REWIND: 1971
The
UPFRONT
PAID PARKING EXPANDING TO PARTS OF OHIO CITY ALONG WITH PARKING APP
FOR YEARS, IF NOT DECADES, Ohio City’s retail corridors were lined with metal parking meters that were infrequently monitored and rarely ticketed by police. Beginning this month, that’s going to change. And additionally, many side streets where parking used to be free will soon cost you to stow your vehicle. On August 19, the city rolled out its three-step plan to re-do 15 main and side streets in the west side neighborhood with the payby-phone alternative. They’ll be using ParkMobile, the app-based service that replaced Downtown’s archaic pay-bycoin process over the past year or so. By the end of October, new parking signs and paystations will line the following streets: Lorain Ave., from West 24th to West 50th; Detroit Ave., from West 25th to West 32nd; West 25th, from Monroe Ave. to Jay Ave; Bridge Ave., from West 28th to West 25th; and a handful of others. Updates, the city said, that are “essential to encourage turnover and ensure there are available, convenient parking spaces in areas with street parking.” “Expanding meter zones to new areas allows the city to update where we want street parking to be convenient and available,” that statement continues, “as neighborhoods redevelop and new businesses open.” Deploying any kind of formulaic approach to solving the parking problem in a city like Cleveland is anything but simple. Experts like UCLA professor Donald Shoup have long recommended rules be designed to ensure that 85 percent of an area’s spaces be free at any given time—as to signal to incoming (and anxious) drivers that, yes, there is a spot available. But parking is a touchy subject in Ohio City, where businesses and residents often disagree with how to best deploy rules and regulations to keep a neighborhood catering both to residents and those coming to enjoy the entertainment district happy. “It’s almost like a tug of war,” Dre Simmons, the owner of Premier Barber Studio on Detroit Ave., told Scene. “Like, it’s only so many residents around and so many small businesses.” Right now, before new paid metering goes in, tenants of The Quarter on Detroit or Intro off West 25th can essentially keep their cars street-side without much threat of a ticket from the Division of Parking. (But they’re not immune.) The
worry that some like Simmons have is that bolstering paid parking will send visitors undulating further around the neighborhood, taking spaces where residents need to park.
It’s kind of how Paul Sherlock, 62, who lives over on Clinton Ave. with his two dogs, feels about the block between West 28th and West 29th— which is to be metered come October. The parking garage of Church + State sits on that block, which Sherlock feels might be enough to harbor visitors but not enough for residents who are used to free parking. “Whatever the solution is, it shouldn’t be paid parking,” Sherlock said, stopping on Church Ave. “I don’t agree with it.” Others felt that the city’s rollout overlaps with a nationwide push for car alternatives.
Spending $2 for two hours of a curbside spot might both deter some from hogging spaces for a day; it could, the idea goes, deter some from driving to Ohio City altogether and instead arriving by foot, bike or bus. And not just out of protest. “Paid parking discourages people from parking unnecessarily long periods of time in commercial districts,” Alex Nosse, the
owner of Joy Machines on Detroit Ave., said while repairing a bike. “And that’s exactly what we need as a business.”
“I think it will tremendously benefit us,” Nosse added. A block down, Matt Ashton, the co-owner of Lekko Coffee, shared the sentiment. “If people are going to have to pay one way or another, they’re going to start asking, like, ‘How can we get public transportation to get better?’ Which is also a positive thing overall,” he said. Brent Zimmerman, the owner of Saucy Brew Works, agrees. “We want people to be in our businesses across 29th, Detroit, 25th, wherever you’re talking about in Ohio City spending dollars, but we don’t [want] people parking here all day long that do not spend dollars in some of these bars, restaurants, boutiques, salons, whatever it is. It’s not good for anybody,” he told News 5 Cleveland. Free parking is a tax to society. People don’t look at it like that. I do.” The parking pivot in Ohio City foreshadows what City Hall hopes to do with its streets in the future: repave Lorain Ave. into the Lorain Midway, with beautified sidewalks and dedicated cycletrack. (And fewer on-street spots,
some bemoan.) And also re-do West 25th with a bus-rapid transit lane, like the Healthline on Euclid Ave. Yet, the questions run amuck. Will folks at Lutheran Hospital or St. Ignatius—who won’t pay that $2—overcrowd the side streets? Will the restaurant crowd actually be deterred? “It’s already so hard here to park, especially in the winter,” Joy Harlor, the owner of Le Petit
Triangle off Bridge and Fulton, said tending to fried potatoes in her kitchen. “God forbid it’s the winter. And God forbid it’s snowing. I mean, the streets are closed—there’s nowhere to park anyway!” Harlor sighed. She would trudge on as per usual. “I don’t know,” she added. “What are you gonna do? I mean, we are a city after all.” – Mark Oprea
In Advance of Possible Lawsuit, Bobby George Claims Prosecutor Bias
While the future of criminal charges against Bobby George now rest with Special Prosecutor Jane Hanlin
Photo by Mark Oprea
(D-Jefferson County), who this week was appointed by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mike O’Malley after he recused his office from the case citing campaign donations from Tony George, the felony charges originated with Cleveland police and the Cleveland Prosecutor’s Office in muni court. Earlier ths week, Leo Spellacy, who is representing George in a possible civil manner separate from but related to the criminal issue in which George is represented by Leo’s brother Kevin, sent an evidence preservation letter to the city of Cleveland in advance of a possible lawsuit. “There’s no complaint filed or written yet, but his civil rights were violated,” Spellacy asserted.
Cleveland Law Director Mark Griffin has wholly denied the insinuation in previous comments after the arrest. “Information is gathered, evidence is presented to the prosecutor, and an objective decision is made solely based on the facts,” Griffin said. “It’s imperative for the public to know that this case was treated according to standard protocols like any other case — regardless of the defendant’s name, title, or occupation.” George believes differently. In addition to asking the city to preserve any and all communications regarding the investigation into George, it also asks the city to preserve any communcations relating to an open letter sent on Dec. 2, 2023 to Democratic candidates in Cuyahoga County urging them to avoid holding events or fundraisers at businesses owned by Tony or Bobby George.
Signed by the Stonewall Dems, the Progressive Caucus, the Young Black Dems, the Women’s Caucus and others,
the open letter cited a laundry list of reasons to avoid George establishments including Tony’s opposition to a Cuyahoga County ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity; Tony’s ties to the HB6 bribery scandal; Tony’s support for Donald Trump; Bobby and Tony’s involvement in property issues affecting the Irishtown Bend park; and the attempted prosecution of a protestor outside of TownHall. Cleveland Chief Prosecutor Aqueelah Jordan is a board member of the Stonewall Dems, which Leo Spellacy claims is an issue, as the group signed the letter. “Our belief is that we have an incomplete suspect investigation done by a prosecutor who’s affiliated with an entity that has previously sent a letter to candidates that states, ‘Don’t do business with the Georges,’” Spellacy said. “It’s not very flattering to Bobby and Tony George, and the person who is the prosecutor is affiliated with the board. There’s concerns that Bobby has been mistreated.”
But Jordan played no part in the Stonewall Dems signing on to the open letter, according to its president Brooks Boron. “The open letter was not drafted by the Cleveland Stonewall Democrats or its Board. CSD was approached to ask for its input and whether we would sign onto the letter. I alone in my authority as President of CSD approved CSD being listed as a co-signer,” he told Scene. George notably and recently refused to air the Summer Olympics in any of his restaurants as a protest stemming from wrongly informed outrage over an opening ceremony drag performance that was an ode to
their new space in the 668 Building— their first street-level offices. (With new sign logo.) And hundreds of thousands dollars have been secured, about $100,000 by DCI itself, to help grow Public Square as the pedestrian enclave it was meant to be.
“This is a natural extension of the work we’ve been doing and our mission to create a vibrant, inclusive and connected downtown,” DCI president Michael Deemer wrote in a press release. “We are thrilled to begin immediately activating and infusing new life into Public Square.” Activation and life that will, of course, not be without its list of challenges.
Dionysus and not, as many Christians claimed, a take on The Last Supper. As for the dissonance between that and anger over what some local Dems urged last year, Spellacy told Scene: “I have no problem with anyone expressing their First Amendment rights. Everyone is entitled to their point of view, for sure, no problem. That’s the great thing about this country. But when you have a prosecutor affiliated with an entity that expressed public disdain for George, that’s a problem. That’s not expressing your First Amendment rights.” Asked if he was insinuating that Jordan, whose personal views aren’t even known and who didn’t craft or decide on signing the letter, couldn’t abide by a fair legal process, Leo Spellacy added: “I’ll defer to his criminal defense lawyers. This was a completely shoddy investigation. You put two and two together.” – Vince Grzegorek
Downtown Cleveland Inc. Taking Over Management of Public Square
Downtown Cleveland, Inc., the center city booster formerly known as DCA, will be the new managers of Public Square, an announcement confirmed last week. All trash cleanup, landscaping, graffiti erasure, bathroom sanitization, public art scheduling, concerts and Splash Pad and ice rink maintenance will no longer rest in the hands of Public Square Cleveland, the nonprofit born from the Group Plan Commission before it.
The square takeover comes at a colorful time for the nonprofit. DCI employees are all just about moved into
Last November, after Cleveland’s annual tree-lighting ceremony, Public Square’s safety was publicly questioned when two teenagers opened gunfire at others in front of a Healthline bus stop. (Two were later indicted.) And the filming of Superman downtown, which teased Clevelanders with its filled storefronts and big-city greenery, seemed to set a high bar for Public Square’s continual struggle for year-round foot traffic. Which has had its nice plot points, as well. Last December, the Washington Post lauded Public Square as one of “the best examples of turning around a dying downtown,” in reference to how a $50 million investment led to, as the Group Plan Commission claims, $1.2 billion in renovations around it—75 Public Square, the Hotel Cleveland, and a half dozen other development projects. The office space turned living space boom was headquartered in Cleveland.
And in March, the long-hated Jersey barriers that suffocated the crossway over Superior Avenue were removed. Three months later, with the help of $1 million, dozens of bollards and a raised crosswalk were put in. In a statement released last Thursday, DCI slotted “high-quality” maintenance and programming, an easier permitting process and overall safety as its top goals in taking the reigns. Just recently, a game station filled with toys—frisbees and chess boards—popped up, free to use for all. Kickboxing classes and yoga mornings kicked in. The takeover, DCI claims, will help fulfill some of the goals of their Downtown Retail Strategy, which hits on the white whale of Cleveland’s city center: There aren’t too many reasons for shoppers to be here. DCI responded by hosting a maker’s market, and vows to develop a plan “for improved mobility and connectivity to and through” the Square, though any further details weren’t specified. – Mark Oprea
Photo by Mark Oprea
FEATURE
A RACE AGAINST TIME: THE HIDDEN CRUELTY OF OHIO’S 24-HOUR WAITING PERIOD ABORTION RULE
The abortion rule is meant to give patients time to think about their choice, but lawyers say it takes more choices away from patients.
By Madeline Fening
(Editor’s note: A Franklin County judge last week issued a preliminary injunction against Ohio’s 24-hour abortion waiting period rule in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU and abortion providers against the state, saying it violates the recently passed Issue 1 amendment enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution. While the pause on enforcement was celebrated, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office has said it will appeal and the lawsuit itself will continue with a final decision and possible permanent injunction still to come.)
WHILE STARING AT THE ceiling of an Ohio emergency room, Ellen Groh realized she’d experienced this pain four years before.
In February 2020, at nearly 18 weeks pregnant, she experienced a miscarriage.
“I was feeling great and then all of a sudden I had to poop,” Groh says over a Zoom call. Some identifying details, like her legal last name, have been changed to protect her identity. “And so I ran to the bathroom, and I didn’t poop. I delivered into the toilet. My 18-week fetus, pregnancy… I’m going to call them pregnancies, I think. I don’t really know what to call them.”
Weeks before, this pregnancy came as a surprise to Groh and her then-boyfriend, now husband. Nervously embracing the prospect of parenthood, everything was new to the young couple, including the symptoms of labor that had started three days before she ended up delivering in her toilet. Despite both Groh and her husband working in the medical field, they felt lost at that moment.
“We kind of froze,” she says. “We’re like, ‘What the hell do we do?’” Groh told her husband to call their doctor, who instructed her to go to the hospital right away. There, she delivered her placenta, received antibiotics and started to navigate ricocheting feelings.
“It’s all different emotions, like relief, guilt, obviously sadness,” she says. “But like, we were okay. Cried a lot.”
Fast forward to October of 2023. Groh and her husband found out they were pregnant for the second time. Still a surprise, but a welcome one. They were excited to be parents.
“I want to say it was planned, because it was kind of like, if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen,” she says. “Who’s ever ready?”
Like her first pregnancy, Groh’s developing embryo was healthy, but she and her husband took extra precautions to try and prevent another miscarriage, like genetic testing. Everything from her anatomy scan in February 2024 looked great.
Less than 10 days later at 20 weeks gestation, Groh and her husband were having sex – which is widely considered safe for pregnant individuals – when she began bleeding.
“I just kept bleeding and I was like, ‘Well, this is not normal,’” Groh says. “I had one big cramp and I was like, wow, that’s weird.”
Groh’s doctor told her to go right to the hospital. She thought they’d be coming home that same day.
“We didn’t even pack any bags,” she says. “It’s like, alright, we’ll be back soon.”
Groh’s cervix was nearly four centimeters dilated with telescoping membranes, meaning it was likely her body would try to deliver the pregnancy. Doctors presented the idea of cerclage, which is where doctors stitch a patient’s cervix shut to stave off labor, but Groh was told she may be too far dilated.
“After you’re dilated a certain amount, it becomes a risk of rupturing the membranes, and then [you’re at risk of] infection,” Groh says.
Next came the subject of viability – a conversation Groh knew was coming.
Fetal viability, which is the gestational age at which a fetus can
survive outside the womb, is generally considered to be around 23 to 24 weeks with intensive medical care. Pregnancies delivered between 21 and 22 weeks rarely survive, with only 3% of babies surviving four hours after delivery, according to the National Institutes of Health.
“At this point [...] I don’t think anybody has told me specifically that I’m miscarrying yet because, like, they’re trying, you know? We’re trying to get hope,” Groh says. “But I just want the facts. Give me the facts because I understand what’s happening with my body. With the limited medical knowledge that I have of this area, I can understand.”
Groh made it clear to her care team that she is a pediatric nurse. She knows the size of the tubes that can be used to keep a premature baby alive, and that a baby delivered at 20 weeks is too small for even the smallest tools needed to give them hope. She’s also intimately aware of what life would look like if she were to deliver a baby that’s not ready to enter the world – if her pregnancy would survive at all.
“There are substantial effects that this pregnancy, that this child could have down the road. Because I see this daily at work,” she says. “At this point, with the knowledge that I have and my history, in my brain, I think I know what’s gonna happen.”
Contractions were ramping up and becoming increasingly painful.
Doctors confirmed Groh’s instincts from her experience in 2020: this wasn’t labor, this was a miscarriage. The pregnancy’s chances of survival were extremely low and the threat of infection and complications were rising, putting her own health at risk. Her care team grew with more specialists, more doctors who presented her with options, of which she knew there was only one. She decided to call it.
“It was almost like, kind of relieving,” she says. “I have all these thoughts in my brain, but now we’re going down a solid path. This is the path that we’re going down.”
The path included a handful of options for ending Groh’s physical and emotional suffering, but only two stuck out in the moment and in her memory: delivering the miscarried fetus naturally or getting a dilation and evacuation, known as a D&E.
“At the end of the day, this is what I wanted. I wanted a D&E,” Groh says. “I wanted to be done having contractions because I knew this fetus, or this pregnancy, was not going to survive. I had already been through it once, so I knew that this is what this fetus is going to look like.”
In addition to being used in miscarriage cases like Groh’s, a D&E is a method of abortion care used by doctors. Often referred to as a surgical abortion, the procedure uses suction and medical tools to empty
by Madeline
Photo
Fening
the uterus. Some patients may also use misoprostol to remove a miscarriage during early pregnancy loss. Misoprostol is one pill from the often two-step medication abortion method, which is available to patients who are less than 11 weeks along in their pregnancy.
Patients who want or need to terminate a pregnancy can do so with a D&E until 21 weeks and six days gestation – that’s when Ohio law prohibits abortions of any kind moving forward, unless the patient’s life is at risk.
In Groh’s case, there was no way to know how long it would take to deliver her miscarried fetus naturally. All they knew was she was bleeding and the pregnancy was still giving off tones that indicate cardiac activity, and that matters. Doctors could have proceeded with the D&E if Groh’s fetus was no longer giving off heart tones, but Ohio law requires that doctors and their patients wait at least 24 hours before starting an abortion if fetal or embryonic cardiac activity is detected. The medical community generally considers cardiac activity to begin in utero around six weeks gestation, which is usually before most patients know they are pregnant. The concept of being able to hear a true fetal heartbeat at six weeks is also contested by some physicians.
According to Dr. Nisha Verma, an OB/GYN from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, cardiac valves don’t even exist at six weeks of gestation.
“The flickering that we’re seeing on the ultrasound that early in the development of the pregnancy is actually electrical activity, and the sound that you ‘hear’ is actually manufactured by the ultrasound machine,” Verma told NPR for a story about “heartbeat bills.”
ANATOMY OF THE 24-HOUR RULE
Identifying the presence of fetal heart tones is part of Ohio’s mandatory “informed consent” requirement for abortion patients, and it’s wrapped up in the 24-hour rule under that same umbrella.
The Ohio Legislature first imposed a mandatory information requirement for abortion in a law that took effect in 1992. Originally, that law allowed the information to be conveyed 24 hours before the abortion, “verbally or by other non-written means of communication” – meaning it did not require an initial in-person visit to the clinic. The information could be given by phone or even fax. This law was
challenged in state court in Preterm Cleveland v. Voinovich, but the 10th District Court of Appeals upheld it as constitutional, and the Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Then, in 1998, the legislature amended the law to require that the communication must occur in person.
Ever since, a physician must give the patient written confirmation that a cardiac activity is present and provide the patient with information about the statistical probability of carrying that pregnancy to term. The patient must sign and acknowledge receipt of this information, fulfilling the state’s informed consent requirement for abortion care.
Ohio is one of 33 states that requires such counseling before an abortion is performed; one of 29 states that details what information abortion providers must give these patients; one of 28 states that requires patients to wait a specific amount of time for their abortion after counseling; and one of just 16 states that requires this counseling take place in person, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
After jumping through the hoops of a consultation appointment and putting pen to paper, that’s when the clock starts. And while the waiting period rule may only span 24 hours, abortion providers report there are domino effects that can last weeks.
WHY ABORTION PROVIDERS OPPOSE THE 24-HOUR RULE
Vanessa Hinsdale is the administrative director of surgery for Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio. She says the 24-hour waiting period clogs the entire scheduling system, impacting all patients.
“With the waiting periods for us because of the volume of patients that we see, it takes right now about 20 days to get in just for your first appointment,” Hinsdale says. “That clock is ticking and, say they really want a medication abortion, you know, they get in and they’re nine weeks and it’s 10 weeks in a day – it is literally 70 days, so if you come back after that 24-hour period and you are 71 days, we can’t. Without a waiting period, they would have more of a choice.”
The U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June of 2022 created a cascading effect on abortion rights across the nation. States that once had abortion access quickly enacted “trigger bans” that drastically scaled back abortion access, sometimes outlawing it altogether. Ohio’s own “heartbeat
bill” was enacted after the fall of Roe, effectively banning abortions after six weeks, but the ban was put on pause four months later when a Hamilton County judge granted a motion for preliminary injunction. In November of 2023, Ohio voters passed a citizen-led state constitutional amendment to enshrine the right to reproductive freedom, protecting abortion access. Issue 1 passed with wide margins – 56.8% of the vote. Ohio was the first red state to restore abortion rights after the Supreme Court returned the decision to the states.
Because Ohio abortion law currently allows patients to access an abortion up until 21 weeks and six days gestation, Ohio has become the only option for many out-of-state patients seeking an abortion. These patients are commonly coming from states with total abortion bans, like Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. But even states that have enacted and maintained narrow abortion windows, like Florida and South Carolina, are seeing citizens flee to Ohio for care. Hinsdale says Ohio’s waiting period law is making it difficult to meet the needs of both in-state and out-ofstate patients.
“I will tell you, because of the 24-hour period and the amount of distance that patients are traveling here, we see around 51% of our patients are not in the state of Ohio,” Hinsdale says. “They’re coming from Lexington, Louisville, Tennessee, Indiana, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana.”
Ohio currently has nine abortion clinics in operation, including six surgical centers and three medication-only clinics. Depending on a patient’s location and gestational timeline, even in-state patients may need to travel hours and stay overnight to meet the 24-hour waiting period requirements. For out-of-state patients, this further extends the time spent away from work, family and loved ones, many of whom may not know their loved one is seeking an abortion.
“Not everybody has that comfort level, that ability, those people,” Hinsdale says.
There is no medical rationale for the 24-hour waiting period, says Hinsdale – it’s simply a matter of the state requiring the patient to have time to think about their decision.
In Preterm Cleveland v. Voinovich, the case that upheld the 24-hour waiting period rule, Judge Petree wrote in his partial concurrence (he disagreed with others on the threejudge panel on providing patients with state-mandated information)
that a 24-hour waiting period “would foster reflection” in patients.
“Clearly a waiting period, with ample provision for emergency situations, would foster reflection about important medical decisions,” the ruling reads. “Though we are unaware of similar waiting periods for other types of medical procedures, this is not fatal. No doubt there are many situations where medical providers perform questionable and perhaps unnecessary surgeries, such as hysterectomies, where a waiting period might serve to quell unthinking acceptance of a doctor’s conclusion. This is not too far afield of the common insurance company practice of requiring second opinions before invasive procedures are undertaken.”
But Hinsdale says sterilization procedures, like hysterectomies, aren’t held to the same standard as abortion care for “reflection” about your decision.
“If you are getting a vasectomy and you’re using certain types of insurance, or any kind of sterilization, there is a waiting period, and that is a very small subset of the population,” Hinsdale says. “There is nothing else that’s comparative to being like, you have to jump all through these hoops and wait and do all these things in order to have basic healthcare.”
The 24-hour waiting period law is different for those who are experiencing a medical emergency and want or need an abortion as a result, but doctors are often dealing with extremely narrow definitions about what constitutes “life of the mother” exceptions. Even if a patient is pregnant for less than 21 weeks and six days – the cut-off time for an elective abortion in Ohio – it’s against the law for a doctor to provide an abortion within the 24-hour waiting period window when there’s fetal cardiac activity. That is, unless the patient is at risk of losing their life or a major bodily function. In Ohio, a doctor who is found to have violated that 24-hour rule can be charged with a misdemeanor and potentially lose their license. Since the fall of Roe, there have been highly publicized cases of doctors, including in Ohio, who are declining to perform abortions for medically-emergent patients for fear of breaking the law.
“If you make standard medical care a crime when folks in all kinds of difficult medical situations present, especially in emergency situations, we are always going to see some type of delay,” Caitlin Gustafson, an OB-GYN in Idaho, told Politico in April. “Because it’s criminalized care, physicians are going to
naturally hesitate.”
Whether a doctor will take on that risk on behalf of a patient experiencing a medical emergency can vary from hospital to hospital –sometimes transfers have to happen.
“You do have a section of patients that have a pregnancy that might have been a very desired, very sought after, sometimes a fertility-based pregnancy and that there might be parts of the pregnancy that are not sustainable but are not risk of life to the mother,” Hinsdale says. “If a patient doesn’t want to [deliver the pregnancy], they want to be able to just have a procedure, they either have to, in some cases, follow the 24hour law or they have to go out of state to where there’s not a waiting period. It’s just more undue stress on a very stressful situation.”
THE CLOCK STARTS FOR GROH
In Groh’s case, the start of her 24hour waiting period on that February evening was when she started to feel less like a stoic pediatric nurse and more like a scared patient.
“I was terrified – oh my god, I’m going to start crying,” Groh says, pausing the interview for a moment. “Jesus Christ, I haven’t cried like this in a while.”
Her body was still bleeding. The unknown was catching up to her anxieties, and she still had 24 hours to go.
“I was bleeding and nobody knew if there was an abruption,” she says. “I was like, I’m gonna bleed out, and nobody’s gonna be able to do anything.”
Groh signed her informed consent form around 9 p.m. that night, meaning doctors had to wait until 9 p.m. the following day to begin her D&E. Her care team promised to monitor her heavily over the 24 hours, tracking her bleeding, the fetal heart tones. She wasn’t sure if they would be able to move up the D&E time if the fetus’ cardiac activity stopped, but she was in too much pain to think about specifics at this point.
“[I had to] sit here in this agony of these contractions that are terrible,” she says. “I’ve never felt pain like this before.”
Doctors gave Groh an epidural to help with her painful contractions. She declined one at first, feeling strange about getting care that resembled what was supposed to be a happy experience for fully-developed pregnancies.
“I’m like, I’m miscarrying a baby, I’m not truly in childbirth,” she says. “I’m like, I don’t need an epidural. Like, I will look weak if I get an
epidural, basically. But no, I got one, and that thing was life-changing.”
Groh’s anxieties dulled slightly with her pain. Her husband, mom and cousin made sure she wouldn’t be alone for a second of her 24-hour waiting period. Under the hum of hospital fluorescents and steady beeps, Groh and her family tried to make the hardest 24 hours of her life feel somewhat normal.
“I was trying not to think about it,” she says. “We are very sarcastic people in my family, and we joke a lot with each other about things. It was kind of just like, we’re just getting through this. We’re here and we’re getting through it. We’re gonna joke about stuff, we’re going to cry about stuff, we’re gonna do it all. We just have to get through these freaking 24 hours.”
Snacking on vending machine sustenance in a line of chairs in front of Groh, her husband joked that he felt like they were at the movies, with Groh as the leading lady. She laughs at the comment still, thankful she had her family there to wait with her as the clock ticked.
“I have these people here to support me, which other people do not,” she says, tearing up again at the thought. “I could not imagine being told that I have to wait 24 hours and not having anybody with me. So this is why I’m doing this [interview], because it’s jacked up that there are people out there that have to do this by themselves.”
To Groh’s surprise and dismay, she felt the sudden urge to push around 3 a.m., just six hours into her 24-hour mandatory waiting period. Her husband hurried to call for the nurse, but her pregnancy arrived first. It was breathing.
“It’s obviously traumatic,” Groh says. “I deliver a breathing, 20-week pregnancy, taking breaths, but still not viable. This is not the road I wanted to go down. I wanted the D&E so that I did not have to deliver, see this pregnancy breathing, knowing that it’s going to die. That was probably one of the hardest things, because I chose to have a D&E, but because of [the 24-hour rule], I did not make it to that time. I had to go down the path that I did not choose.”
Reflecting on those moments makes Groh sad, but really she’s angry. She knows there are patients out there who are forced to navigate the same experience alone, patients who aren’t mentally equipped the same way she was thanks to her own medical training.
“That’s why I’m angry,” she says. “I think of, once again, all the people who don’t have the support system
that I have, and [...] there are people that suffer from mental health issues, I think we all do in some sort of aspect, but there are people that can’t handle it.”
The memory of delivering a dying pregnancy, the baby she was looking forward to meeting later under radically different circumstances, has cemented itself indelibly in Groh’s mind. The memory of her miscarriage at home now coupled with another fatal birth in the hospital. It was never supposed to be this way.
“It was traumatic the first time, and now I’m doing it a second time. It’s even more traumatic,” she says. “I could have had a D&E. I could have been asleep, like I wanted to be. I could have not had a recollection of delivery.”
Her choices whittled down by fate and the state, Groh used what little election she had left to do something that she still can’t explain to this day – she chose to hold her dying baby. Asked why, after everything she went through, she held her arms out.
Groh pauses.
“I don’t know. I have no idea. Because, I mean, it’s your baby,” Groh says. “I didn’t have to hold the pregnancy. That was also my choice.”
TAKING THE 24-HOUR RULE TO COURT
In April of 2024, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Ohio and Planned Parenthood Federation of America filed a lawsuit on behalf of Ohio abortion providers to challenge Ohio’s laws that force abortion patients to wait 24 hours to begin abortion care.
According to the ACLU, the laws violate a part of the Issue 1 constitutional amendment that prohibits the state from “burdening, prohibiting, penalizing and interfering with access to abortion, and discriminating against abortion patients and providers.”
“These laws violate Ohio’s constitutional right to reproductive freedom passed on November 7, 2023,” reads a press release from the ACLU. “The challenged abortion restrictions unnecessarily require the overwhelming majority of patients to make two trips to a health center and, in practice, often force patients to wait much longer than 24 hours to receive an abortion. This delays – and in some cases, completely prevents – patients from receiving an abortion.”
“The singling out of abortion for differential and unfavorable treatment perpetuates the discriminatory view that patients do not think carefully about their decisions and do not understand the nature of the procedure,”
adds Bethany Lewis, executive director of Cleveland’s Preterm abortion clinic. “This is a patronizing stereotype that has no place in our laws.”
Jessie Hill is the lead attorney with the ACLU taking on the state’s 24-hour rule. She says their lawsuit goes after more aspects of the informed consent process for abortions in Ohio, but the 24-hour waiting requirement is the focus of this case.
“The Reproductive Freedom Amendment that Ohioans adopted in November has much stronger and clearer language that makes it clear the state cannot restrict reproductive decisions, including abortion, unless they are doing so to advance patient health and in accordance with medical standards,” Hill says. “That is clearly not what this [24-hour waiting period] law does. And that’s really the linchpin of our case.”
The lawsuit is set to go to trial in April 2025.
Last week, Franklin County Judge David. C. Young issued a temporary injunction against the waiting period rule citing the state constitutional amendment.
“The plain language of the amendment clearly sets forth the applicable legal standard,” Young wrote. “This language is easily understood and clear.”
Yost’s office has said it will appeal the decision and a possible permanent injunction would only come after the lawsuit is fully heard and litigated.
But, for now, the judge has seemed to signal the state’s arguments don’t hold up.
“Defendants attempt to create ambiguity where it does not exist,” the judge wrote. “The people of Ohio voted to enshrine their reproductive freedom in the constitution through the clear language of the amendment.”
“This decision is the first step in removing unnecessary barriers to care,” an attorney with the ACLU of Ohio said in a statement. Hill wrote in a statement with the ACLU of Ohio.
Asked if she thinks the 24-hour rule “worked well” for her, as DeWine and others would suggest, she scoffed.
“Not at all, no. I feel like it discredited my knowledge, my decision making abilities,” Groh says. “It comes down to the fact that this was my choice. Your choice would have been totally different, which is fine, your choice is your choice. But I want to make the choices that are best for me and for my family. So that’s at the end of the day what it boils down to, and I want to make them when I want to make them.”
GET OUT Everything to do in Cleveland for the next two weeks
WED 08/28
Walnut Wednesday
Walnut Wednesday is one of summer’s great traditions. Today from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Perk Plaza at Chester Commons — at East 12th and Walnut streets — food trucks gather to serve up lunch to area residents and employees. Follow the Downtown Cleveland Alliance on Facebook for weekly updates on vendors, entertainment offerings and more. The series continues through Sept. 7. downtowncleveland.com.
THU 08/29
Jam Night
The local group the Ohio Drifters hosts this weekly jam night that takes place from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. at Union Station in Parma. Each week, a different local host will play different tunes and lead the jam session.
2713 Brookpark Rd., Parma, 216-6350809, unionhouseonline.com.
FRI 08/30
Believe in CLE Yoga
The 11th annual outdoor yoga event returns to the Rock Hall. Inner Bliss Studios will provide the instructors for the event, which takes place at 6:30. Admission is free. 1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., 216-515-8444, rockhall.com.
Cleveland Taco Fest
The local food trucks Barra de Taco, Barrio, Braised in Cleveland, Just Wingin’ It, Puente’s Tijuana Tacos and CLE Chicken Food Truck will be on hand for this four-day festival that begins today at Jacobs Pavilion. There will also be Mexican wrestling, music and daily contests. More than 30 musical and entertainment acts will perform on two stages. 2014 Sycamore St., 216-861-4080, tacofestcle.com.
Guardians vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pittsburgh Pirates hit a snag earlier this month when they couldn’t shake a long losing streak, so the Guardian should have the edge during this three-game series that commences with tonight’s game at Progressive Field. First pitch is at 7:10. 2401 Ontario St., 216-420-4487, mlb. com/guardians.
SAT 08/31
17th Annual Multi Music Fest
This annual jazz fest features Kenny Lattimore, Kirk Whalum and Jeff Lorber Fusion. The concert begins at 5 p.m. at Cain Park in Cleveland Heights. 14591 Superior Rd., Cleveland Heights, 216-371-3000, cainpark.com.
Cirque Goes Broadway
Cirque de la Symphonie teams up with the Akron Symphony Orchestra to play Broadway hits from Les Misérables, Frozen and Miss Saigon. The concert begins tonight at 7 at Blossom. A performance takes place at 7 tomorrow night as well.
1145 W. Steels Corners Rd., Cuyahoga Falls, 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra. com.
Cleveland National Air Show
This annual event returns to Burke Lakefront Airport for the long Labor Day weekend. Northern Stars Aeroteam and Franklin’s Flying Circus will be
on hand for the festivities. In addition to the show in the air, there will also be races on the runway and interactive exhibits. Check the website for a complete schedule. It continues through Monday.
2301 N. Marginal Rd., clevelandairshow. com.
SUN 09/01
Bein’ Ian with Jordan Live
Ian Fidance and Jordan Jensen tape their podcast today at 7 p.m. at Hilarities. The duo describes their podcast as something that feels like “Wayne’s World took place in Pee Wee’s Playhouse.”
2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx
Kenji Misumi directed the first three martial arts movies in the six-film Lone Wolf and Cub series that’s inspired by a popular manga.
In 1980, the movie was re-cut, dubbed into English and released as Shogun Assassin. Tonight at 6:30, the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque shows the film. 11610 Euclid Ave., 216-421-7450, cia. edu.
MON 09/02
11th Congressional District Community Caucus Labor Day Parade & Festival
Last year’s event drew 8,000 parade participants, and this year’s parade, which has adopted the theme of “empowering our people,” will likely draw a similar number of participants. The parade kicks off at 11 a.m. at E 147th St. and Kinsman Rd. E 147th St. and Kinsman Rd., 11cdccparade.com/event-details/11thcongressional-district-caucus-labor-dayparade-2024.
TUE 09/03
The Cleveland National Air Show returns to Burke Airport. See: Saturday, Aug. 31.|Courtesy of Pam Menhenett
Lyrical Rhythms Open Mic and Chill
This long-running open mic night at the B Side allows some of the city’s best rappers and poets to strut their stuff. The event 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 09/04
Midnight Rental presents Secret Movie Night
Hosted by Lenora from the internet hit-series Midnight Rental, this movie night features what it deems to be the best in VHS horror, thriller and campy classics. The event begins tonight at 8 at the Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights, and the club will feature a special movie night menu for the event.
2785 Euclid Heights Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-5588, grogshop.gs.
THU 09/05
A View from the Bridge Cain Park in Cleveland Heights hosts the performance of this Arthur Miller play about an Italian-American family. Tonight’s performance takes place at 7, and performances continue through Sept. 15.
14591 Superior Rd., Cleveland Heights, 216-371-3000, cainpark.com.
FRI 09/06
Dance Showcase
Case Western Reserve University’s Department of Dance, Catherine Meredith & Artists, Cleveland Ballet, Cleveland Dance Project, Djapo Cultural Arts Institute, Inlet Dance Theatre, Ohio Contemporary Ballet, Pacific Paradise Entertainment and SOAR will all participate in this special event that takes place at 7 tonight at the State Theatre.
1519 Euclid Avenue, 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
GlamGore: Die Nasty — A Tribute to the ‘80s
This extra special edition of the drag show GlamGore pays tribute to the iconic films and media from the ‘80s. It all goes down at 9:30 p.m. at the Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights. Doors open at 8 p.m.
2785 Euclid Heights Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-5588, grogshop.gs.
Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live
This family friendly event featuring trucks so giant they’re definitely not street legal arrives tonight at 7:30 at
Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Sessions also take place at 12:30 and 7:30 p.m. tomorrow.
1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, rocketmortgagefieldhouse.com.
SAT 09/07
Pride & Prejudice
Based on a Jane Austen novel, Pride and Prejudice centers on the outspoken Elizabeth Bennet, a woman who shows no interest in marriage until she meets the handsome, enigmatic Mr. Darcy. Cleveland Play House presents this rendition of the play at the Allen Theatre. Tonight’s performance takes place at 7:30, and performances continue through Sept. 29. 2067 East 14th St., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Live
Stars from RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 9th season come to the State Theatre tonight for this live performance. The show begins at 8. 1519 Euclid Avenue, 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
Severance Music Center Presents: Superstar
Local jazz singer Helen Welch sings 22 classic hits from the Carpenters during this special tribute to the musical family. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. at Mandel Concert Hall. 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com.
SUN 09/08
Browns vs. Dallas Cowboys
Hope for a playoff run springs eternal as the Browns kick off their season with this home game against the loathsome Dallas Cowboys. The game begins at 4:25 p.m. at Browns Stadium, and Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson will have yet one more chance to prove his worth.
100 Alfred Lerner Way, 440-891-5000, clevelandbrowns.com.
MON 09/09
Memorial Monday
Every Monday through Sept. 30, Fort Huntington Park hosts food tracks and live music between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. for this special event. Admission is free, but the food will cost you. West 3rd St. and West Lakeside Ave., downtowncleveland.com.
FRIDAY,SEPTEMBER13,2024
FEATURING
WallaceColeman
JonMosey
DannyChristian
JoseeMcGee
VinceRuby
TheBeams
LittleSteve-O
NerveTonic
BackAlleyRelics 15-60-75(TheNumbersBand)
SocratesandthePhilosophers
SeanBenjamin
PunchingOswald
InLikeFlinn
DaveTerry
RobSamay
Stakhouse
XtraCrispy
TomBrady
BurningRiver
CityofInvention
ArmstrongBearcatBand
Mild-Bone
Feckweed
MUSIC
AN IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE
Jenna Fournier explores her ‘softer side’ on Kid Tigrrr’s debut
By Jeff Niesel
THE PANDEMIC WIPED OUT the plans that the local dream pop band Niights had in 2020. The group released the LP Hellebores that year, but when touring ground to a halt, the band spent the time writing new material instead of hitting the road to support the album. Singer Jenna Fournier took online classes and learned about audio engineering and recording. The group also split with its U.S. and Japanese labels.
“We had a lot of stuff in motion,” says Fournier one recent afternoon from Civilization, the coffee house located in Tremont. During the downtime, Fournier also revisited her backlog of songs and realized she had enough material for a solo album. Those songs will make up the material on Stoned + Animald, the debut from a project she’s dubbed Kid Tigrrr. Kid Tigrrr plays a release party on Saturday, Sept. 7, at the Transformer Station. Brent Kirby and Benjamin Liar will perform as well.
“I wanted to experiment without having to pass the songs through Niights,” she says. “I felt like I needed an outlet for the stuff that didn’t make sense for Niights. It’s an outlet for the softer side of my writing, I guess.”
While it’s not a concept album per se, Stoned + Animald addresses issues of mental health and recovering from abuse in several songs. Fournier recorded most of the music at her home.
“It was awesome to record at home,” she says. “I started recording the next one at home already. And when I write for other people or do backing vocals, a lot of that is now recorded at home too. I set up a corner that works pretty well. I will say with this new record when I got to the point that I wanted to add live drums, that’s when I took it to the studio and worked with [producer] Jim Wirt [Incubus, Fiona Apple]. I
tracked live drums with him in the studio. He mixed it for me as well.”
Fournier says the album title alludes to the Bob Dylan tune “Rainy Day Women #12 and #35,” which she has previously covered on a single.
“‘Stoned’ is a metaphor for judging in that Bob Dylan song,” she says. “I really liked that. After I did the cover, that’s when the album title came to me. ‘Animald’ is a way to reference survival mode. It’s one of the themes in the old songs. Everyone was in this survival mode during the pandemic. People start hoarding and getting selfish. It’s alluding to the survival mode of the time when this album was made.”
The single “Shapes of Water” began as an official pedal demo for locally based EarthQuaker Devices and layers intricate guitar lines and textures. Reverend Guitars liked it so much that it gave Fournier an endorsement deal.
“I wrote that piece for EarthQuaker’s pedal, and it was undeveloped,” she says. “They used it to demo their pedal. It got a lot of positive feedback. I knew I had something special, and I just kept developing it. It became this hypnotic seven-minute piece of music. It’s the first one I started working with home production. It’s an early nugget. It’s one of my favorite pieces, but it’s definitely not the most accessible.” The album’s second single, the dreamy, Cocteau Twins-like “Scry,” references the Slowdive tune “Machine Gun.” “I didn’t do that intentionally,” says Fournier. “I listened to Slowdive a lot, and I am sure it’s in the background. I sent the song to Neil Halstead from Slowdive through Instagram, and he responded. I offered songwriting credit or to take it out. He said it was fine and that he thought it was a cool track.”
Five years ago, Fournier got in touch with Smashing Pumpkins
singer-guitarist Billy Corgan, who was soliciting cameos from other musicians. That musical relationship has blossomed, and he recently recruited Fournier to sing backup on the band’s upcoming album, Aghori Mhori Mei, and shouted out her third single, “Skin,” in an interview in the British paper The Guardian. The song garnered attention from around the globe for its “universally relatable message of reclaiming one’s sense of self.”
Stoned + Animald arrives on digital platforms Sept. 6. The release party at the Transformer Station will include a concert and painting exhibit, and the live performance,
which will feature real-time looping and pedal tweaking, will also include projections of Fournier’s own animation and experimental video art.
“For the release party, I wanted an environment that’s more of an art setting,” she says. “Cleveland lacks art and music environments that are listening rooms. I like playing bars and clubs, but I want to create events that aren’t centered around alcohol sales but around art, music and immersive environments.”
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
KID TIGRRR RELEASE PARTY
Kid Tigrrr’s Jenna Fournier.|Jarrod Berger
INSTANT CLASSIC
Westsiders in Rocky River is a well-designed, chef-driven destination worthy of return
By Douglas Trattner
ONE OF THE BEST COMPLIMENTS
a diner can pay a new restaurant, I believe, is that it feels as though it has been here all along. The statement implies that the business is a beloved member of the community and that it will likely stand the test of time, despite being a fresh-faced newcomer. That’s the aura that Westsiders gives off, a restaurant that Rocky River residents appear to have adopted as one of their own in two short months.
When partners Constantine Katsaros and Jack Messer set out to craft their new venture, they leaned into their years of experience running Landmark Smokehouse and Twist Social Club on the ClevelandLakewood border. The owners endeavored to reclaim the middle market, one squeezed between generic fast-casual eateries and spendy shrines to steak and seafood. What they managed to create is a sort of unicorn establishment, one that is gorgeous, chef-driven and well-run, but also priced for weekly enjoyment.
A great place to start is with a cocktail like the Passion Smoke, one of more than a dozen alluring concoctions priced at $13. The foam-capped purple potion balances an earthy blend of mezcal, pisco and amaro with the tropical kiss of passionfruit. A glass of Sancerrelike Loire Valley sauvignon blanc –served in fine crystal – is $14, while a glass of plummy Willamette Valley pinot noir is priced at $13.
Westsiders is one of the most attractive casual restaurants to materialize in some time. In place of the ubiquitous industrial chic interior, diners are treated to a cosmopolitan hideaway that belies its shopping plaza locale. Warm wood tables, sumptuous leatherwrapped booths and reclaimed Art Deco-era panels that function as dividers coexist in a color palette of moss and spruce. The setting is so nice in fact that the TVs in the dining room feel incongruous. I’m a gardener so I’m up to my neck in cucumbers and tomatoes, but in the hands of executive chef Chris Suntala, those crops
taste utterly refreshed. In the “cucumber three ways,” ($10), those veggies arrive with three different preparations, textures and flavors. The only way to improve summersweet cherry tomatoes ($12) is to pair them with grilled ripe peaches, nestle them in creamy housemade ricotta, and drizzle the whole lot with chili-spiked honey. That glossy ricotta ($12) is also served with grilled bread as a quick snack.
If you order only one appetizer, make it the pork belly ($15). While the nicely charred sticky-glazed belly is savory and fork-tender, it’s the polenta fingers that will linger in my mind. Precision-cut into rectilinear slabs, the airy, cheesy polenta is pan-seared to form a golden crust on two sides. Seared tuna too often is overcooked and bland, but the buttery, barely cooked version here ($16) is more like warm crudo, enveloped in a crunchy black pepper crust and seasoned with soy, citrus and sesame.
Subsribing to the “do less but do it better” mentality, the chef wields an editor’s pen when crafting his
laser-focused menu. For mids and mains he offers a few pastas and five entrees, one of which is a burger. That burger ($19) is a joy to eat, gently formed, capped with cheddar and crispy shallots, and cooked to perfection. The only minor flaw were the accompanying pale and salty fries.
Suntala’s stint at Ci Siamo in New York instilled in the chef a knack for pastas, which are smartly composed and housemade. There’s a tagliatelle ($22) tossed in a flavorful, warmspiced Bolognese that goes easy on the meat. A special pasta ($21) featured short, nubby tubes – cooked to a firm al dente – that cradle the butter-enriched white wine sauce. The dish was garnished with blistered cherry tomatoes, torn basil and freshly grated cheese. Those in search of a meaty, falladjacent dish should order the slowbraised pork collar ($26). Cooked until pot roast-tender, the lush
perched
roasted sweet potatoes, sided by hearty greens, slicked with gravy and garnished with bright pickled onions. Other options include a half chicken served on farro risotto, a grilled and sliced coulotte steak with roasted redskins and salsa verde, and a rainbow trout with cauliflower and apple brown butter.
Many brand-new restaurants operate on shaky ground – still cycling through staff, feeling out the clientele, tweaking the menu and the dishes that appear on it. Westsiders, in contrast, feels fully formed, giving diners the confidence that if and when they return, they can expect to find the same quality of food, service and atmosphere that inspired them in the first place.
meat is
atop
Photo by Doug Trattner
BITES
Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips coming back to Cleveland Heights after 35 years
By Douglas Trattner
SOON AFTER BEN VITTORIA
closed his Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips restaurant in Garfield Heights -- thus reducing the number of surviving locations of the chain to one -- George Simon stepped in to save the day. Not only did he rebuild and revive the Garfield Heights location (12585 Rockside Rd.), last year he purchased the Cuyahoga Falls shop (1833 State Rd.) when Vittoria retired.
Now, the restaurant chain that once had more than 820 locations will soon climb from two to three. Simon says that he has signed a lease on a property in Cleveland Heights and expects to have the restaurant open before the end of the year.
Simon says that since taking control of the all-but-extinct brand, things have been going great.
“We wouldn’t be going into our third location if the first two were not working,” he explains. “We like what’s happening, and now we’re going for our third one and we expect to open another one before the end of the year.”
Simon did not say where location number four will be located.
Interestingly enough, the location in Cleveland Heights (13216 Cedar Rd.) where Simon is opening Arthur Treacher’s was home to an Arthur Treacher’s restaurant from the early 1970s until the early 1990s.
When the new shop does open up, it will be an “express,” says Simon, with no indoor seating. He intends to install a pick-up window for appplaced orders.
Jolene, a Country Bar, to Open in Former Greenhouse Tavern, Indie Space on East 4th
It’s hard to fathom that Greenhouse Tavern opened just 15 years ago on East 4th Street; it feels like a different lifetime.
Since that influential restaurant closed – one month before Covid officially arrived, and under less
than auspicious circumstances –the property has failed to attract a long-term tenant. After sitting idle for a year, the historic Cort building was claimed by the owners of Char Whisky Bar and Avo Modern Mexican, who opened Indie later that same year. After a less than fruitful freshman year, the owners converted the space to Gabriel’s Southern Table. That restaurant closed earlier this year.
The next tenant is hoping to reverse the trend by creating a destination-worthy attraction that will complement the event-driven nature of the street. Jason Beudert, who is still riding high on the success of his recently opened restaurant STEAK in Tremont, says that he and his partners have a solid grasp on the unique challenges that the street poses.
“Having Geraci’s Slice Shop and Lionheart Coffee within feet of East 4th, we have the luxury of understanding that the Gateway District is event-driven – whether it’s Rocket Mortgage or Progressive Field or House of Blues or Pickwick or the casino,” Beudert explains.
What the neighborhood needs, he believes, is a place to go before or after dinner, the game, a show, or just to blow off a little steam. A place like Jolene (2038 East 4th St.), a honkytonk in the heart of the city.
“Our aim is to bring a little bit of Nashville to Cleveland and East 4th Street – to create something fun where families can come before a game, or a bachelorette party can
come and have fun, or after a date night at one of the restaurants in the neighborhood,” adds Beudert. “We also think that country is universal.”
Beudert and partners Terry Francona and Chelsea Williams operate Hangry Brands hospitality group, which includes STEAK, Geraci’s Slice Shop, Lionheart Coffee and The Yard on 3rd in Willoughby. When Jolene opens spring of next year, it will add the sights, sounds and celebration of a country bar to the budding portfolio of establishments.
“East 4th Street is the epicenter of downtown Cleveland – the street of streets,” says Beudert. “For us to be here is an honor, but I also think the street deserves to have one of the coolest bars in the city.”
As he did with STEAK in Tremont, Beudert is planning to undergo a complete overhaul of the property –both interior and exterior – to create a fun, vibrant atmosphere. There will be small non-ticketed live music events, guitar shotskis, shareable boot drinks, and likely a sea of red solo cups. The rooftop will be activated as well.
Vic Searcy, formerly of Sauce the City, will set up shop in the lower-level kitchen. His fried chicken tenders, wraps, salads and sandwiches will be available via walk-up or app to guests throughout the property, but also to customers during hours and days the club is idle.
Francona, a former downtown resident himself, is eager to partner in what he believes will be another successful Cleveland hospitality
project.
“I love investing in Jason and Chelsea and in all the cool stuff they are doing – and just as important, in the city of Cleveland’s food scene,” Francona explains. “I wish Jolene’s was there when I lived on East 4th. If it’s anything like our other brands it will be so much fun.”
Speaking of baseball: the goal is to open the doors in time for the Cleveland Guardians Home Opener on Tuesday, April 8, 2025.
Solstice in Lakewood Has Closed
Solstice (14810 Detroit Ave.), which opened last fall in the former Deagan’s Kitchen space in Lakewood, has closed. Attempts to reach a partner for comment have been unsuccessful.
The restaurant was opened by Annabella Andricks, Bradley Kaczmarski, Cory Miess, Ben Lebovic, Andrea Tsiros, Rachel Rosen and Eric Ho. Earlier this summer there was restructuring of the ownership group, resulting in the departure of Kaczmarski, Miess, Ho and Lebovic.
Following the transition, the current owners made some tweaks to the menu in an attempt to gain a wider following. Unfortunately, it appears that those adjustments did not have the desired effects.
Photo by Doug Trattner
LIVEWIRE Real music in the real world
WED 08/28
Built to Spill: There’s Nothing Wrong with Love 30th Anniversary Tour
The indie rock group revisits its 1994 album, There’s Nothing Wrong with Love, for this special show that takes place tonight at 7:30 at the Beachland Ballroom. The group’s dynamic guitar work that sometimes verges on prog rock in tunes such as “In the Morning” distinguishes this veteran act and translates well live too. According to the club’s website, the show is sold out. 15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124, beachlandballroom.com.
Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper
The two shock rockers bring their coheadlining tour to Blossom. A successful solo artist and moviemaker, Zombie’s legacy also stems from the time he spent with his group White Zombie, which released four albums in the ‘80s and ‘90s. A Rock Hall inductee, Cooper essentially invented the shock rock genre. The concert begins at 6 p.m. 1145 W. Steels Corners Rd., Cuyahoga Falls, 216-231-1111, livenation.com.
THU 08/29
Rosanne Cash
The Americana singer-songwriter who’s famously the daughter of the late Johnny Cash and his first wife Vivian Cash performs tonight at 7:30 at the Mimi Ohio Theatre. Cash started releasing albums in the 1970s and had a hit with “No Memories Hangin’ Around,” a somber ballad about heartache that shows off her gentle voice. She’s steadily recorded and toured since then and has a large catalog of songs from which to draw. 1501 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
New Found Glory
The pop-punk band swings into the Agora tonight as part of a tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of their 2004 album, Catalyst. The album yielded hits such as “All Downhill from Here,” “Truth of My Youth” and “Failure’s Not Flattering,” songs that possess a Bad Religion-like sense of urgency. The show begins at 6:30, and Sincere Engineer opens.
5000 Euclid Ave., 216-881-2221, agoracleveland.com.
Pitbull
superstar, education ambassador, entrepreneur and motivational speaker. The co-owner of a NASCAR racing team, he also owns his own record label and has his own SiriusXM channel Known for his high-energy Latin rock performances, he brings his Party After Dark Tour to Blossom tonight at 8. 1145 W. Steels Corners Rd., Cuyahoga Falls, 216-231-1111, livenation.com.
FRI 08/30
Faith Kelly & Caswyn Moon
These two solo musicians who live in upstate New York bring their Couple of Wanderers Tour to 8th Day Brewing. Moon usually starts off the night with his American rock music with old country undertones. Then, Kelly plays her spacey folk rock ‘n’ roll with Appalachian mountain twists. They also make daily YouTube vlogs showcasing local businesses, DIY musicians and their adventures nationally, locally and regionally. The show begins at 7 p.m. 11782 E Washington St., Chagrin Falls, 8thdaybrewing.com.
SAT 08/31
17th Annual Multi Music Fest
This annual jazz fest features Kenny Lattimore, Kirk Whalum and Jeff Lorber Fusion. The concert begins at 5 p.m. at Cain Park in Cleveland Heights. 14591 Superior Rd., Cleveland Heights, 216-371-3000, cainpark.com.
Hingetown Jazz Festival
The second annual Hingetown Jazz Festival will take place from 2:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Bop Stop, Jukebox and the Transformer Station. The free event is presented by the Local 4 Music Fund. local4musicfund.org
Howard Jones
Eighties pop acts Howard Jones, ABC and Haircut 100 team up for this nostalgic show at TempleLive at the Cleveland Masonic. Jones just released a new live record that he recorded at the O2 Arena in London. The release features live versions of “New Song,” “What Is Love?,” “Like To Get To Know You Well” and “Things Can Only Get Better. The concert begins at 7 p.m. 3615 Euclid Ave., 216-881-6350, masoniccleveland.com.
Glen Hansard
The Frames singer-songwriter brings his tour in support of his latest album, last year’s All That Was East Is West of Me Now, to the Agora. The album of folkrock tunes allows Hansard, who comes off as a modern-day Richard Thompson, to embrace the kind of quiet intensity that made the Frames so special. The show begins tonight at 7. Trousdale opens the show.
5000 Euclid Ave., 216-881-2221, agoracleveland.com.
Squeeze
On tour to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the British pop band known for hits such as “Pulling Mussels (from the Shell),” “Black Coffee in Bed” and “Tempted” comes to MGM Northfield Park — Center Park tonight at 7:30. 10705 Northfield Rd., Northfield, 330-908-7793, mgmnorthfieldpark. mgmresorts.com/en.html.
Mike Tramp
The former White Lion frontman comes to the Winchester Music Tavern in Lakewood tonight at 7 to revisit the White Lion catalog. He’ll revisit hits such as “Wait” and “When the Children Cry,” which he’ll update with “modern vocals,” as it’s put in a press release.
12112 Madison Ave., Lakewood, 216-6005338, thewinchestermusictavern.com.
TUE 09/03
The Linda Lindas
The Linda Lindas debut album, Growing Up, came out in 2022 and the band spent most of 2022 on a world tour that included shows with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Japanese Breakfast at Forest Hills Stadium and the Hollywood Bowl. They perform tonight at 7 at the Beachland Ballroom. Bacchae opens. 15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124, beachlandballroom.com.
Mitski
While studying studio composition at SUNY Purchase College’s Conservatory of Music, this indie singer-songwriter recorded and self-released 2012’s Lush and 2013’s Retired from Sad, New Career in Business. Her career has picked up momentum since then; the current tour supports last year’s The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, a collection of tunes that finds Mitski experimenting with choral vocals on album opener “Bug Like an Angel.” Tonight’s show at Jacobs Pavilion begins at 6:30. Lamp opens. Sept. 3.
2014 Sycamore St., 216-861-4080, jacobspavilion.com.
Armando Christian Pérez, aka Pitbull, describes himself as an international
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SAVAGE LOVE
TOP FIVE
By Dan Savage
Dear Readers: Instead of digging through all the emails that hit my inbox this week, I grabbed the first five questions at the top of the pile and answered them in the order they came in. — Dan
I am a man. I met a beautiful Nepalese woman at work. The co-worker who introduced us basically told me this woman was unhappily married. We started spending time together, and we have now been seeing each other for almost three years. Everyone on my end knows about her (and knows she’s unhappily married) but the fact that we’re seeing each other is a mostly secret on her side, as only a few close friends of hers know. I have to pretend at work that we aren’t as close as we actually are, and it makes me feel like a shadow.
She has no kids, and has told her husband she wants a divorce, which he won’t consent to. He doesn’t need to consent — she could divorce him anyway — but she’s leery to. The house is the only thing she owns with him, while everything else is in his name. Most of her friends, also Nepalese, have told her that white men can’t be trusted, which I can’t really disagree with, given our history as a nation. And they are telling her that having a baby with her husband will improve their relationship. I think that’ the worst possible reason to have a kid, especially when dude in question is an emotionally abusive POS.
I love this woman. She makes my heart flutter every time I see her. She’s kind, compassionate, intelligent, and hot. But after three years she still can’t leave him. Which I can only imagine is difficult, as she has a lot to lose, but I love her and want to be fully with her. But I don’t want to push her to do anything she’s not ready to do, or that she doesn’t want to do. That would make me no better than all the other men she’s had in her life. But I’m starting to feel like this isn’t going to happen. She sleeps in bed with him every night. He tracks everything she does and where she goes.
I’m not sure how much longer I can be patient. I’m sick of being a shadow boyfriend, while she just keeps playing wife and we have to pretend we’re just friends. Should I leave this relationship?
I’m I an idiot to think she’ll ever leave him?
Leaving Isn’t My Best Option
I’m not sure what your whiteness or your girlfriend’s Nepalese-ness have to do with your question, LIMBO, which is one I get all the time. The genders are reversed — it’s usually a woman who’s getting strung along by a married man — but your predicament is a common one. And since you’re a regular reader of at least one advice column (that would be mine), you’ve most likely seen questions like yours in my column before, LIMBO, and you’re going to get the same answer everyone else gets: If she was gonna leave him for you — which she’s not gonna do — she would’ve already left.
I’m guessing you weren’t able to independently verify that your girlfriend asked her husband
for a divorce, LIMBO, which means you only have her word to go on. And as commenters on this and every other advice column are quick to point out, the word of a cheater isn’t worth much. And the reasons she’s given for not leaving her husband — the house is in the only asset that her name is on, her husband refused to consent to the divorce — sound more like excuses than reasons. If she lives in a marital property state, she’s entitled to half of everything, including assets that are in his name, and she doesn’t actually need her husband’s consent to divorce him.
Now, it’s also possible that she’s afraid to leave him — she may have legitimate worries about violence or social consequences in her community but even if her reasons for staying with her husband are understandable (if deeply sad), LIMBO, like all mistresses, whether you’re willing to settle for what she’s able to give you is a decision you get to make. If being her side piece insults your dignity, you need to break up with her. If you love her too much to ever leave her, you’ll have to make peace with being her side piece.
MyhusbandandI — straight, cis, and in our 30s — are very happy together, but our sex life has never really “clicked.” In our day-to-day lives we’re best friends, and we’re prone to silliness. The sex feels like it should work out: we’re attracted to each other, and we have similar sexual fantasies, mostly related to Dom/sub stuff. We like the same porn, for example. The sex we have is usually pretty nice, but it’s also very vanilla. I have more experience with kinky sex than he does, but always as a sub with an experienced Dom. We have never really managed to bring our shared interest in D/s into our bedroom. I think part of this is us not knowing where to start. Part of it is also that it’s hard to distance ourselves from our reality. We played with bondage, for example, but I didn’t find it particularly hot because it’s him tying me up and since I know he would never actually hurt me, it all feels like play. Any advice?
Been Dithering Since Marrying
Picture this, BDSM: you and your husband are tied up together — maybe you’re strapped to the bed, he’s strapped to a chair — while the pro Dom you hired (or the amateur Dom you met at a munch) playfully-but-plausibly threatens to “hurt” you both. Finding a very special guest star who not only shares your love of Dom/sub stuff but really enjoys playing with couples will take effort, BDSM, but calling in the kink cavalry — outsourcing the domination to someone who might (but wouldn’t) actually hurt you — could help you and your husband find a groove that makes kink feel more possible/plausible when it’s just the two of you. Or you might learn that bondage and D/s play doesn’t work for you in the context of a committed relationship, BDSM, and you’ll have to keep bringing in those special guest stars if you wanna keep that Dom/sub stuff coming.
Straightguyhere in his late forties married to a forty-year-old straight woman. We’ve been married for sixteen years and have two young children. Our sex life is not satisfying, to say the least. I do not anticipate it will improve, as my wife is not sexually driven and not open to much outside of weekly PIV with one week off every month for her period. She is very vanilla, so the
sex is always the same thing, at roughly the same time, and always in the same position. I’ve spent years trying to get her to open up, but she has given me one of two choices: I accept our sex life as-is or we divorce and move on. I feel satisfied with the other aspects of our marriage I truly love my wife — and I don’t want to live separately from my children or break up our family. Is wanting a fulfilling sex life enough to blow everything else up? Am I being an asshole? Should I suck it up for the sake of my family? Please help. Despairing In Maryland It’s always the partner who wants more sex or more sexual variety who gets told — by their spouses, by the sex-negative couples’ counselors, and sometimes even by themselves — that asking for more sex or more varied sex risks “blowing everything else up.” But couldn’t the same be said to someone like Mrs. DIM? By refusing to consider adding anything to the rotation — by refusing to suck it up — isn’t she risked a blowing up too? Now, I don’t want anyone having sex under duress to save their marriages — of course not — but if my husband was so unhappy with our sex life that he was considering leaving and/or cheating, I would be motivated to make some changes. And if I didn’t wanna fuck my spouse more than once a week (or at all anymore), I would release my spouse from the monogamous commitment he made to me and give him permission to get some and/or all of his sexual needs met elsewhere you know, to avoid blowing everything else up. Sadly, DIM, you’re not married to me, and so you face a choice between sucking it up or blowing it up.
I’mastay-at-home mom with three children, one of which is still a breastfeeding infant. I live semi-rural area with my husband and my mother-in-law, who is in decline and requires more and more care. My husband and I are great at co-parenting, home, family, and projects. But things aren’t great on the sex-and-romance side and neither of us has made much of effort to fix. We’ve talked about it, and we’ve accepted that things probably aren’t going to change, as we’re both burnt out caregivers hustling to the pay bills. Sometimes that feels like a cop out if we wanted to prioritize sex, we wouldn’t be co-sleeping with our toddlers — and we were non-monogamous before we had children. But I haven’t had sexual intimacy in over a year and am so bored with masturbation. I am ready to meet someone. I want to find a consistent lover who wants to date a little and fuck a couple of times a month. The dudes on the dating apps where we are cosplaying at CNM/poly or they’re the same people I’ve been swiping left on for the past six years. I’d love to find a kinky feminist dad who is actually poly and up for a long-term thing. Any other ideas on who to find this unicorn? Do I stay on the apps and expand my range to include bigger cities two hours away? Or do I give up and accept my sexless life?
Touched-Out Underfucked Cis Hets Stay on the apps (you never know who might move to town), expand your range a little (good dick is worth the drive), and remind yourself every morning (or every time you masturbate) that you’re playing a long game. Because whether the right guy turns up two miles or two time zones away, TOUCH, you’re not gonna have time to go
jump on that feminist poly dick until after your youngest is no longer breastfeeding and/or your MIL is dead. Giving yourself permission to seize the opportunity when it comes along — when the planets all align — can make the wait a little more bearable.
P.S. If you’re interested in reviving your sex life with your husband again, TOUCH, get those toddlers out of your bed.
P.P.S. You should, of course, check in with your husband about your relationship and make sure your non-monogamous agreement is still in force.
Myrelationshipof twenty-seven years ended a few years ago in divorce. While I’m mostly over it, I am still a little bitter about my 57-year-old husband dumping me for some 19-year-old kid. Whatever. I got the house, the cars, and the dogs. I really am much happier now. Here’s my dilemma: while we were together, he was an amazing and loving doggy daddy, and absolutely doted on our two pups. In the five years we’ve been apart, he’s never once asked to visit them (even though doggo visitation was written into the divorce settlement), and the few times I’d asked him to check in on them if I had to travel, he declined, citing plans with his new boyfriend (now husband). One of the dogs is getting very close to crossing the rainbow bridge. Do I do the right thing and offer him one last moment with her? Or do I just send him the vet bill when it’s done?
Following Intensely Dan’s Opinion
Do the right thing and tell your shit ex-husband your dog is dying. (I’m using the singular “your” in reference to your dog; your ex-husband may have a legal claim to the dog, per your divorce settlement, but he long ago forfeited any moral claim.) Based on the small amount of info your shared, FIDO, it sounds you’ve behaved admirably since your husband left you for someone who may not have been able to legally drink champagne on his wedding night. If I were you, FIDO, I wouldn’t cede an inch of the moral high ground: I would my let ex-husband know “our” dog was dying, if only to deny my ex and his current the satisfaction of telling themselves I’m a shittier person than they are.
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