The fallout from the December 28 "Hydeout at the Hudson" party continues to fester. As you probably know by now, the party organizers say Hudson Lounge's owner threw them out and shut down the chichi Rice Village club because they were black, while the staff contends it was because too many people showed up for the employees to handle.
With a missing club owner, salivating journalists, one crusading AM talk-radio host and a bunch of pissed-off lawyers, the story is rapidly taking on all the elements of a good potboiler. Here's a synopsis of the most recent information we have been able to turn up, as reported on our Hair Balls news blog earlier today:
- The story has now piqued KTRH drive-time host Michael Berry's interest, which effectively guarantees it's not going away anytime soon.
- One of the organizers of the fateful December 28 party, Ray Odom, said an HPD officer showed up at the lounge around 10:45 p.m. According to a department spokesman, this was part of a "patrol investigation." It's not clear whether this officer was specifically dispatched to the club or just happened by on his nightly rounds.
- An anonymous Hudson employee told Hair Balls that owner Adam Kliebert has not been in touch with anyone at the bar since New Year's Day. Shockingly, Kliebert has not been in touch with anyone at the Houston Press either.
- This employee also said that, in several meetings with Odom and fellow party planner Vonn Butler in the week leading up to the party, the two men's estimates of the number of guests they expected varied wildly from 30 or 40 to around 90.
- "As a black man, I have experienced such treatment before at other clubs," Odom wrote on CultureMap Tuesday. "Now, if I'm not dressed properly, sometimes I won't even try to get into a spot like Hudson unless I'm with a female."
Where is Adam Kliebert? What was the purpose of that HPD officer's "patrol investigation"? Will we ever know how many people were actually invited to Hydeout at the Hudson? And why would anyone try to get into such a spot if they knew they weren't dressed properly?
Stay tuned, and read the entire Hair Balls report here.
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