Greater Harrisburg's Community Magazine

HMAC defends liquor license, business practices in administrative hearing

One month after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the House of Music Arts and Culture (HMAC) is facing a new challenge: renewing its liquor license.

A hearing held today will help the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board determine whether or not the midtown Harrisburg bar upheld its end of a conditional licensing agreement (CLA) it entered in 2015.

Among other provisions, the CLA required the bar’s staff to install soundproofing equipment and implement routine security patrols on HMAC’s premises at 1110 N. 3rd St. in Harrisburg.

The terms of a CLA remain attached to a bar’s liquor license until the PLCB decides to expunge them. HMAC last renewed its license in 2017, and it expired in February.

Since 2010, the LCB has cited HMAC 12 times for noise violations. The bar has also been the site of multiple police call outs.

This summer, the bar found itself at the center of a social media firestorm after a woman said she was raped by a man who drugged her on HMAC’s premises.

The police investigated her assault and charged a Harrisburg man with her rape, but their report exonerated HMAC of any responsibility.

HMAC’s owners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy one month later, saying they needed to restructure debts as they prepared to sell their business.

Licensing hearings are usually based on concerns stemming from alleged CLA violations. However, the points raised by PLCB attorney Michael Plank today mostly had to do with business practices unrelated to alcohol sales.

Plank spent most of the hearing interrogating HMAC’s money and personnel management.

One witness for PLCB, Mike Banks, said that he was owed $3,000 by HMAC’s managers for services he provided as a sound engineer and open mic host. Banks was eventually compensated, but he said that HMAC’s reputation was “not good” among local entertainment professionals.

“Most of these people have been or are owed money, and most will not work there again,” Banks said.

In remarks to a reporter, HMAC’s lawyer Glenn Parno acknowledged that HMAC had periods of financial distress. But he retracted a claim he made during the hearing that the business was “insolvent,” and said that they could only repay outstanding debts if they retained their liquor license.

Plank also heard testimony from Jody Hoffman, a contractor who is owed $3,000 for work he performed at HMAC in 2016, and from Tessa Bower, a former manager who said she witnessed a pattern of questionable business practices at HMAC in the nine years she worked there.

For example, Bower said that HMAC co-owner John Traynor asked her to not take credit card payments for art sold at HMAC, since the venue could not legally deal art and did not want to keep a paper trail of transactions.

Plank also called three former Harrisburg police officers as witness, all of whom testified about callouts they’d received to the establishment since 2016. One callout resulted in harassment charges against a patron, and another led to the arrest of a performer with an outstanding felony drug warrant. The third did not result in any charges.

Parno objected to each of the reputation testimonies, saying they were irrelevant to the bar’s compliance with its CLA.

Pennsylvania liquor code allows the LCB to consider the reputation of a liquor license applicant when deciding to award a license, as well as the reputation of any stockholders or managers.

But a letter notifying HMAC of today’s hearing did not list its reputation as a factor jeopardizing its license. Parno said that he was not prepared to counter any testimony about the business’s image in the community.

“This is trial by ambush,” Parno said. “This is not fair, and fair notice [of these testimonies] has not been given.”

Hearing examiner Thomas Miller acknowledged that the character and reputation testimonies drew them away from the points in the CLA. But he allowed Plank’s witnesses to testify anyway, saying the LCB could decide how to factor their statements into the license ruling.

Parno called two witnesses who said that HMAC upheld its end of the CLA. Former HMAC manager Justin Leach testified that the bar employed full-time security guards who patrolled the premises during and after the bar’s operating hours, and local architect Bret Peters said that HMAC’s owners went to great lengths to install soundproofing equipment in its performance venues.

Miller adjourned the hearing after more than six hours of testimony. All parties will reconvene at a later date so Traynor and two character witnesses for HMAC can testify.

When the hearing concludes, Miller must compile the findings in a report, which will help PLCB decide to either renew or revoke HMAC’s liquor license.

 

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