Woman at center of Kansas newspaper raid still has no liquor license. BYOB, she says

Kari Newell, the woman who triggered a police raid on the newspaper in Marion, Kansas, is still operating her restaurant in the small town.

But without a liquor license, at least for now, Newell reported on Facebook.

“We have an announcement regarding our liquor licensing process,” Newell wrote Aug. 30 on the Facebook page for her restaurant, Chef’s Plate at Parlour 1886, located in Marion’s Historic Elgin Hotel. “We are currently between licenses but are working feverishly to get this finished. In the meantime we have decided to temporarily allow BYOB (bring your own bottle, if its legal to buy its legal to bring). … This is a temporary fix to a temporary issue.”

Newell runs two businesses in Marion, the Chef’s Table at Parlour 1886 and Kari’s Kitchen, a cafe and deli across the street. The liquor license for the restaurant was previously held by the owner of the hotel, Tammy Ensey, who is the sister-in-law to Marion’s county attorney, Joel Ensey. The liquor license expired on Aug. 28.

Newell is within the law to offer BYOB service. Per Kansas statue 41-719, a patron can drink alcohol in an unlicensed business under certain circumstances: the alcohol must not be sold on the premises and must be in the possession of the patron. It cannot be consumed between midnight and 9 a.m. The business or owner cannot have had a previous license revoked and cannot charge for the drink.

The question of whether Newell would receive her own license had been on the Marion City Council agenda on Aug. 7, when she stood at the lectern and accused a reporter for the Marion Daily Record newspaper of illegally accessing her private information to confirm a tip that Newell had been convicted of a misdemeanor DUI (driving under the influence of alcohol) 15 years ago. Newell had also been driving without a valid license since that time.

Under Kansas statutes, a past misdemeanor DUI has no bearing on getting a liquor license. Newell wrote that she had contacted the state’s Alcohol Beverage Control board about letting patrons bring their own bottles.

“We got full approval from ABC to allow this. … There simply wasn’t enough time to get everything accomplished to make this seamless. I can assure you that all license fees have been paid and my background check was CLEAN! It’s merely a paperwork process,” Newell’s page says.

The Marion reporter was using public state records to check Newell’s driving status, the Department or Revenue has said. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation is still investigating.

Newell’s accusation of identity theft was the catalyst for the town’s police chief, Gideon Cody, to get a search warrant signed by a magistrate judge. On Aug. 11, he raided the newsroom, hauling away computers and cellphones. The police also raided the home of Marion Councilwoman Ruth Herbel, along with the home of the newspaper’s editor, Eric Meyer, and his 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, the paper’s co-owner.

Video of the police raid on Meyer’s home would later go viral. It shows Joan Meyer excoriating police, stomping her walker and demanding that officers leave her home. Meyer died the next day.

Since the raid and Meyer’s death, Newell said she has received hundreds of vile messages texted to her and to her businesses. While insisting she is not a victim, Newell in a recent interview with The Star talked about being unfairly demonized.

“I didn’t go in and raid the newspaper,” Newell previously told The Star. “I didn’t incite the raid. Newell did not return The Star’s request for comment this week on the liquor license.

Meyer, the paper’s editor and publisher, also told The Star that although Newell’s complaint spurred the raid, he said that she is not primarily at fault and that the city’s mayor, the police chief, county attorney and magistrate judge bear greater culpability.

“She is a pawn,” Meyer told The Star previously. “I think she was a convenient excuse used by other people to get at us. I think she’s a patsy in that regard.”

This story was originally published September 6, 2023 at 11:35 AM.

Eric Adler

The Kansas City Star

816-234-4431

Eric Adler, at The Star since 1985, has the luxury of writing about any topic or anyone, focusing on in-depth stories about people at both the center and on the fringes of the news. His work has received dozens of national and regional awards.