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    Restaurant Near St. Louis Bars Patrons Under 30

    Customers generally support Bliss Caribbean Restaurant’s ban on male customers under 35 and women under 30. But some legal experts say there may be a problem.When Tina and Marvin Pate travel to Cancún or the Dominican Republic, they enjoy the bliss created by the good music, delicious food and the absence of children.So in May, when they opened Bliss Caribbean Restaurant in St. Louis County, Mo., the couple decided to give their customers the same joy — by requiring that all female customers be at least 30 years old, and all men 35.“We decided to come up with a whole restaurant where adults could pretty much go on vacation for a fraction of the cost,” Mr. Pate said.This rule has drawn widespread attention to Bliss through social media, resulting in packed dance parties and what the restaurant calls a “grown and sexy” vibe.But the requirement has also raised some legal questions, as experts point out that the restaurant is treating men and women differently.“My knee-jerk reaction is that it is technically illegal,” Sarah Jane Hunt, the owner and managing partner of the St. Louis-based law firm Kennedy Hunt, P.C., said in an interview. Ms. Hunt specializes in discrimination lawsuits.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Democrats Run on Abortion, Even for Offices With Little Say on the Issue

    GREEN BAY, Wis. — Eric Genrich is running a full-throated campaign in support of abortion rights, reminding voters of his position at every turn and hammering his anti-abortion opponent in television ads. At a recent event, he featured an obstetrician who now commutes to a state where abortion is legal to treat patients and a local woman who traveled to Colorado to terminate a nonviable pregnancy.There’s just one inconvenient reality: Mr. Genrich is running for re-election as mayor of Green Bay, Wis., an office that has nothing to do with abortion policy.Even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, putting back into effect a Wisconsin law from 1849 that bans nearly all abortions, the city did not have a clinic that performed the procedure, nor a health department that regulated it.Mr. Genrich is one of several candidates for municipal offices on the ballot this spring in races in Wisconsin, Chicago, St. Louis, Lincoln, Neb., and elsewhere who are making their support for abortion rights — and often their opponent’s past opposition — a centerpiece of their campaigns, even though abortion policy in all of these places is decided at the state level.Mayor Eric Genrich of Green Bay, Wis., left, has made abortion rights central to his re-election campaign. At a recent news conference, one speaker was Dr. Anna Igler, second from right, a Wisconsin obstetrician-gynecologist who traveled to Colorado for an abortion because her fetus had a severe abnormality.Kayla Wolf for The New York TimesDemocrats used a muscular defense of abortion rights to great success in the midterm elections last fall, and, if that strategy works again, they are likely to copy it next year in races at all levels of government, including in President Biden’s campaign if he seeks re-election.The focus on abortion rights in down-ballot races, however, reflects Democrats’ increased nationalization of local politics. For decades, local Republican candidates ran on issues like abortion, immigration and national security, putting them in simple terms: “A noun, a verb and 9/11,” Mr. Biden once said in describing the phenomenon.Now Democrats are doing the same on abortion in left-leaning cities, hoping to win over independent voters and some moderate Republicans.Doing so allows Democrats to avoid discussing crime rates or other less appealing campaign topics. But beyond that, they recognize and emphasize that in today’s tribal politics, the precise responsibilities of an office matter less than sending a strong signal to voters about one’s broader political loyalties.“It’s definitely not a municipal issue per se,” Mr. Genrich said in an interview. “Voters don’t care about some of these parochial distinctions between municipal boundaries. This is a city issue, a state issue, a federal issue. Some of their most important questions are, what do you stand for fundamentally?”Mr. Genrich declined repeated opportunities to explain what, precisely, the mayor of Green Bay could do about abortion in his city.Still, Republicans running for mayor find themselves doing a political tap dance, trying to de-emphasize but not disavow their opposition to abortion rights, which is not an electoral winner in Democratic cities. In Green Bay, Mr. Biden won 53 percent of the vote in 2020; last year, Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, took 55 percent of the city’s vote.Mr. Genrich’s opponent in Tuesday’s officially nonpartisan election, Chad Weininger, is a former state legislator who cast a series of votes to restrict abortion rights before last year’s Supreme Court ruling. Now, as television ads and campaign mail blast his stance and label him “MAGA Chad” to emphasize his Republican politics, he is trying to change the subject.Chad Weininger, who is running for mayor against Mr. Genrich in Green Bay, is a former state legislator who has opposed abortion rights in the past. Kayla Wolf for The New York Times“I’m running for mayor, I’m not debating abortion,” Mr. Weininger said. “We could have discussions about nuclear arms, but guess what? Can’t do anything about it. We can have discussions about securing our borders, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”National Democratic organizations that do not typically involve themselves in local elections are using abortion policy to promote and raise money for candidates who back abortion rights.Emily’s List, a group that backs women who support abortion rights, has endorsed mayoral candidates in Jacksonville, Fla., Madison, Wis., and Lincoln, Neb.In Lincoln, where Mr. Biden won 54 percent of the vote in 2020, Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird, a Democrat, said her constituents had demanded to know what she could do about proposed legislation in the Nebraska Legislature that would restrict abortion rights. Her answer: speak out against the bills.Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird of Lincoln, Neb., has urged constituents to speak out in favor of abortion rights. Madeline Cass for The New York TimesVoters, Ms. Gaylor Baird said, are “much more interested in knowing where people stand. So I expect that people will want to know where I stand on this issue, even if it isn’t a local issue typically.”Her main opponent, Suzanne Geist, a Republican state senator who has sponsored bills to restrict or ban abortion in Nebraska, said her actions in the State Capitol should have little bearing on how she would run the state’s capital city. She said she would prefer to focus on issues like public safety and the health of the city’s business community.Talking about abortion, Ms. Geist said, is “a way of avoiding what the present issues are and trying to get the public wrapped around something that really has nothing to do with the mayor’s office or the mayor’s race.”Suzanne Geist, a Republican state senator running for mayor of Lincoln, Neb., said that talking about abortion was “a way of avoiding what the present issues are and trying to get the public wrapped around something that really has nothing to do with the mayor’s office or the mayor’s race.”Madeline Cass for The New York TimesPast opposition to some abortion rights has become a political liability even for candidates who support them now. In Chicago, Paul Vallas, the former Chicago Public Schools chief executive who is running for mayor, is being attacked by his more liberal opponent, Brandon Johnson, for a 2009 television interview in which Mr. Vallas said, “Fundamentally, I oppose abortion.”Mr. Vallas’s statement, which he made when he being asked about possibly running for state office as a Republican, came after he had declared himself “personally pro-choice” but said he would favor banning some late-term abortions.Mr. Johnson is now broadcasting ads with a clip of Mr. Vallas’s statement that he opposed abortion; Mr. Vallas has responded with advertising declaring that he supports abortion rights.In an interview on Sunday at a Greek restaurant, Mr. Vallas said Mr. Johnson had taken his past abortion comments out of context.“It’s had some impact,” he acknowledged.In other races, municipal candidates are trying to find ways to make their cities have some influence over abortion access.Daniela Velázquez, a public relations executive running for the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, has proposed providing money for women seeking abortions to travel across the Mississippi River to Illinois, where the procedure remains legal. While abortion became illegal in Missouri after the Supreme Court’s decision, Ms. Velázquez said many in St. Louis supported abortion rights.“I have been knocking on doors and people have looked at our lit and been like, ‘Oh, you know, pro-choice,’” she said. “Then they say, ‘Yeah, I’m going to vote for you.’”Democrats are open in their belief at the current moment, the best way to win votes is to focus on the abortion fight.“Abortion and reproductive rights is the No. 1 issue in 2023,” said Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to back Mr. Genrich in Green Bay and Mayor Cory Mason in Racine, who is making similar arguments there. “It’s the No. 1 issue that moves voters that normally vote Republican to vote for someone else and it’s the No. 1 issue to get Democrats off the couch and casting ballots.”Beyond the Green Bay mayoral election, abortion is a major issue in Wisconsin’s race for the State Supreme Court, which will finish on Tuesday and is likely to decide whether the procedure remains illegal in the state. Kayla Wolf for The New York TimesIn November, Racine asked voters on the midterm-election ballot if Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban should be repealed — and 71 percent said yes. Mr. Mason is now running television ads highlighting his stance in favor of abortion rights and attacking his opponent.Abortion, Mr. Mason said, comes up in his discussions with voters as much as snow plowing, public safety and housing.“These two big issues around freedom, the freedom to vote and the freedom to make your own health care decisions, they are every bit as front and center in this race as anything else that we deal with at the municipal level,” Mr. Mason said.Mr. Mason’s opponent, Henry Perez, a Republican city alderman opposed to abortion rights, said voters in Racine did not care much about the issue. He said that he did not remember how he had voted in the November abortion referendum, and that too much fuss was being made over abortion being banned in Racine when it was available across the state line in Illinois, roughly 25 miles south of the city.“A lot of people I’ve talked to say, ‘Henry, abortion, really?’” Mr. Perez said. “What do we care about it here? I mean, it’s not a thing that we do. And there’s always options like going out of town, you know, or going over to the next state to take care of an abortion if they need to.”Mitch Smith More

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    St. Louis Couple Who Aimed Guns at Protesters Plead Guilty to Misdemeanors

    Mark McCloskey and Patricia McCloskey of Missouri will pay a total of nearly $3,000 in fines and give up the weapons used in the confrontation.A St. Louis couple who gained national notoriety last year after they were filmed pointing guns at demonstrators walking near their home each pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge on Thursday and agreed to pay a total of nearly $3,000 in fines. The couple, both lawyers, also agreed to give up the guns they had brandished in the confrontation.Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment and will pay a $2,000 fine. Her husband, Mark, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat from Missouri, pleaded guilty to fourth-degree assault and will pay a $750 fine.As part of the plea deal, Ms. McCloskey gave up the Bryco handgun she brandished during the June 2020 confrontation, and Mr. McCloskey agreed to relinquish ownership of the weapon he used, an AR-15 rifle. Neither will face jail time under the plea deal.In a brief interview, Joel J. Schwartz, a lawyer for the McCloskeys, said, “They are very happy with the disposition of the case and will have the fine paid as early as possible and look forward with moving on with their life and focusing on his campaign for the U.S. Senate.”Outside the courthouse, Mr. McCloskey agreed with prosecutors that he had put the protesters in danger. “That’s what the guns were there for, and I’d do it again anytime the mob approaches me,” he said.Patricia McCloskey and her husband, Mark, aimed firearms at protesters who marched through their neighborhood last June.Lawrence Bryant/ReutersRichard Callahan, the special prosecutor assigned to the case, said in a statement that the plea agreement was reasonable, in part, because no shots had been fired, nobody had been injured and the McCloskeys had called the police. “The protesters, on the other hand, were a racially mixed and peaceful group, including women and children, who simply made a wrong turn on their way to protest in front of the mayor’s house,” Mr. Callahan said.On June 28, 2020, protesters, many of whom were Black, marched past the McCloskeys’ home, which is on a private street, on their way to the home of Mayor Lyda Krewson, a Democrat, who lives nearby. Ms. Krewson had angered local residents after she went on Facebook Live and read the names and addresses of people who had said the police should be defunded.The McCloskeys said they had felt they were in imminent danger from the protesters. Images of the couple pointing their weapons at protesters circulated widely, garnering national attention.The day after the protest, President Donald J. Trump retweeted a video of the gun-toting couple. In July, the Circuit Attorney’s Office in St. Louis filed felony charges against them. In August, they spoke at the Republican National Convention.The couple maintained that they had acted in self-defense, in order to prevent the demonstrators from entering their home and harming them. “I really thought it was storming the Bastille, that we would be dead and the house would be burned and there was nothing we could do about it,” Mr. McCloskey told KSDK, a local television station, last year. In an interview on Fox News, Mr. McCloskey said, “We chose to stop them from coming in.” Mr. McCloskey also told KSDK, “My wife doesn’t know anything about guns” but had felt compelled to defend their home.Republicans and conservatives rallied to the couple’s defense. Mr. Trump later said the prosecution of the couple was “a disgrace.” Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, a Republican, had said the case against the McCloskeys “is a politically motivated attempt to punish this family for exercising their Second Amendment rights.”The attention helped catapult Mr. McCloskey into politics. Last month he announced he would run as a Republican for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Roy Blunt, a Republican, who earlier announced he would not seek re-election next year. More

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    St. Louis Elects Tashaura Jones Its First Black Female Mayor

    Tishaura Jones, the city’s treasurer, promised on Tuesday night not to stay silent on racial injustices and vowed to bring “fresh air” to the city.Tishaura Jones became the first Black woman elected mayor of St. Louis on Tuesday and later this month will begin leading a city racked with a high homicide rate, disturbances at the city jail and challenges related to the pandemic.Ms. Jones, the city’s treasurer, received about 52 percent of the vote over her opponent Alderwoman Cara Spencer’s nearly 48 percent, according to unofficial results posted to the city’s website. Ms. Jones will be sworn in on April 20.Ms. Jones, a Democrat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.Ms. Spencer, also a Democrat, conceded on Tuesday night and later congratulated Ms. Jones on Twitter, saying, “You have my support in making St. Louis the great city we know it can be.”This was the first mayoral election under the city’s new election-law overhaul, known as Proposition D. It requires candidates to run without partisan labels, and the two candidates with the most votes in a primary in March would face each other in a general runoff election the next month.In her victory speech, Ms. Jones reminded supporters of her campaign promises. “St. Louis, this is an opportunity for us to rise,” she said. “We are done ignoring the racism that has held our city and our region back.”Ms. Jones pledged that she would not stay silent when she saw racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia or religious intolerance, adding, “I will not stay silent when I spot any injustice.”Transformational change would not be immediate, she said. “It will require a little patience, a little hard work, determination and the understanding that decades of problems would not be solved within days of solutions.”Ms. Jones, a graduate of Hampton University, the Saint Louis University School of Public Health and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, has spent the last 20 years as a public servant. In 2002, she was appointed as Democratic committeewoman of the Eighth Ward in the city of St. Louis, she served two terms in the Missouri House of Representatives, and she has served as the city’s treasurer since 2013, according to her campaign website. She ran unsuccessfully for mayor of St. Louis in 2017.Ms. Jones will replace Lyda Krewson, the first woman to serve as the city’s mayor, who said last fall she would not seek a second term in office.Ms. Krewson congratulated Ms. Jones on Twitter. “I am rooting for your success,” she said. “My administration and I are prepared to make this as smooth a transition as possible.”When Ms. Jones takes office, she will face a list of challenges, including a rise in violence. Last year, the city saw its highest homicide rate in 50 years with 262 murders, five fewer than the record set in 1993. There have been 46 homicides so far this year, according to the St. Louis Police Department.The city’s jail has also seen a growing number of disturbances in recent months, and on Sunday, inmates broke windows, set a fire and threw items onto the street below. A similar episode took place in February.Ms. Jones campaigned on improving the city’s response to the pandemic and pursuing policies to improve its public health infrastructure. Mobile and stationary vaccination clinics would also be established under her lead. St. Louis has about 36 positive cases per day on average, and about 14 percent of all St. Louis residents have been fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times databaseAs the city is promised more than $500 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, Ms. Jones also pledged relief for small businesses and those in need of rental and mortgage assistance.“It’s time for St. Louis to thrive,” Ms. Jones said Tuesday night. “It’s time to bring a breath of fresh air to our neighborhoods.” More