Another year, another fresh round of Floyd County Health Department lies.

On the topic of Boomtown last Sunday, which was a fabulous success as a first-year music festival in downtown New Albany, I cannot put it to rest without mentioning the invaluable performance of the Floyd County Health Department.

Last year, the appropriately festooned Red Shi(r)ts specifically informed beer vendors that hand sanitizer and wet wipes were sufficient to pour draft beers, along with a non-statutory-based permit that is 100% bogus according to no less an authority than the Indiana attorney general himself (a ruling the FCHD refuses to heed). Now, the very same bureaucrats say we must have a hot water hand washing station, and in familiarly Orwellian fashion, they state that this was true last year, too -- just like last year, they said they'd always been enforcing fraudulent permits, when a public records request showed they hadn't.

That's why, as an entity, the FCHD is a lying piece of mongrel cur's feces -- and you can tell 'em I said so. Seeking to usurp the natural order of the state's regulatory division of responsibility is one thing; being unable to tell the truth ups the ante.

Last evening at Bicentennial Park, the brew crew assembled an insulated plastic drinking water cooler and a pail, filling the cooler with water from the hot liquor tank. Earlier in the day, our serving partners at Irish Exit had been told that one such station would suffice for the three vendors working under NABC's supplemental catering permit -- this coming after the roly-poly timer-server who visited us at Boomtown insisted that each participant have a station (how many lies does this make?)

Staff awaited the arrival of the inspector, who turned out to be the very same engorged fellow. He mumbled a few things to Irish Exit's workers and ignored NABC entirely, walking away without so much looking at the crucial addition.

Which means he didn't give us the yellow copy of his thumbs-up public health report, like the stack from last year, not a single one of which made the slightest mention of a hot water hand washing station.

I want my damned yellow sheet. Paper trails are important for bureaucrats, but they're even more important for potential lawsuits. You don't think I've forgotten the e coli references on the department's web site, have you?

"Big Four Burgers joins forces with NABC for Friday evening food at Bank Street Brewhouse."

The owner of Big Four Burgers + Beer in Jeffersonville is Matt McMahan, who operates Irish Exit in New Albany. He already had a food trailer under construction before the recent kitchen suspension at Bank Street Brewhouse, and the timing's perfect for both of us. The obvious next step is to cover Saturday during summer by a similar arrangement with food vendors. The BSB kitchen remains operational, and is licensed, so options exist there, too.

During the two weeks that have followed perestroika at BSB, feedback has been interestingly generational. Generally speaking, the younger generation seems happier with the notion of kaleidoscopic and variable food options, and my own cohort a tad grumpier. I'm viewing the situation as one in which a tremendous number of options to use the BSB space now have come into being, as opposed to a previous state of being in which almost every decision we made had to be taken against a backdrop of what was best for the kitchen. Had we been making money hand over fist ... but I digress.

Let's see how this burger, beer and music idea works out, beginning May 30, then go from there. The details are here: Big Four Burgers joins forces with NABC for Friday evening food at Bank Street Brewhouse

Week in review: Current history of the Floyd County Health Department's great power grab of 2013.

It's dress down day at the health department,
and Dr. Harris is dining at Chick fil-A.

Let's review the past week, beginning with tonight, when there'll be a concert at Bicentennial Park featuring local favorites Ballroom Blitz.

Because these days New Albany periodically functions almost as an urban area should, it is achieving a modicum of pleasurable results.

WAVE-3: 'New' New Albany attracting visitors and dollars.

People like it, and this is an utterly alarming development for Floyd County's perpetually reactionary and non-creative political ruling class. About the best idea these second-raters can come up with is to harass those who actually are "doing" something, by means of petty bureaucratic racketeering.

Another day, another Floyd County Health Department power grab.

The beer and wine sellers are being told they are entitled -- privileged, even -- to be regulated and cited according to statutes as yet unrevealed, ones apparently unknown outside Floyd County, while being held weirdly responsible for certain known food handling regulations (for pre-packaged liquids) that specifically exempt us from learning procedures we’ll subsequently be cited for not knowing, while we have one simple question: Exactly how is it that a local health department trumps our own beer and wine business’s regulatory authority, the Alcohol & Tobacco Commission?

Food handling, panhandling and regulatory free-basing.

But amid the tortuously Orwellian world of Dr. Tom Harris's health department, it's just another $20 slapped down to fund programs his county political bosses won’t. Others in New Albany might be interested in the implications, assuming they're finished with the party intended to congratulate themselves for … for … er, I guess for holding congratulatory parties.

Health Department's revenue enhancement + Develop New Albany's event calendar = ?

Whilst swatting at the torpid newfound regulatory mosquitoes, NABC prepared to contest the citation issued last Friday.

Preview: NABC's appeal to the Floyd County Health Department.

The full appeal then was published, as full transparency always matters, both to NABC and NAC.

ON THE AVENUES: The long train of usurpations adds a caboose.

The News and Tribune picked up the story, offering Dr. Harris the opportunity to inform a breathless world that NABC’s appeal would be overturned, before ever being heard, thus rendering the concept of “due process” into the sort of thin, worm-ridden gruel last seen being eaten by peasants in a Dostoevsky novel.

On the song and dance routine of Dr. Tom Harris.

Perhaps the leftovers can be fed to the inmates at the county jail?

It is now 8:00 a.m. on Friday, and there's a show to cater tonight. Deadlines approach. As NABC awaits an appeal, a procedure already publicly compromised by the health department's chieftain's detached smugness, we have an obligation to proceed judiciously. Let's slow down this game for just a moment.

In the short term, we will comply with the health department's demands for tribute, however specious, and pay $20 each time we pour pre-packaged alcoholic beverages into plastic cups. We will do so under specific written protest, each and every time. In these instances, we will comply in such a manner as to fulfill ATC regulations, which we regard as pre-eminent, and that we always seek to implement.

In short, the master event caterer (NABC) to whom the ATC permit is issued will indeed possess a temporary food service permit.

County government can rest at ease, safe in the knowledge that further taxation of recalcitrant tea-baggers in the Woods of Lafayette need not be considered, after all.

Kudos to those who have been reading the past week's dispatches here at NAC. The hit counter has been spinning furiously. You are urged to speak with or write your local elected representatives with input on these and other matters. As for this particular issue, the short-term has concluded. Mid- and long-term strategies begin today. Thank you.