical centers on the aftermath of 9/11 when air flights descended en masse in Gander, Newfoundland, stranding an international array of travelers in this tiny Canadian town. Written by Tony nominees Irene Sankoff and David Hein, and helmed by Tony-winning Christopher Ashley, the play comes to EJ Thomas Hall in Akron. The performance begins at 7:30 p.m.
198 Hill St., Akron, 330-972-7570, ejthomashall.com.
Occidental Gypsy
This group plays a bit of everything. Expect to hear gypsy, jazz and folk when it performs tonight at 7 at the Transformer Station. 1460 West 29th St., 216-938-5429, transformerstation.org.
Season’s Greetings
Brit playwright Alan Ayckbourn satirizes Christmas in this comedy that arrives in Cleveland a bit past the holiday. Tonight’s performance takes place at 7:30 at the Helen, where performances continue through April 6. 1407 Euclid Ave, 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
THU 03/27
Andsnes in Recital
Tonight at 7:30 at Mandel Concert Hall, Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes takes on Chopin’s 24 Preludes as well as pieces by Tveitt and Grieg. 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com.
CIFF49 Opening Night
Actress Amy Landecker (Transparent, A Serious Man) makes her feature screenwriting/directorial debut with For Worse, a “biting comedy of manners [about] a newly divorced sober mom who accompanies her Gen Z date to a wedding where things crash and burn (literally) as she tries to keep up with the young wedding party,” as it’s put in a press release. The film screens at 7 p.m. at Connor Palace as it opens the annual Cleveland International Film Festival, which runs through April 13. 1615 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, clevelandfilm.org.
Resynator
This documentary centers on the
invention of the Resynator, an instrument-controlled synthesizer created by Don Tavel in the late 1970s. It screens at 7 p.m. at the Rock Hall. 1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., 216-5158444, rockhall.com.
FRI 03/28
I-X Piston Powered Auto-Rama
Organizers of this event boast that it is “the largest indoor showcase of custom cars, trucks, antique construction equipment, motorcycles, tractors, military equipment and more of its kind in the world.” It takes place today through Sunday at the I-X Center. 1 I-X Center Dr., 216-676-6000, ixcenter.com.
Ismo
The Finnish comedian, musician, author, screenwriter and YouTuber
brings his standup show to the Agora. Doors open at 7 p.m. 5000 Euclid Ave., 216-881-2221, agoracleveland.com.
Marvel Studios’ Black Panther in Concert
At 7:30 tonight and tomorrow night at Mandel Concert Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra performs Ludwig Göransson’s Oscar- and Grammy-winning score live to picture. 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com.
The Oblivion Project: Nuevo Tango of Astor Piazzolla
This acclaimed ensemble that explores the music of Argentine modern-tango master Astor Piazzolla performs tonight at 7 at Cleveland Museum of Art. Malena Dayen, an Argentine opera singer and stage director based in New York, will join the group. 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, cleve-
landart.org.
SUN 03/30
Sal Vulcano
A self-professed sneakerhead, comedian Sal Vulcano, a member of the Impractical Jokers comedy team that’s famous for its practical jokes, brings his stand-up show to TempleLive at the Cleveland Masonic. Doors open at 5 p.m. 3615 Euclid Ave., 216-881-6350, masoniccleveland.com.
TUE 04/01
Lyrical Rhythms Open Mic and Chill
This long-running open mic night at the B Side in Cleveland Heights allows some of the city’s best rappers and poets to strut their stuff. The event
Yagody brings Ukrainian folk music to the Cleveland Museum of Art. See: Wednesday, April 2. | Eugene Hill
begins at 8 with a comedy session dubbed 2 Drinks & a Joke with host Ant Morrow. The open mic performances begin at 10 p.m.
2785 Euclid Heights Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-932-1966, bsideliquorlounge.com.
WED 04/02
Cavaliers vs. New York Knicks
The New York Knicks, a team that some pundits picked to win the Eastern Conference, come to Rocket Arena to take on the Cavs in a game that could preview this year’s playoffs. Tipoff is at 7 p.m. One Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketarena.com.
Yagody
The contemporary Ukrainian folk band comes to the Cleveland Museum of Art for a special performance that takes place tonight at 7:30. The group works with theatrical singers and supports them with musicians who play bass, drums, guitar and accordion. 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.
THU 04/03
Trisha Paytas
The creator, entrepreneur and author who’s appeared on Modern Family and Celebrity Big Brother comes to Connor Palace tonight at 7:30. 1615 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
FRI 04/04
Monsters vs. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins
The Monsters play back-to-back games against the Wilkes-Barre/ Scranton Penguins. The two teams play at 7 tonight and tomorrow night at Rocket Arena.
One Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketarena.com.
Under A Baseball Sky
José Cruz González, the author of American Mariachi, wrote this new play about baseball’s deep roots in the Mexican American community. Tonight’s performance of the play takes place at 7:30 at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood. It runs through May 4. 17801 Detroit Ave., Lakewood, 216-5212540, beckcenter.org.
Reggie Watts
The versatile comedian/musician/ writer/actor brings his absurdist comedy to the Grog Shop in Cleveland
Heights. The show begins at 8:30 p.m. 2785 Euclid Heights Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-5588, grogshop.gs.
SAT 04/05
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the 1975 film that still draws an exuberant, costumed crowd that likes to throw rice and dry toast and sing along to the songs in the movie, still draws big crowds to local showings. Expect a throng to show up for tonight’s screening that takes place at 9:30 p.m. at the Cedar Lee Theatre. Tickets cost $12.
2163 Lee Rd., Cleveland Heights, 440528-0355, clevelandcinemas.com.
SUN
CIM New Music Ensemble
04/06
Claude Baker, the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Kulas Foundation Visiting Artist, serves as a guest composer for this concert that takes place at 2 p.m. at Cleveland Museum of Art. 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.
MON 04/07
David Sedaris
A humorist who’s won awards for books such as Me Talk Pretty One Day and When You Are Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris is known for his sardonic wit and social critiques. His writings appear regularly in The New Yorker, and he’s twice been included in The Best American Essays. A regular on the theater circuit, he’ll likely talk about his work and read a few recent pieces at tonight’s event, which takes place at 7 at the Akron Civic Theatre. 182 South Main St., Akron, 330-2532488, akroncivic.com.
TUE 04/08
Guardians vs. Chicago White Sox
The Guardians play their home opener today at 4:10 p.m. against the White Sox, who were a historically bad team last year. The Guards have lost a couple of key players during the off-season but still have solid pitching and a perennial all-star in Jose Ramirez. In the wake of the Guards’ home opener, the White Sox stick around for two more games at Progressive Field. 2401 Ontario St., 216-420-4487, mlb. com/guardians.
“WHY NOT US?”
CentroVilla25 showcases the varied and delicious flavors of Latin-America in bustling new food hall
By Douglas Trattner
FOR YEARS, CLEVELAND HAS struggled to create and support the kind of bustling food hall that other cities seem to take for granted. The Market Hall at Van Aken District is still relevant and thriving after more six years, but the Ohio City Galley failed in less than half that time.
One of the most delicious surprises of the new year is CentroVilla25, a Latin-themed food hall and marketplace in Clark-Fulton. After literally decades of planning, the neighborhood hub is finally a reality, filled with the sights, scents and sounds of a vibrant indoor plaza.
The endeavor – a $12-million adaptive reuse project – was spearheaded by Jenice Contreras, President of Northeast Ohio Hispanic Center for Economic Development, who was bold enough to ask the question, “Why not us?”
“Why can’t we have something that’s nice and high-end and amazing to celebrate culture and diversity,” she says. “We know that Cleveland and Northeast Ohio is built for this. It was a missing piece. It feels natural. It feels organic. It feels like authentic.”
Contreras says that while some of the food vendors might be familiar to attendees of the La Placita gatherings that have taken place in the neighborhood for years, most are new startups that have committed to three-year leases. In addition to providing the low-rent spaces, the economic development center offers operators support in areas of financing, technical assistance and accountability.
With eight food kiosks, the Mercado Verde is “at capacity,” Contreras says. After a handful of recent visits, I’ve barely scratched the surface of available food options – and there is plenty more to look forward to.
Sazón Latino specializes in Cuban food and offers a large selection of ready-to-eat foods. I enjoyed a large portion of beef and potato stew ($19) served with black beans and rice,
yuca with garlic, and plantains. Other options include roast pork, fried pork belly, and grilled chicken. Don’t leave without a couple hot and crisp empanadas (beef or chicken), croquettes (fish or chicken) or stuffed potato (beef or chicken).
Antojitos Salvadoreños y Mas offers Salvadoran food, including a large selection of griddled-to-order pupusas. A bean and cheese-filled pupusa ($3.50) comes with small sides of curtido and salsa. This kiosk also sells tamales de elote ($2.50), a sweet and moist version made with fresh corn and butter that is doused in crema.
Tombao58, a Latin American restaurant, makes stellar arepa sandwiches stuffed with all sorts of fillings, including a breakfast version with eggs, ham and cheese. The “pelua” ($12.99) nets a split arepa filled with shredded beef, cheese and salsa. The stand also sells cachapas, Venezuelan corn pancakes with various fillings.
Flying Pig Tacos is quickly making a name for itself thanks to exceptional tacos, sold by the item ($5) or in various combos with rice and beans. Meats like carne asada, birria, chicken and chorizo are tucked into soft, warm corn tortillas with onions, cilantro and a choice of salsa. The kiosk also offers burritos, tortas and nachos.
Other food stands include Algo Diferente, serving Puerto Rican snacks, Panitos, a Salvadoran bakery, Lara’s Cakes, and Cafe Roig, your source for all things caffeinated.
Luis Roman, who for years ran the wonderful Campus Grille in Berea, will soon bring his Hola Island Provisions operations to CV25. The chef’s line of Cuban, Puerto Rican and Jamaican marinades are currently sold at 50 different markets around the state and he plans to move production of those
items to CentroVilla. He also plans to manufacture empanada discos, or doughs, for wholesale as well as opening a bodega.
Visitors to CentroVilla25 might spot a shimmering state-of-the-art commercial kitchen behind glass just off the main seating area. Roman says that the space, which is rentable by the hour or month, is another way that the complex will help drive economic growth in the neighborhood.
“This commercial kitchen is made for the community,” says Roman. “There are a lot of great ideas, a lot of entrepreneurs out here and with the kitchen you can now have a product.”
In addition to the equipment and
space, the commercial kitchen comes with mentors who help home cooks navigate topics such as licensing, insurance and food safety. By the end of May, just in time for CentroVilla25’s grand opening celebration, a tropical-themed bar will open on the northern side of the building where a large outdoor plaza is taking shape. Come summer, the garage doors will go up, live bands will take to the stage, and residents of Clark-Fulton will gather to enjoy fresh-made mojitos and conversation under the clear blue sky.
CENTROVILLA25
Flying Pig Tacos owner Jorge Hernandez | Photo by Mark Oprea
Tumbao58 and Sazon Latino are now open at CentroVilla25 | Courtesy Photo
BITES
First look: Build the Pho in Ohio City, opening in April
By Douglas Trattner
WHEN BUILD THE PHO (2084 W. 25th St.) opens in Ohio City next month, it will be the neighborhood’s first restaurant dedicated to the famous Vietnamese beef noodle soup. Set in the former Campbell’s Sweets space, the meticulously designed restaurant joins the first Build the Pho, which opened at Uptown in University Circle in June of 2022. Location number three is on pace to open at Great Northern Mall in North Olmsted later this spring.
As the name suggests, Build the Pho is a build-your-own-bowlstyle concept, with diners having numerous options with respect to noodles, broth and meats. Owner Eric Weng says that customers prefer the customization model over having to select from a short roster of predesigned bowls.
“People like the way we do things because we let them order what they want,” he says. “Nobody wants a Happy Meal.”
The broths – beef or vegan – are made in the restaurant each day. Noodle options include rice, wide rice, egg and vermicelli. Diners can add any combination of proteins –including double or triple portions – from a list that includes rare beef, beef brisket, meatballs, beef tendon, beef tripe, sliced chicken, shrimp and tofu. Weng says that a spicy version of the beef broth likely will be added to the menu down the road.
In addition to the noodle soups, the restaurant serves rice and vermicelli noodle bowls topped with various meats and starters like spring rolls, summer rolls and mango shrimp salads. The owner says that soup dumplings and pork steamed buns will be a new addition limited to the Ohio City location.
At the Uptown location, diners are encouraged to place their orders through an efficient QR codebased ordering system. In Ohio City, the focus will shift to more of a full-service model (although the QR codes will still be available).
As he and his partners did with the Korean BBQ and hot pot
experience at One Pot in Cleveland Heights, Weng seeks to elevate the pho-eating experience. The dining room seats about 85 people at blond wood tables and spacious booths and banquettes.
Weng says that future Build the Pho locations are all but guaranteed – however the owners are in no rush.
“We want our brand to go big,” Weng says. “Either we do it the best way possible or we don’t do it.”
Now Open: Café Indigo at Shaker Square
For the past two decades, the corner of Shaker Square and N. Moreland has been home to a coffee shop. For most of that time, it was the site of Dewey’s Coffee, which closed in 2019 after 15 years. Biggby Coffee took over the space soon after but closed in 2022.
As of last month, a cafe has returned to the northern side of the square. Café Indigo (13201 Shaker Sq.), which opened in late February, brings coffee, ice cream and light fare to the square as plans for revitalization take shape, but anchor tenants like Edwins and Edwins move out.
The bright, corner café is owned by Melissa Garrett-Hirsch, who also runs UnBar Café (12635 Larchmere Blvd.) around the corner on Larchmere. The interior features plenty of room to relax with friends over a cup of coffee.
On the coffee side of the operation, baristas pour brewed coffees, espresso drinks such as cappucci-
nos and lattes, and specialty drinks like mushroom coffee, matcha and chai. Breakfast sandwiches are served until 11 a.m., when lunch items like salads and build-yourown sandwiches -- hot or cold –take over.
A dedicated ice cream station offers hand-dipped ice cream by the scoop, sundaes, banana splits and milkshakes.
City Slice Pizzeria Opens New
Location in Cleveland’s St. ClairSuperior Neighborhood
Since opening three years ago on the city’s west side, City Slice Pizzeria (12021 Lorain Ave., 216273-7504) has been flying through slices like nobody’s business. The bustling shop offers a ready choice of massive slices carved from eye-popping 40-inch pies.
Now, fans of the New York-style pizza can grab a slice on either side of town. A few weeks ago City Slice opened the doors to a second location (6217 St. Clair Ave.), this one in the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood. Like the original, the shop offers a choice of “mega” slices, which are reheated to order, and whole 18-inch pies. The pizza is joined by garlic knots, salads and subs. New to the east side are wings, loaded fries and chopped cheese sandwiches.
For owner Vanessa Reyes, the move east is a bit of a homecoming. She grew up in the area and has been watching the progress taking place in the neighborhood. Her new
shop is located across the street from Saint Martin de Porres High School, in an area with few food options, she said.
“When I saw that it was kind of a food desert, I thought it was perfect,” she says.
The goal is to bring the same level of dedication to the food, service and setting that has made the west side shop a success for three years.
“We’re trying to emulate as much as we can the store on the west side,” adds Reyes.
Now Open: Angie’s Soul Cafe in University Heights
Shortly after Sauce the City closed its University Heights location this past summer, Akin Affrica of Soul Republic United Restaurants announced that he was taking the spot over. This week, he opened the doors to the newest Angie’s Soul Cafe (14480 Cedar Rd., 216-331-0935).
The fast-casual restaurant joins other Angie’s locations in Midtown, Cleveland, Warrensville Hts., and Lee/Harvard. Unlike the Carnegie Ave. restaurant, this latest one follows the “express” model that newer shops have adopted. Those stores offer a slightly condensed menu.
Also in the Soul Republic United Restaurants group are Zanzibar Soul Fusion, Cleveland Breakfast Club and the Vegan Club.
dtrattner@clevescene.com
t@dougtrattner
Photo by Doug Trattner
LESS IS MORE
Indie rockers Bright Eyes take a minimalist approach on new album
By Halle Weber
THE INDIE-ALTERNATIVE BAND
Bright Eyes, which formed in the ‘90s in Nebraska, is hitting the road again and set to headline the Agora Theatre on Wednesday, April 9, on the second leg of its tour in promotion of last year’s album, Five Dice, All Threes.
“We’re looking forward to being back in Cleveland,” says multi-instrumentalist and producer Mike Mogis, in a recent phone interview.
Mogis recalls playing the Agora for the first time as an opening act in the early 2000s, and fondly shares a memory of swinging by the Rock Hall years later when one of singer-songwriter Conor Oberst’s jackets was on display in the Midwest exhibit.
Oberst and Mogis met when Mogis walked into his friend’s dorm room during freshman year at University of Nebraska-Lincoln to find a teenage Oberst sleeping on the floor.
Mogis, with his Mr. Bungle T-shirt and cigarette habit as well as the 8-track reel-to-reel machine and Radio Shack mixer that he kept back at his parents’ house outside of small-town North Platte in rural Nebraska, had already met some friends and collaborators on campus and was curious as to what a little kid was doing there.
Once he heard Oberst’s demos, the reason for his presence in Mogis’s musical circle became clear.
“I was like, ‘These songs are actually legitimately good songs from a little kid, who hasn’t really experienced a ton,” says Mogis, going on to praise Oberst’s “distinct, natural writing ability, just from his own mind, creating stories of people and their life situations.”
Mogis had also begun experimenting sonically at a young age due to boredom and his and his older brother’s shared love of music. From age 7 or 8 on, it became his primary use of free time.
“There was nothing to do,
Five Dice, All Threes is the band’s second album, post-hiatus, and the band leaned into minimalism, production-wise, in the making of Five Dice, All Threes
“This particular group of songs kind of have a leaner, meaner, tone to them. They just didn’t feel like songs that needed a lot of orchestration or ornamentation. So, we wanted to sound more like a band,” says Mogis. “You know, we make records where there’s orchestras and all kinds of synths, and embellishments, and ornamentation, ’cause I like doing that stuff, it’s fun. But we wanted to take an approach that was kind of similar to I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, which was mostly live.”
Mogis shares that the band will be playing songs off the fan-favorite 2005 record, along with a few tracks off Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, which was released the same year on this tour.
where I grew up,” laments Mogis. “I’ve always had an affinity for finding sounds, tweaking sounds, and being creative with them. You know, talking backwards, and then playing and recording it backwards. Turns out, [director] David Lynch did the same thing for the Twin Peaks stuff. I didn’t know that it even existed, but I was doing that when I was a little kid.”
The band’s first two official releases came in 1998 on a label that Mogis himself had started after being ignored by many different indie labels to which he had submitted demos.
The first, A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997, was a compilation of demos that Oberst had recorded himself and Mogis had later mixed. The second was the band’s first proper album, Letting Off the Happiness. The first four songs from it went onto the mix-tape Mogis recorded to send out to indie labels, only one of which responded.
These days, Mogis, Oberst, and composer/trumpet and piano player Nate Walcott make up Bright Eyes along with a rotating cast of friends and backing musicians.
“[Oberst] had a very good imagination and a unique and very poetic writing style, when he was a little
kid,” says Mogis. “I heard that, and I was like, ‘Holy shit! I gotta help this kid make records’ because I had all this recording equipment, and some knowledge on how to use it.”
By the time he started recording Bright Eyes albums, he had upgraded to a home studio in the basement of his college house but was still driving back and forth from Lincoln to Oberst’s parents’ house in Omaha, setting up to record in the laundry room.
The band continued writing, producing and releasing albums at an impressive rate until after it wrapped its lengthy tour in promotion of 2011’s full-length The People’s Key. At that point, Oberst requested a break from Bright Eyes.
The band’s hiatus ended with a Christmastime phone call from Oberst to Mogis in 2017 as Mogis was shopping with his kids at the mall.
“Conor called me, just sort of out of the blue, and he was like, ‘Hey. What do you think about getting the band back together and making another record this year?’ says Mogis. “And I was like, ‘Fuck yeah!’ I was super excited.”
Bright Eyes made its grand return, adding another album to its catalogue, with 2020’s Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was
He went on to explain that he just did not think the songs needed much production or many bells and whistles because it was some of Oberst’s best, most raw songwriting yet.
“There’s some skill in restraint. And I learned that then. And to some degree, we applied that kind of mentality to this new record, of not being fussy or overcomplicating production or songs, you know, with too much ornamentation,” says Mogis. “And there’s obviously some because we couldn’t help ourselves.” Mogis thinks that the style of the new Bright Eyes album lends itself perfectly to a live show and can’t wait to be back on the road, playing the new material again, this time with Levine in toe. He also notes that he is particularly grateful for the fact that Bright Eyes’ music still connects with younger generations.
“That’s one of the things I find very interesting, and I feel very grateful for, with Bright Eyes fans, because they keep popping up. Young kids are still engaged with our music, just like they were 20 years ago,” says Mogis. “There’s still the same 20-year-olds up front now, even though, when we put out I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, they weren’t even born, some of them.”
Bright Eyes.|Nik Freitas
LIVEWIRE Real music in the real world
WED 03/26
Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Band and Other Delights
On tour to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the iconic album, Whipped Cream & Other Delights, the iconic jazz musician and his band will play all their biggest hits. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Goodyear Theater in Akron.
1201 East Market St., Akron, 330-6597118, goodyeartheater.com.
THU 03/27
Sam Barber
The up-and-coming country singersongwriter who just released his debut album, Restless Mind, comes to the Agora. Barber cites Lynyrd Skynyrd as an influence, and you can hear traces of Southern rock in the twangy acoustic tune “Straight and Narrow.” Doors open at 8 p.m., and young singer-songwriter Avery Anna opens the show. 5000 Euclid Ave., 216-881-2221, agoracleveland.com.
LowDown Brass Band
A hip-hop/jazz group, LowDown released a string of singles in 20232024 which led to the release of $itizens of the World. The band is featured on Spotify’s All Funked Up Editorial and has an international tour scheduled this year stops at Olympia Funk Fest, Electric Forest, Riverbeat Fest, Shakori Hills, Victoria Jazz Fest, Yosemite Bear Lake Fest, and the Palisade Music and Roots Fest. It performs tonight at 8 at the Beachland Ballroom.
15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124, beachlandballroom.com.
FRI 03/28
Dexter and the Moonrocks
The self-proclaimed “originators of Western space grunge” perform tonight at 8 at House of Blues. The group’s new EP, Western Space Grunge, draws from country Western, rock and grunge. 308 Euclid Ave., 216-523-2583, houseofblues.com.
Stereophonics
The veteran Welsh pop group brings its world tour in support of Make ‘Em Laugh, Make ‘Em Cry, Make ‘Em Wait to the Agora. The album’s single, the mid-tempo Oasis-like pop tune “There’s Always Gonna Be Something,” performs at 7 tonight at the Agora. The tour supports the band’s latest effort, Keep the Village Alive 5000 Euclid Ave., 216-881-2221, agoracleveland.com.
MON 03/31
Disturbed: The Sickness 25th Anniversary Tour
Back in 2016, hard rockers Disturbed returned with Immortalized, their first studio album in five years. The album includes a rendition of the Simon and Garfunkel tune “The Sound of Silence” that retains the original’s somber tone while adding singer David Draiman’s
Rapper Dom Kenney plays the Agora. See: Monday, April 7.|Courtesy of AEG Presents
distinctively bellowing vocals. It’s still in regular rotation on WMMS. Expect to hear it tonight as the group plays a set of greatest hits in addition to its breakthrough album The Sickness in its entirety. The show begins at 6:30 p.m. at Rocket Arena.
One Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketarena.com.
TUE 04/01
Mary J. Blige: The for My Fans Tour
Consider this tour a victory lap for Mary J. Blige, the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul. Recently inducted into the Rock Hall, Blige has an extensive catalog of songs that stretch back to the ‘90s. Expect to hear hits such as “Real Love” and “Family Affair” as well as songs from her new album, Gratitude The current single, the piano ballad “Here I Am,” demonstrates that her soulful voice still packs a punch. She performs tonight at 7 at Rocket Arena.
One Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketarena.com.
The Magnetic Fields
The beloved indie rock group brings the tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of its magnum opus, 69 Love Songs, to the Agora. The group performs at 7 tonight and tomorrow night.
5000 Euclid Ave., 216-881-2221, agoracleveland.com.
FRI 04/04
Bayside — 25th Anniversary: The Errors Tour
To celebrate its 25th anniversary, this punk band will play two nights at House of Blues. Tonight’s show will feature music from its first four albums, including Sirens and Condolences, Bayside, The Walking Wounded and Shudder. Tomorrow night’s concert will feature songs from the albums that followed, including Killing Time, Cult, Vacancy, Interrobang and There Are Worse Things Thing Being Alive. Both shows begin at 7 p.m. 308 Euclid Ave., 216-523-2583, houseofblues.com.
SAT 04/05
Fourth Annual Ben Caskey ’22 Memorial Scholarship Benefit Concert
Tim Caskey’s son Ben Caskey passed away unexpectedly in 2022 from a congenital heart defect. He was a senior at Baldwin Wallace University, and his family started a scholarship in his name. For the third year in a row, Tim Caskey’s band, Serious Nature, will play a special fundraising concert tonight at 8 at the Winchester Music Tavern to raise funds for the scholarship.
12112 Madison Ave., Lakewood, 216-600-5338, facebook.com/ TheWinchesterMusicTavern.
One Last Saturday Night
Twenty musicians from nine different bands will celebrate the music of the Grateful Dead. Titled One Last Saturday Night, this special performance marks the grand finale for Networking is Dead, a Grateful Dead-inspired business networking group. The event supports the Gathering Place, a nonprofit that helps individuals and families coping with cancer. It takes place at 7:30 p.m. at the Beachland Ballroom. 15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124, beachlandballroom.com.
The Righteous Brothers
The classic vocal group that originally formed way back in 1962 performs tonight at 7:30 at MGM Northfield Park — Center Stage. Famous for blue-eyed soul tunes such as “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” the group was inducted into the Rock Hall in 2003. 10705 Northfield Rd., Northfield, 330-908-7793, mgmnorthfieldpark. mgmresorts.com/en.html.
SUN 04/06
Engelbert Humperdinck: The Last Waltz Farewell Tour
The crooner brings his farewell tour to MGM Northfield Park -- Center Stage. Likely to accommodate his older crowd, the show begins at 5 p.m. Expect to hear hits such as the somber “Release Me” and the saccharine love tune “The Last Waltz” one more time from the 88-year-old. 10705 Northfield Rd., Northfield, 330-908-7793, mgmnorthfieldpark. mgmresorts.com/en.html.
Connor Price
The young singer-songwriter who blends hip-hop, R&B, soul and pop brings his headlining tour to the Agora. “Smoke,” a collaboration with country star Walker Hayes, shows off his ability to mix genres as it finds him rapping and crooning. Doors open at 7 p.m. 5000 Euclid Ave., 216-881-2221, agoracleveland.com.
MON 04/07
Dom Kennedy
Famous for his self-released 25th Hour mixtape, the rapper brings his tour in support of his latest album, Class of 95, to the Agora. Alt-rapper Casey Veggies opens. Doors open at 7 p.m. 5000 Euclid Ave., 216-881-2221, agoracleveland.com.
scene@clevescene.com
t@clevelandscene
SAVAGE LOVE
COME AND GO
By Dan Savage
I have a problem that I’m not sure can be solved. I’m a single gay man who hasn’t touched anybody for sixteen years. Yes, you read that right: I haven’t touched another person for sixteen years. Sit with that for a couple of moments. Most people don’t believe me. I did something stupid in 1998 and had sex in a hot tub. I ended up having surgery because of an infection and ever since when I ejaculate, what comes out is a combination of sperm and urine because an internal flap no longer closes to stop the urine. The urologist and my surgeon said there was nothing they could do to fix the problem. I did not realize that sex in a hot tub was an extremely risky sexual activity. (You should warn people.) Men find this absolutely disgusting. I can’t repeat some of the things I have been told when I’m trying to be honest with a partner. What advice or suggestions do you have to explain this to potential partners even though I’ve said I want to please them only. Please give me some help as to what to say. Any advice helps.
Canadian Urgently Missing Sex
Having sex in a hot tub — having penetrative sex in a hot tub — is riskier than having sex on dry land or damp mattress or hard countertop. Heavily chlorinated water dries out sensitive tissues, making abrasions and STI transmission more likely, and water containing potentially harmful bacteria can be forced into the urethra during intercourse, heightening the risk of urinary tract infections in both men and women. (Best practices: get horny in a hot tub, get out to fuck, get back in when you’re done.)
With that warning out of the way, CUMS, can I ask when you last spoke to a doctor about your condition?
The “little flap” that contracts during ejaculation — preventing semen from shooting into the bladder and/or urine from exiting the body with semen — is called the internal urethral sphincter. While artificial urinary sphincters have been available for more than fifty years, the doctors you saw back in 1998 might not have been aware of them. (According to the Mayo Clinic, many doctors today aren’t aware of them.) It’s also possible you weren’t a good candidate for the artificial urinary sphincters available in 1998, CUMS, but these devices have gotten smaller (and the surgery has gotten less invasive) over the last three decades, and you might be a good candidate for a new model. You should make an appointment to see a specialist and talk about your condition.
While you wait for that appointment, CUMS, you also might wanna seek out different kinds of gay and bi men, online and off. There are lots of queer men out there into “no recip” oral. If you were to meet up with a guy who just
wanted to get serviced — if you hooked up with a guy who wanted to get head without having to reciprocate — you wouldn’t have to mention your condition in advance of your first meeting; since you won’t be coming on, in, or near him, he doesn’t need to know that your ejaculate comes mixed with piss.
There are also plenty of guys out there who are into piss, and if I were to biohazard a guess, CUMS, I’d say a statistically significant percentage of those guys would view your condition not as a tragic defect, but as an exciting superpower. Leading with this fact about yourself on kink or kink-friendly hookup sites might attract so much positive attention, CUMS, that you don’t wanna get an artificial urinary sphincter after all.
I am a pansexual non-binary FTM. I am able to have two types of orgasms. One is a squirty juicy wet orgasm and the other is a full body orgasm that makes my clit throb. Squirty orgasms come easy and often but I’ve only experienced the clit throbbers during solo play — with two exceptions: only my ex-wife could give me this kind of climax until I met a guy on Grindr. I update my Grindr profile depending on what I’m looking for on any particular night, and on the night I met this Grindr guy I was only looking to be eaten out. I arrived at his place and he got down to business immediately. He was patient, he was deliberate, he was rough, and it was… WOW! I had a rare, fullbody, clit-throbbing orgasm! It was amazing. Then, as I was leaving, I saw the Trump flag hanging in his room. It was hanging on the wall directly behind me and I did not see it — I could not see it — while I was being eaten out. It was a Trump 2016 flag — not that it matters. (A Trump flag is a Trump flag.) So, what do I do? I suppose I can do nothing and just never meet up with the guy again, but what do I do about my conscience?
Feeling Low About Grindr Situation P.S. We exchanged phone numbers before I saw the flag.
You may have accidentally discovered a new way for people into ruined orgasms to get their kink on, FLAGS: strategically positioned Trump flags. I don’t think it matters whether they’re Trump 2016, 2020, 2024 or 2028 flags, the effect will be the same: a post-nut yuck powerful enough to ruin whatever yum came first.
For the sake of your conscience, FLAGS, send a text to the Trump supporter that says something like this: “None of that would have happened — I would never have let you go down on me — if I’d seen that Trump flag on your wall before we got started.” Then take a screenshot of his Grindr profile, if you can still see it, and share it — privately — with other trans men you know personally, FLAGS, so they don’t wind up having the same jump scare you did. Then block his phone number and block him on Grindr.
P.S. Next time you show up in a strange man’s apartment for no-recip oral, FLAGS, do a quick 360-degree turn — a little pirouette — before he drops to his knees.
P.P.S. There’s no need to steal Trump flags
to ruin orgasms. There are plenty in the trash already, deposited there by Americans — not our best — who already regret voting for Trump.
My husband’s best friend turned into one of my best friends. This best friend of ours recently started dating a woman. We were supportive of their relationship at first, even though he was joining as the third guy in a polyamory relationship. After a few months, their relationship went from polyamorous to monogamous. Our friend met his new girlfriend’s kid very early in the relationship, even spending the night after only knowing this woman for a couple of months. Within six months of dating, they shared the kid’s toothbrush on a vacation. They didn’t say they boiled the toothbrush or took any measures to clean the toothbrush until weeks later when they were pressed on it. This is when we started to distance ourselves because we felt this behavior showed a lack of respect for this child. We had a severe falling out due to this. Now they are engaged, and it raises even more concerns for us. How do we proceed? Should we stop even wanting to reconcile? Should we try to be the voice of reason about oral hygiene?
Unhygienic Gross Humans
While I got letters about grosser things this week, yours was the most surprising letter that came in the mail for two reasons: first, that your friend would tell you about using this child’s toothbrush on vacation and, second, that you would write to me — a sex-advice columnist — about your friend using this child’s toothbrush.
For the record, UGH, I agree that introducing a child to a new partner after two months is inadvisable — which is why I’ve always advised against it — and using someone else’s toothbrush on vacation because you forgot your own is equal parts gross and unnecessary. Most hotels make disposable toothbrushes available to guests who forgot their own, UGH, and even if your friend and his girlfriend weren’t at a hotel that offered toothbrushes, they could’ve gone without brushing their teeth for a single night and gotten new toothbrushes for themselves at the nearest pharmacy or truck stop in the morning.
To be perfectly honest, UGH, I don’t really care whether you reconcile with your friend or not, just please spare me from any and all updates about your friend’s oral hygiene going forward.
I am a proud kinkster in a city with a vibrant kink community, but I am worried that my community doesn’t know how quickly it could find itself at risk. I see friends grandstanding online about crackdowns on poppers, while ignoring broader attacks by the Trump administration on fundamental rights. I understand the former makes for a better social media post, but with the government deporting legal residents who were not accused of crimes, performing armed takeovers of private entities, and scapegoating trans people, we have more to worry about than poppers. How long before Folsom attendees face legal jeopardy for public
indecency? Democrats can barely stand up for Social Security. What makes us think they’ll go to bat for kinksters? Am I wrong in thinking queer and kink organizations need to be sounding the alarm?
Rights Under More Pressure
Both houses of Congress, private universities, powerful law firms, professional baseball — the list of groups that have caved to Trump grows longer every day. So, I don’t think the organizers of gay fetish events like Folsom or Darklands (or straight ones like DomCon or RopeCraft for that matter) have the power to stop Trump. If there’s a silver lining here, RUMP, it may be the huge numbers of kinky people who didn’t feel like they needed to hide over the last couple of decades. If you can’t hide, you have to fight… and with the receipts already out there — social media posts, personal ads, gear purchases) — there’s no hiding now.
Here’s the single most important thing organizers of kink events can do: keep organizing great events that bring even more people out. Events help create community — which is a good thing unto itself — but they also create opportunities for activists to inform, organize, and activate people they might not be able to reach otherwise, which is absolutely crucial at a moment like this. (A tip for activists: DO NOT treat people having fun at fetish events or parties like they’re doing something wrong. If you want people to show up at your demonstration — or call their members of Congress or raise money for abortion funds or defend their undocumented neighbors — don’t tell them they have to pick between the party where you found them and demo where you want them. Scolds drive people away from movements, they don’t bring them in.)
Speaking of protests: The protests at Tesla dealerships have been fun, effective, and cathartic —as Tesla’s cratering stock price and Trump’s pathetic Tesla infomercial at the White House both demonstrate — and there are nationwide protests scheduled for April 5. For more information (and to find out about your local demo) go to HandsOff2025!
P.S. Please don’t vandalize Teslas. Trump’s DOJ is throwing the book at people who vandalize Teslas — and it turns out Elon Musk’s shitty cars are self-vandalizing, as we learned last week when every single Tesla Cybertruck ever sold was recalled after pieces of them kept falling off. So, there’s no need to risk being sent to a prison in El Salvador when you see Incel Caminos parked on your block. Give Elon’s shitty cars a minute and they’ll fall apart on their own.
Got problems? Yes, you do! Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage. love!
Or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage.love/askdan!
Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love
mail@savagelove.net t@fakedansavage www.savagelovecast.com
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