More On Former Downtown Business Gets Disaster Relief Caused By Pacers

Well, this doesn't fit the propaganda spread by Don Welsh, Tamara Zahn, Mayor Greg Ballard and all of the other wallet snatchers who thinks it's part of your civic duty as Indianapolis taxpayers to give billions of dollars in subsidies to the billionaire sports team owners. Give credit to Norm Cox for bucking the tide and doing a story based on facts rather than fiction when it comes to the latest request by the Simons to fork over $15 million a year in additional subsidies to their losing Indiana Pacers basketball team. Cox picks up on a blog post I ran the other day discussing former Hollywood Bar & Filmworks' owner Ted Bulthaup's successful effort to get disaster credit relief from the IRS as a result of the catastrophic economic loss his business occasioned by the Pacers moving nearby to the newly-constructed Conseco Fieldhouse. Cox reports:

A former downtown Indianapolis business owner successfully lobbied the IRS for disaster relief funds, citing the plight of the Indiana Pacers.


Four years ago, Ted Bulthaup was forced to close Hollywood Bar and Filmworks, a downtown restaurant and movie fixture, after financial difficulties, 6News' Norman Cox reported.

Bulthaup had long blamed Conseco Filedhouse for eating up parking in the area and making it more difficult for patrons to find his venue.
After looking at the law governing victims of disasters like Hurricane Katrina, he said he decided he was a disaster victim too, and filed for relief.

"It's not specifically the Katrina Act, but it is an IRS code that allows for relief from disasters," he said. "I filed for it, based on the fact that the Capital Improvement Board and the Conseco Fieldhouse, in particular, were a disaster for downtown."

Bulthaup said he convinced the IRS to refund a portion of his federal taxes for the period he had competed against the fieldhouse, a figure that he will only say went well into five figures.

Not surprisingly, the Simons' stooge on the CIB and former mayoral chief of staff Paul Okeson says downtown businesses are not hurt by the Pacers, notwithstanding the ruling by the IRS in favor of Bulthaup. John Livengood, who is supposedly paid to lobby for downtown restaurants, also seemed less than enthused about the ruling. Bulthaup left town and opened another similar restaurant/movie theater in Woodridge, Illinois that is enjoying more success than his Indianapolis venture. Don't expect Jim Shella to do a story like this for WISH-TV. He wouldn't want to stop getting free tickets to sporting events.