Tag: Steven Reid

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Emergency Rule Allows Restaurants to Sell Beer for Takeout, Delivery

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Justin Fox Burks

A temporary rule will allow restaurants and bars to sell beer for takeout and delivery thanks to quick moves by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and the Memphis Alcohol Commission (MAC).

The news comes from the Twitter account of Steven Reid, a political consultant and commissioner with the MAC. His tweets about it began Friday. Here’s the thread as the rule move from idea to reality.

Emergency Rule Allows Restaurants to Sell Beer for Takeout, Delivery

Emergency Rule Allows Restaurants to Sell Beer for Takeout, Delivery (2)

Emergency Rule Allows Restaurants to Sell Beer for Takeout, Delivery (3)

Another source sent the text of the MAC’s ruling, approved Saturday morning.

“Due to the declaration of a civil emergency by Mayor Strickland for the City of Memphis, I move that the Alcohol Commission grant permission for all businesses presently holding a lawful ‘on premises’ beer permit issued by the Memphis Permits Office to sell sealed containers of beer to-go, including curb side, drive-through and/or delivery.

“All permittees, their employees-including delivery employees, subject to this motion must continue to follow all applicable federal, state and City laws and ordinances. This motion takes effect immediately upon passage and will remain in effect only for the time until the Mayor of Memphis announces the declaration of Civil Emergency has ended.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what a “sealed container” was exactly. Certainly it’ll include crowlers and growlers but, maybe, bottles and cans, too.

We’ll update this post as we get more information. In the meantime, let’s get a pint (or many) delivered and raise them to some good news for Memphis restaurants. 

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

No Surprise: Strickland Announces for Reelection

CREDIT: JB

JB

Mayor Strickland

The least surprising piece of news, surely, of this still young century was officially communicated to the Memphis public Tuesday morning with the announcement that Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland will … run again.

The word “officially” is no metaphor. Strickland’s intent to seek reelection was delivered via a full-page (and front-page) article in The Commercial Appeal complete with a flattering portrait-sized photograph and a respectful recitation of the mayor’s claimed accomplishments in office that might as well have been written by His Honor himself. The total effect was that of a souvenir guide to a ceremonial coronation.

This is not a “sour grapes” response. Regret at not being first with a significant announcement — even a long-anticipated one — is an acknowledgment of the inherent priorities of the news-gathering profession. Nor is it a dis of the lucky reporter who harvested this item; a capable pursuer of information, she is not to be faulted merely because this story was delivered to her via the proverbial silver platter. When asked at a lunch meeting with this runner-up scribe later on why he opted for this means of revelation — as against, say, an open-to-all-comers press availability  — Strickland answered simply, “We judged this to be the best way of getting our story out.”

Which is something to keep in mind the next time we are expected to cluck away in compassionate sorrow at the supposedly dwindling fortunes of our city’s long-lived morning daily — still in possession, apparently, of a circulation list to be envied, and shepherded by the big-bucked Gannett operation against the prospect of corporate adversity.

And despair not. The rest of us will still have some scraps to share — like the poll results of a fresh sampling of voter opinion taken for the mayor by Public Opinion Strategies.

Among its findings:

*That, contrary to what might be assumed, this male white mayor has his lowest approval rating — at 68 percent — among white men and his highest among African-American women, at 74 percent. (Other approval numbers: 73 percent among white women; 72 percent, among black men).

*That Strickland’s “job rating” is adjudged at essentially the same level of approval by almost all sectors of the population. To wit: 71 percent by Republicans, 73 percent by independents, and 72 percent by Democrats; 67 percent by conservatives, 78 percent by moderates; and 66 percent by liberals; 71 percent by Memphians with no college experience and 73 percent by those who have such experience; 72 percent by those whose origins are in the North and 72 percent among native Southerners.

The poll also assigns an ever-rising percentage figure, from 2014 onward, to those who regard Strickland favorably: 33 percent in November 2014; 45 percent in August 2015; 48 percent on September 8, 2015; 56 percent on September 22, 2015 (these last two figures were arrived at just before Strickland’s first election as mayor); and 78 percent in December of 2018.

The Public Opinion Strategies poll was taken of 400 likely voters between December 11th and December 14th and claims a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.9 percent. The polling group is the same one that provided what turned out to be on-target samplings for Strickland four years ago, and it was arranged, as in 2015, through the auspices of consultant Steven Reid.

In lunch conversation on Tuesday, both Strickland and Reid laid special stress on such talking points as the upward trend of police and fire hires and the administration’s plans to achieve universal pre-K instruction within two years without need of a tax increase.

For all his polling numbers, Strickland seems to have maintained an unassuming attitude toward his image in the community. Asked whether he thought he was readily identifiable by the public, he gave the matter a test, asking the waitress at Tug’s, where we ate, if she knew what he did for a living. “You’re the mayor of Memphis,” she answered, bearing the smile of one who had just answered successfully on a quiz show.

Strickland seemed pleased, but not overly so. He reiterated a statement he has made previously — to the effect that he rarely reads the resident media, except in the case of informed commentary regarding an issue laid before him for action. And he maintains that he never reads social media at all.

That means he would have missed a Facebook thread from last week, one featuring a chorus of criticism from a corps of the the mayor’s designated dissenters. In the case at hand, their complaint was not so much with Strickland per se, as with the reportage of what he said at his annual New Year’s Eve prayer breakfast — specifically the mayor’s verbal embrace of causes and occasions close to the hearts of many of his African-American constituents.

To the dissenters, this was all malarkey, and to report it without a litany of clarifying dispraise amounted to giving Strickland, in the words of one kibitzer, a “big wet sloppy kiss.” If the Public Opinion Strategies poll is as accurate an eye on reality as those done by the same firm for Strickland during his successful campaign of 2015, the would-be debunkers might owe the world a re-think.

They will, of course, have the available put-up-or-shut-up remedy of disproving the poll by providing a viable opposing candidate to Strickland, who vows that this year’s election contest will be his last one, ever.

We’re open to being convinced as to alternate outcomes. And, as noted in its opening paragraphs, this article does not purport to be an official or semi-official account from the horse’s mouth. To embroider upon the elegant metaphor of the aforementioned critic, it is but a case — with no salacity intended — of sloppy seconds.

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Politics Politics Feature

Good Tidings for Strickland

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

In keeping with the season, Steven Reid, the consultant who has helped guide two local political campaigns to victory in recent years — those of 8th District Congressman David Kustoff and Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland — has sent out some would-be Christmas cheer to supporters of the latter.

In a one-sheet document forwarded to the current mayor’s supporters, Reid says, “Over the past few months, I have seen some exciting poll numbers. It is a standard poll technique to test several well-known local and national figures (even names that might not be on an upcoming ballot) to gauge voter attitudes and opinions. I am fortunate to have been able to review several recent polls that included Mayor Strickland.”

Reid, who began his consulting career in 1992 by overseeing the upset victory of Blanche Lambert (later Blanche Lambert Lincoln) over her former employer, then U.S. Representative Bill Alexander, in Arkansas’ First Congressional District, quotes a finding from Otis Sanford’s book, Boss Crump to King Willie: “Strickland … made history by receiving more of a percentage of the black vote than any winning white candidate since William B. Ingram in 1963.”

Then, citing what he says is “an average based on some notable numbers,” Reid makes the following claims: 

• “The mood of Memphis voters has improved dramatically since 2015. (38-47 from 31-58);

• Mayor Strickland is popular with 60 percent favorable — 19 percent unfavorable with a positive rating that cuts across every subgroup in the polls including white (68-13) and African American (58-18).

• It’s interesting to compare those numbers to mayors in peer cities: New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu — 57/36; New York Mayor Bill de Blasio — 50/42; Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley — 48/31.”

Reid concludes his missive with this sentiment: “If you think the last campaign was something, take a minute and think of what we can accomplish now. I can’t wait to celebrate in October 2019.”

With that next mayoral election nearly two years off, it is still a bit early to predict possible opponents for Strickland, but it seems almost certain, especially if the city’s fluctuating crime situation starts to fester or if the legal standoff over Confederate memorials is not resolved, that there will be one or two serious challengers willing to test Reid’s optimism. Watch this space.
• The biggest ballots in Shelby County, size-wise, occur in eight-year intervals, when the numerous elected judgeships come up for election. That won’t happen again until 2020, but next year’s August ballot will feature three judicial races — all special elections. 

Two of them are Circuit Court positions, with Judge Mary Wagner in Division 7 and Judge David Rudolph in Division 9, both appointed to fill vacancies during the last year, having to run for the right to serve out terms that will be contested again in 2020. A third race will determine who will serve in the Criminal Court, Division 10, now held by Judge James Beasley, who intends to retire at the end of this year. 

Both Wagner and Rudolph have been visibly campaigning to maintain their judgeships, and Rudoph also has an opponent busily making the political rounds: Yolanda Kight, a judicial commissioner who has run previously for Shelby County Clerk.

While the judicial positions are nonpartisan, these three races may, appropriately or not, be affected by the predominant partisan flavor of next year’s voting, with their outcomes determined by turnout factors having to do with the contested nature of Democratic and Republican primaries for other positions. More about that anon.

Jackson Baker

Candidates in next year’s elections are making the rounds of holiday gatherings. Here Lee Harris, candidate for County Mayor, pitches Mary and Myron Lowery at the annual party of the Shelby County Democratic women.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Poll Shows Strickland with High Local Approval Ratings

A graph showing some of the results of a Public Opinion Strategies poll on Mayor Jim Strickland’s current approval ratings with Memphis voters

On the eve of what could well turn out to be a long, hot summer, and with all the crises, ongoing and potential, affecting Memphis, how is the approval rating of Mayor Jim Strickland holding up?

Rather well — or so would a fresh new poll taken on the Mayor’s behalf seem to suggest.

A new sampling of public opinion by Public Opinion Strategies, the firm relied on for the Strickland campaign during the 2015 mayoral race, shows the Mayor’s approval rating, as of May 2016, to be 68 percent, with only 15 percent of those polled disapproving.

The results are analyzed three ways:

—By gender, with 66 percent of men approving and 15 percent disapproving, and wotj 70 percent of women approving, against 14 percent who disapprove;

—By political party, with 89 percent of Republicans expressing approval and a statistical sample small enough to register as zero disapproving; 65 percent of approval from Democrats, with 17 percent disapproving; and 63 percent of independents approving, as against 19 percent disapproving;

—By race, with whites approving at a rate of 80 percent with only 5 percent disapproval, and with a approval rate of 62 percent among African Americans, 20 percent disapproving.

— And, Rather oddly, the poll offers figures for “Northern Districts” (73 percent approval, 13 percent disapproval) and “Southern Districts (61 percent approval, 17 percent disapproval).

According to Steven Reid, the consultant whose Sutton-Reid firm represented Strickland during his successful 2015 mayoral race, the actual polling was performed by Public Opinion Strategies of Alexandria, Virginia, the company which had also done polling for Strickland in 2015.

The poll was conducted by telephone from May 15 to May 17, with 25 percent of those polled contacted by cell phone. The sample involved 400 voters, broken down as follows: 66 percent said they always vote in all elections, general and primary; 23 percent vote in all general elections but occasionally miss a primary; 5 percent were occasional voters in general elections but never primaries; 5 percent “almost never” voted at all.

The poll’s margin of error was estimated at 4.9 percent.