correctionsThe Gazette corrects errors of fact in this space. If you find mistakes, please call 636-0266 during business hours.

BAcK PAGes

todAy in historyIn 1787, the Constitution of the United States was completed and signed by a majority of delegates attending the Consti-tutional Convention in Philadel-phia.In 1862, Union forces fought Confederate invaders in the Civil War Battle of Antietam in Maryland; more than 3,600 men were killed.In 1908, Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge of the U.S. Army Signal Corps became the first person to die in the crash of a powered aircraft, the Wright Flyer, at Fort Myer, Va., just outside Washington, D.C.In 1911, Calbraith P. Rodgers set off from Sheepshead Bay, N.Y., aboard a Wright biplane in an attempt to become the first flier to travel the width of the U.S. (The 49-day journey required 69 stops before Rodgers arrived in Pasadena, Calif., on Nov. 5.)In 1947, James V. Forrestal was sworn in as the first U.S. Secre-tary of Defense.In 1961, Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 706 crashed after takeoff from O’Hare Internation-al Airport, killing all 37 on board.

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for All suBscriBer services, cAll1-866-632-news (6397) For a missed paper, call between 6-9 a.m. Monday-Friday, 6:30-10 a.m. Saturday, or 7-11 a.m. Sunday and your paper will be delivered in the Colorado Springs metro area only.Daily: $267.28 for 52 weeks Long Weekend: $234.52 for 52 weeks Short Weekend: $212.68 for 52 weeks Sunday Only: $198.12 for 52 weeks All subscriptions active on November 24th, 2011 and December 25th, 2011 will include that day’s edition. Home delivery subscribers may be charged a higher rate for holiday editions. Jerry Buck Vice President, Operations • 476-4892

sept. 17, 1911A herd of 18 mountain sheep, running down the side of Pikes Peak, was seen by passengers on the afternoon Cog train last Thursday. J. G. Helstand says that the animals were probably driven from the summit by the severe snow storm which recently raged over the mountains. The sheep were about three miles from the summit.

sept. 17, 1936Commemorating the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Gen. William Jackson Palmer, founder of Colorado Springs, a program is to be presented in the municipal auditorium at 8 o’clock next Tuesday evening by Colorado college, to which General Palmer made many gifts.

sept. 17, 1961The historic home of Helen Hunt Jackson, oldest home in Colorado Springs continuously occupied by members of the same family, will soon disappear to make way for Colorado Springs’ new city police building. The three-story frame structure extends a half block along Kiowa Street and has a 100-foot frontage on Weber Street. The city, which acquired the residence for $100,000 in March, will open bids Sept. 25 on razing the house. COLORADO SPRINGS PIONEERS MUSEUM

ous stimulant and relaxant properties,” the report said.

“Smokeless tobacco is a very attractive drug from a dop-ing perspective,” researchers suggested, because it did not damage an athlete’s breath-ing and respiratory system.

The WADA ruling panel is meeting in Lausanne to weigh changes in the sta-tus of doping products and methods that will come into

force in January.Nicotine is among a num-

ber of readily available sub-stances, including caffeine and Viagra, to have been evaluated for potential dop-ing effects. Tests on 2,185 urine samples in Lausanne found 15 percent of athletes actively used nicotine, com-pared to 25 percent of the general population.

However, athletes in ice hockey, gymnastics, rugby and skiing rated as above-av-

erage users of nicotine, while 19 percent of soccer play-ers samples showed traces “before or/and during sport practice.”

The report stated that “these statistics bring a very significant support to the hypothesis of smokeless to-bacco use as a performance enhancer.”

The Lausanne lab’s study followed initial research in-volving players at the 2009 ice hockey world champion-

ships played in Switzerland, which showed nearly half were active nicotine users.

Its claims of nicotine’s per-formance-enhancing quali-ties have been disputed by golfers, who face increased testing after their sport was included on the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics program.

“There is no drug proven that benefits golf,” Darren Clarke, the British Open champion, said this month at in Switzerland.

Clarke and his European Ryder Cup teammates Miguel Angel Jimenez and Thomas Bjorn regularly smoke on the golf course.

WADA can monitor a sub-stance ahead of inclusion on the prohibited list if it meets two out of three criteria for inclusion — enhancing per-formance, damaging health and breaching the spirit of clean sport.

The report states that nico-tine meets all three.

nicotine: Golfers who smoke on courses deny it has a benefitfrom page 1—

It was not clear when a Colorado bankruptcy court might take up the land-use issues.

Colorado Springs annexed the Banning Lewis Ranch in 1988; the property, which at the time of its annexation was akin in size to a small city, is bounded roughly by Woodmen Road on the north, Fontaine Boulevard on the south, Meridian Road on the east and Marksheffel Road on the west.

At the time of the annexa-tion, several land-use con-trols were put in place by the city to govern develop-ment of the property, which was envisioned to become a massive mixed-use project over several decades; the property’s current owners envisioned 75,000 house-holds,180,000 residents and 79 million square feet of commercial space.

Those land-use controls spelled out such things as

a developer’s responsibili-ties to build roads and make other improvements as the property took shape.

Two California limited li-ability companies that own the property sought Chap-ter 11 bankruptcy protec-tion last year, citing more than $242 million in debts. Before their bankruptcy, changes in ownership since the 1988 annexation and the local and national eco-nomic downturns left the ranch largely undeveloped. Home construction got un-der way four years ago on the far northwest corner of the ranch, where about 300 homes have been built.

As part of the June bank-ruptcy auction, Keybank Na-tional Association, a lender on the property, has bought 2,400 acres on the ranch’s far north side, which it plans to sell. Keybank, whose $24.5 million bid would be cred-ited against the $65 mil-lion it’s owed by the ranch’s owners, agreed to have the

annexation agreement and other land-use controls ap-ply to its property.

But Ultra sought to have a bankruptcy judge set aside those agreements, arguing that it wanted to drill for oil and gas on the property and had no intention to build houses, shopping centers or otherwise develop the property as was originally envisioned. The annexa-tion and other agreements would pose a burden to the company’s efforts, Ultra ar-gued; it also contended the agreements essentially were contracts that a bankruptcy judge could throw out.

City officials opposed Ultra’s efforts, saying the land-use agreements were needed to ensure the order-ly development of the ranch and surrounding property and that no court had ever tossed out such land-use controls as part of a bank-ruptcy case.

City Council President Scott Hente said Friday that

city officials believe the Del-aware judge “made the right decision” in ordering the two sides to sort out their differ-ences in a Colorado court, as the city had sought.

Even though a Colorado judge would operate un-der the same federal bank-ruptcy laws as a Delaware judge, Hente said city of-ficials believe a state judge nevertheless would be more knowledgeable and respect-ful of Colorado laws and the state’s constitution.

“Obviously, he’s going to follow the bankruptcy laws, but in following those laws, he’s going to make sure he doesn’t do something that violates other aspects of Colorado law, like home-rule status,” Hente said.

On Friday, the ranch’s own-ers and Ultra filed a court action saying the company and the city are trying to re-solve their differences.

Les Gruen, who heads Springs land-planning firm Urban Strategies and

worked for a division of Mo-bil when it owned the ranch in the early 1980s, said Ul-tra’s purchase has nothing but upside for the company, despite the uncertainty con-cerning land-use controls.

Ultra probably hopes to settle its differences with the city before the next legal proceeding, Gruen said. If Ultra wins in court, it might figure a way to still develop the land even as it drills; if it loses, it could still negoti-ate with the city or sell the property, Gruen said.

In any case, Ultra has got-ten a steal, he said. It’s pay-ing essentially the same price for property that Mo-bil paid 30 years ago. Since then, the land has been an-nexed, zoned and master planned — regulatory ap-provals that should have substantially inflated the property’s price.

“This is an amazing acqui-sition,” Gruen said.

—

Contact the writer at 636-0228

ranch: Council president pleased that state judge will hear casefrom page 1—

Anthony Moore, senior prosecuting attorney for the city, said “new evidence” that included the videotape was presented to the City Attorney’s Office this week.

“There was probable cause to issue the violations to begin with,” he said. “How-ever, we determined we did not have the ability to meet our burden of proof before the liquor board based on the totality of evidence that was presented to us this week.”

In a police report, detec-tives said the patron was “displaying obvious signs of intoxication” when the wait-ress served him beer and a shot of tequila. One of the detectives reported seeing the patron “stagger and use table chairs for balance.”

But Attorney Vince Linden, who represented Hooters, said the videotape disputes those assertions.

“Just viewing the tape would not have indicated that the person was visibly intoxicated,” Linden said. “Unlike the police report, the person never staggered, never used tables and chairs for assistance.”

Linden said the detectives said the customer was using “loud, boisterous language,” and he appeared visibly intoxicated from their per-spective a few feet away.

“That’s all great, but they never had any interaction with him. They never did any field testing,” he said.

“What if I didn’t have that tape? How in the world would you even defend your-self from these allegations?” he asked. “If you didn’t have

that videotape to go back in time … it would just be their assertions.”

The supervisor of VNI’s Special Enforcement Unit, Sgt. Bret Poole, said he had not seen the video. But he defended his detectives.

“My understanding is there’s no discrepancies be-tween what’s in the video and the case report,” he said.

But Mika said he ques-tioned the integrity of this and other undercover inves-tigations involving the de-tectives who filed the charge against Hooters.

“I would hope that this is not simply dropped, that somebody looks into this further,” he said.

The video shows the detec-tives drinking alcohol, Mika said. Although drinking al-cohol doesn’t violate their

standard operating proce-dures, Mika said it could have clouded their judg-ment. Worse yet, the detec-tives left Hooters before the patron and didn’t determine “whether he was driving, whether he was fit to drive,” Mika said.

“I don’t think that for a minute that they believed this individual was intoxi-cated,” he said. “It was sim-ply a means of justifying whatever expenditures they may have made on liquor and alcohol.”

Poole called that allegation “ridiculous.”

“We have funds from vari-ous sources, and there’s nothing out there to say we have to justify the expendi-tures we make while we’re out there doing our audits,” he said. “We don’t spend very much money in the

bars.” The charge against Hoot-

ers could have landed the business in a mountain of trouble.

Last year, Hooters’ liquor license was suspended for 15 days.

Under an agreement with the city, Hooters pleaded guilty to selling alcohol to a minor and no contest to selling alcohol to a visibly intoxicated person.

As part of the deal, 12 days were held in abeyance for a year, and the city agreed to let Hooters pay a $533 fine in lieu of serving a suspen-sion for the other three days. When a suspension is held in abeyance, the liquor code can’t be violated, or those days must be served. If the violation is serious enough, the license can be revoked.

hooters: Detectives’ records questionedfrom page 1—

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A2 ❘ the gazette ❘ Saturday, September 17, 2011