Sports bar making strong comeback
The T-shirts depict a man’s face emerging from a baseball like a phoenix reborn from the burning Capone’s logo underneath.
On the back, the phrase: “Our competition burns with envy.”
A sense of humor and endless determination helped carry Tom and Teresa Capone through the loss and rebuilding of their Post Falls sports bar after it was destroyed in a July arson fire.
“It’s a huge weight off our shoulders, financially and emotionally,” Teresa Capone said of the newly reopened Capone’s Pub and Grill, 315 N. Ross Point Road.
Business has been booming since the reopening in mid-May.
Starting over wasn’t easy. All of the sports memorabilia that decorated the restaurant was lost in the fire, and Tom Capone had to replace it out of his own pocket because it wasn’t covered by insurance. “I had stuff here my dad gave me that I could never replace,” he said.
He spent months scouring eBay for baseball gloves, posters, hockey sticks, photographs and all the other memorabilia decorating the rebuilt sports bar. One good thing that came from the fire was the ability to design a newer, fresher sports bar. The original Post Falls Capone’s was opened in a remodeled restaurant. Inside the new restaurant, much is different. The kitchen has new appliances and is larger.
A banquet area was replaced with additional restaurant seating and the bathrooms have been improved.
Meanwhile, the trial against accused arsonist Richard E. Hanlon has been delayed until fall.
Hanlon, who owned rival bars Paddy’s in both Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls, is accused of setting the blaze because his competing bar was failing.
Amy Cannata
Medical Lake weighs ban
MEDICAL LAKE – The city of Medical Lake is weighing a fireworks ban.
Currently, fireworks are allowed within the city but with restrictions. They can be purchased only between 9 a.m. and 11 p.m. starting July 1, and can’t be sold after 8 p.m. July 4. They can’t be discharged on city-owned property, including parking lots, buildings or parks. They can be used only between 9 a.m. and 11 p.m. July 4.
The city is mailing surveys to find out whether residents want to continue the tradition of legal fireworks. Surveys will be included with utility bills and can be mailed back to City Hall or placed in a drop box at the post office.
To ban fireworks, an ordinance must be in place for a year before going into effect.
Lisa Leinberger
St. Paschal school closes
No more teachers. No more books. No more school.
After 68 years, St. Paschal’s Catholic School in Spokane Valley has closed. Students, teachers and church members said goodbye to the school during a graduation Mass held June 6.
The three eighth-grade graduates received certificates marking their achievement, and every student was given a certificate for being part of the school’s final year. Each of the four teachers got a chance to talk about their career at the school and to thank students.
“All you children were such a joy in my life,” said kindergarten teacher Emily Klein.
School staff, students and church members have been saddened by the closure, even though it was expected for years.
The number of students has dropped steadily. In 2006, the school had 64 students in grades K-8. Only 50 remained this year and only 25 said they would be returning next year, too few to support the school financially. The church has a small, largely elderly congregation and was unable to keep the school afloat.
Nina Culver
DAR wants new monument
Julie Pittman, a regent in the Esther Reed Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, felt ill when a venerable monument to George Washington was vandalized in Manito Park in 2002.
“I was heartsick,” Pittman said last week while visiting the sandstone monument, erected by the chapter in 1932.
“We felt like a little bit of our history was being taken away from us,” she said.
Pittman and other members of the Esther Reed Chapter want to repair the monument, and they are asking for the public’s help in raising $5,500 for the restoration.
Annie Pierce, a southwest Spokane resident and chapter member, is spearheading the drive to restore the monument and to move it to a more visible location.
The monument was installed to commemorate the 200th year of Washington’s birth in 1932 and honor the state’s namesake. At 8 1/2 feet tall, the monument was the first one erected in Spokane to the nation’s first president, according to DAR minutes from 1932.
During a wave of vandalism at Manito Park, the monument was repeatedly defaced in 2002. Vandals chipped away inset letters. Two bronze plaques were pried off and stolen. The monument is found along a paved footpath running on the east side of the park between the lower Manito parking lot and East Manito Place.
Pierce said restoration will include the likelihood of moving the monument to a more visible location near the Park Bench Café. The stone face of the monument would be ground down and the letters restored. A laser etching of Washington would replace the stolen plaque, she said.
Mike Prager