Troubled Brandy’s liquor store shut down by city
September 2, 2010 by Steve Pierce / YpsiNews.com
Filed under Breaking News, Featured, News
Brandy’s Market on West Michigan and Summit in Ypsilanti has been shut down by the city after a month long investigation by the City of Ypsilanti Police and the Michigan Liquor Control Commission.
Brandy’s is located at 902 West Michigan Avenue and has been owned by the Cathy and Samir Hanna since 1999. Before then it was called Forbes Market.
The controversial store has had a long history of problems with the City and neighbors. The owners in 2009 signed a consent decree with the City to continue operations after the city filed suit declaring the property a nuisance. A report indicated the store had over 100 calls for service, twice as many calls for police service than any other store or location in the city. The two year consent order expired yesterday, September 1, 2010.
According to the Ypsilanti Police, YPD and Michigan Liquor Control Commission executed a search warrant at 11am today. The search warrant stemmed from several complaints that individuals inside the store were purchasing stolen items and illegally distributing tobacco products. During the month long investigation undercover officers sold numerous items requested by store staff and purchased tobacco that was illegaly sold.
In Michigan, tobacco products cannot be sold without a tax stamp, which precludes the selling of individual cigarettes. Brandy’s has been accused in the past of breaking apart packs of cigarettes and selling them as ’singles’. It is unclear if today’s search warrant alleges a similar charge.
During the search, police noted what appeared to be building code violations and called both the Ypsilanti Fire and Building departments to the scene. City inspectors found numerous health and safety concerns and the store was condemned and shuttered.
The liquor store across the street called Cal’s, was also condemned by the city in 2008. The owners of Brandy’s purchased Cal’s and the store has remained closed since it was sold. A quick check shows that Cal’s is still condemned thus preventing the owners of Brandy’s from re-opening across the street.
The case has been turned over to the County Prosecutor for review to determine what, if any, charges will be filed against the owners and employees.
Wanted: Do you know me?
July 21, 2010 by Steve Pierce / YpsiNews.com
Filed under Breaking News, News
Pictured below is a suspect that used a stolen credit card to make several purchases.
If you can help identify this person, please contact Cpl Gerald Wagner at the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s office (734) 973-4694.
Click on the picture to view a larger picture.
Five file for Ypsilanti Charter Commission
July 15, 2010 by Steve Pierce / YpsiNews.com
Filed under Breaking News, News
Five petitions were filed today with the Ypsilanti City Clerk to be on the ballot in November for the Ypsilanti Charter Commission.
They include former mayor Cheryl Farmer, former City Council member John Gawlas, Attorney and former EMU Regent Karen Valvo, former EMU Professor Bill Fennel, and former Ypsilanti School Superindent James Hawkins.
On November 2, Ypsilanti voters will be asked if a Charter commission should be convened. Also on the November ballot will be the five names.
If the voters say no to convening a Charter Commission, then the votes for commission members do not count.
Mayor Paul Schreiber and former Mayor Pete Murdock have both previously said publicly they were opposed to convening a Charter Commission.
The Declaration of Independence
July 4, 2010 by Steve Pierce / YpsiNews.com
Filed under Breaking News, News
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
— Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare,
That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
— And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
— John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Fresh Express Salads Recalled
May 25, 2010 by Steve Pierce / YpsiNews.com
Filed under Breaking News, News
Fresh Express announced a voluntary recall Monday for some ready-to-eat salads in 26 states because of possible salmonella contamination. The Romaine-based salads have expiration dates between May 13 and May 16, and the letter “S” in the product code.
The salads were sold in the following states: Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Nebraska, Montana, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota. No other Fresh Express salads were included in the recall.
The recall notification was issued out of caution based on an isolated instance where a single package of Fresh Express Hearts of Romaine Salad was confirmed positive for Salmonella during a random sample test by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to a news release. The salad had a use-by date of May 15. Company officials said it is “highly unlikely” that any of the potentially affected salads are still on store shelves because of the expired use-by dates, but consumers might still have the product in their refrigerator and should immediately discard it.
The use-by date is found in the upper right hand corner of the package with the product code located immediately underneath. For Fresh Express Gourmet Cafe Salads, the use-by date and product code are located on the bottom of the salad bowl. Fresh Express said it is working closely with the FDA, and after learning about the positive test, completed a company-wide product traceability review.
Source: PR Newswire