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Saturday night due to police presence. The event culminated with

walking off stage without performing to protest "the treatment that hip hop artists get" from police.

We sat down with the bar's owner, Sheri Dietrich, 40, to discuss her perspective on Saturday night's events and what the incident means for future hip hop shows. This interview has been edited for brevity.

What happened Saturday night, from your perspective?

I was helping bartend downstairs and the upstairs bartender told me that the Fire Marshal was here. When I first talked to him he said he just happened to be in the neighborhood and didn't check out Belmont Street that often and wanted to have a look around. So he came downstairs, and he immediately said that it was over capacity, not even knowing what capacity was. At some point we were talking about security and I realized, 'Oh, there's somebody in uniform.' There were like three cops behind me. So shortly after he got here the police must have followed him.



He went through and counted the crowd and came up with 135, which just seemed a bit much. He said they were going to shut down the show, or we could get down to capacity really quick. But if you select people to leave, thats when you're going to have a bigger problem than shutting the show down altogether.



He decided he was going to call in backup at that point because they were afraid if they stopped the show that people were going to be angry and there might be an issue. So we just stood around waiting and the show went on. At one point there were police officers in the entire entryway, all the way down the stairs. There were probably at least ten officers lining the exit. There were four police officers with their lights on, flashing. They had stopped traffic and blocked off the entire street, which is a little crazy because nothing was happening.



At some point the Fire Marshal did tell me that one of the performers had gang ties and that was the issue, that that's why they were all here. After he was done the police and Fire Marshal said that since all the people that were a problem were gone they would let the show continue, but people were already dissipating on their own.



It was a little bit confusing, because first I was told the show was shutting down. All these extra people showed up and they had the block closed down. Then the next thing you know they were saying we could continue with the show, that they thought the people that were a threat were gone.

How long have you been hosting hip hop shows here? Has this incident changed your attitude at all?

I never even realized I liked hip hop until we started doing hip hop shows here within the past year.



I've played guitar in rock bands in Portland for years, so I'm just a total rocker. And then we started getting shows here and I'd go downstairs and just be like, 'Woah, these guys are amazing! I didn't realize I like this kind of music!' I was really excited about doing hip hop shows and giving them a place to perform. There have been some really talented artists come through.



They've always been really fun. Nothing has ever happened, there hasn't been a single fight or anything.



I would not want this to stop future hip hop shows. But, on the other hand, if this is going to happen every time there is a hip hop show of course I'll stop. We're just trying to run a business and if they're looking for us to somehow screw up I'd just rather not do the shows. I think that happens in a lot of places and it's unfortunate to stifle an entire genre of music.

How did police and the Fire Marshal handle the situation?

The police were fine. They were just responding to getting a call from the Fire Marshal, he was calling the police. They didn't really do much other than stand there.



I'm still a little bit questioning on the capacity thing. I mean, that number had changed. First the Fire Marshal showed me a clicker and said 135, then he was telling us it was double capacity, which would have been 170. There just weren't that many people down there.



If the concern really was gang affiliation, to me it seems like the better solution would be working with the bar, not against us. Why would they not contact the venue ahead of time and say, 'You might want extra security.' It seems like the best way of going about things might be to let the venue or the promoter know. Be like, 'Hey, you realize there might be a gang member at your show. What are your plans to deal with that?'

It definitely wasn't a random fire inspection. It was not random that they happened to be here, deciding that was the night they were going to check on things.

How did the attendees, performers and your staff handle the situation?

The show just kind of went on. It went on with this weird back drop of police officers. I saw people who were just still watching the show. The concert goers just seemed to be enjoying the show for as long as it was lasting. I heard one guy come up to the bar and say, 'Hey, do I have time to get one more drink before you guys get shut down?' The bartender was like, 'Yeah, sure.' Everybody just kind of went about their business.

-- Melissa Binder