Strange things happen in Alton on holidays.
Last New Year’s Eve, customers at Bubby & Sissy’s on Belle Street actually drank champagne!
Last Halloween, customers at a haunted house on Henry Street were genuinely frightened!
Bad things happen when chaos is cultivated.
Someone spilled champagne on the dance floor at Bubby & Sissy’s and someone else slipped and fell in the bubbly puddle.
Some masked madman with a chainsaw struck such terror into a little girl at the haunted house on Henry Street that she, too, fell while fancifully fleeing for her life.
Clearly, things are getting out of hand in this wild west region of Madison County and something needs to be done before the whole community descends into darkness and debauchery.
Devotees of decorum need not fear, however, for the victims of misguided merriment are themselves leading the crusade to punish the overly free spirits and restore strict order.
Tamara Cooper filed suit in Madison County Circuit Court, seeking more than $50,000 in damages for the negligence that Bubby & Sissy’s displayed in supplying champagne to New Year’s Eve revelers.
Terry Gansz, father of the girl who got frightened and fell, has also filed suit in Madison County Circuit Court and he, too, is seeking more than $50,000 in damages. (Fifty grand must be the going rate for a fall).
Gansz is suing the operator of the haunted house, American Legion Post 126, et al., alleging the Post’s representatives failed to show sufficient concern for the safety of the paying-to-be-petrified customers.
If Cooper and Gansz are successful with the lawsuits, bar owners and haunted house operators in our area will in the future have to think twice about serving champagne to adults on New Year’s Eve or frightening kids on Halloween.
Maybe Bubby & Sissy’s can serve sparkling juice instead, Post 126 can sponsor an epic Trunk-or-Treat, and people in Alton can learn to have fun without risky excitement.