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Red Wanting Blue to play free show at next Queen of Hearts drawing
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
Barry Dyngles will have its Queen of Hearts drawing as planned Sunday night, even after surprising township officials by adding an outdoor concert.
Pub owner Shawn Hannon met Thursday with Fire Chief Andy Frost III, Police Chief Robert Gavalier, Mike Dockry, township administrator and road superintendent, zoning inspector Darren Crivelli and Trustee Jim Davis.
Davis said township officials found out about the pub’s plan to have a free concert before Sunday’s Queen of Hearts drawing from media reports. He further said, however, that Hannon had told township officials if the queen wasn’t found at the last drawing, he would pursue having a national act to perform outdoors at the pub in the coming weeks.
The pub at 1601 S. Raccoon Road announced it would have Red Wanting Blue play there at 5:30 p.m., two hours before the next draw to attempt to find the elusive queen of hearts.
“Shawn reached out to the band and the band had an open date available, and like everything else with this drawing, it just seemed to come together,” Davis said.
RWB was the headline act for Federal Frenzy, a free music and arts festival on Federal and North Phelps streets in downtown Youngstown this past spring.
The Columbus-based band also played a New Year’s Eve show at the B&O Station to end 2014, and the band’s drummer, Dean Anshutz, and frontman Scott Terry’s girlfriend are both natives of the Mahoning Valley, according to Vindicator files.
Davis said he is a fan of RWB and said that could boost the crowd by 1,000 to 1,500 people more than the 2,000 to 2,500 at the last draw. The pub hired 10 off-duty officers for the last draw and could hire as many as 12 to 16, or the same amount hired by the school district for home football games.
“This was [Hannon’s] way of giving back” to the community “by bringing this band in,” Davis said.
Attempts to reach Hannon on Thursday night for comment were unsuccessful.
The pub had growing crowds until last Sunday. That was because the owner of the ticket drawn no longer needs to be present to win 100 percent of the jackpot.
But having a free concert by a band that frequently has played in the Valley could boost the crowd numbers.
Usually a business or church hosting an outdoor concert has to receive a conditional-use permit from the township zoning appeals board.
According to the Austintown zoning code, available online, a conditional use is “a use permitted within a district other than a principally permitted use, requiring a conditional-use permit and approval of the Board of Zoning Appeals. Permit for said use is to be issued by the Zoning Inspector when approved by the Board of Zoning Appeals.”
That did not happen.
“Our board of trustees is making an exception for this because of the rare circumstances of this occurring,” Davis explained. “The uniqueness of the whole idea that this has gone on and blown up into what this has become has made it such an extraordinary circumstance that we basically had no choice but to try to control the chaos.”
For perspective, church festivals seek conditional permits for outdoor acts, and the township zoning appeals board approved Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course for eight outdoor concerts a year. That has been challenged by a nearby nursing facility and is in the courts now.
Those events are planned, Davis pointed out, whereas “this is not something [Barry Dyngles] could have planned for nor we could have planned for, so our board has taken it on a week-by-week, case-by-case basis to say, ‘This is what we do.’”
He also said that while this has brought attention in the township back to the Raccoon Road business corridor – the attention had shifted to the Interstate 80/state Route 46 intersection when the racino opened – there are some negatives day to day on Raccoon Road.
“The numbers are unprecedented with the amount of people that are flocking to that area throughout regular business hours into the day and early evening to where we are having some issues with people picking up their kids from school and buses [are] running behind,” Davis said.
Austintown Middle School and the Austintown schools campus are just block away on Raccoon Road from the pub.