RFT 📰

The Gateway Arch National Park saw its highest number of visitors since 2012 — a total of 2.4 million people. That's according to a new set of numbers released last week. The numbers are due in part to a significant revision in methodology that the park made last year.

Dutchtown will soon be home to a sexy and sophisticated wine bar, thanks to the husband-and-wife team of Earl and Tasha Smith, who also own the nearby Cross Grand. Intertwine Wine Bar (4710 Virginia Avenue; Dutchtown) will open to the public on Thursday, March 14 — 314 Day, for those who celebrate — with plans to cater to a 25-and-older crowd. It's the latest venture for the Smiths, who have deep ties to the neighborhood.

A 69-year-old St. Charles County man who pled guilty to illegally selling guns throughout Missouri was sentenced to probation yesterday — despite selling approximately 250 guns illegally and continuing to sell them even after the ATF sent him a letter telling him to cut it out. Thirty of the firearms sold by Harry Trueblood wound up at crime scenes, prosecutors say, including homicides, suicides and other shootings. In one of Trueblood's gun sales, a man who had recently been civilly committed was turned away from two gun stores before he connected with Trueblood, who sold him a weapon.

A new bill making its way through the Missouri Legislature would deem any business that allows drag performances “sexually explicit” — and would charge performers with felonies if they perform anywhere accessible by a minor. On Wednesday the Missouri House Special Committee on Public Policy will hold a public hearing for HB1650. The bill, introduced by Representative Mazzie Christensen (R-Bethany), would criminalize drag performances and penalize businesses who allow drag shows.

Federal officials are investigating whether residents of a small subdivision in the St. Louis suburbs are living on top of contamination dating back to World War II after finding radioactive material in their backyards. The Cades Cove subdivision, a small enclave in Florissant, was built on top of where Coldwater Creek once meandered. The creek, which runs through several St. Louis suburbs and into the Missouri River, was contaminated decades ago by waste left over from the development of the world’s first atomic bomb. 

Attorneys for the three men charged with a brutal kidnapping at the Mount of Olives Ministry church in south city say the case against their clients is a circumstance of mistaken identity and a “rush to judgment” by the police.  Grace Kipendo, Pasi Heri and Mmunga Fungamali were charged with felony kidnapping and assault two weekends ago after police were led to the church in the Patch neighborhood by a woman "crying out to passersby who were not members of the church," one of whom called police. The victim told police she was tied up, beaten, given only water and forced to use a bucket as a makeshift toilet.

St. Louis aldermen are moving forward with a plan to curb police surveillance of citizens — or at least make that surveillance more transparent. But the man who claims to be surveilling parts of the city for profit wants aldermen to know that he’s not a fan.  Joe “Jomo” Johnson, who describes himself as a “future resident of the third ward” but is known locally mostly as that drone guy who wants to use your comings and goings as a more expensive Netflix, spoke against police surveillance reforms at a Board of Aldermen committee meeting last Thursday. 

Jason Sparks is an Oklahoma man who almost singlehandedly created the distillate that led to Missouri regulators’ decision to pull more than 60,000 marijuana products off the shelves in August and revoke the license of Robertsville-based Delta Extraction. Now, he’s the star witness in a hearing scheduled to begin Monday morning, where Delta will try to convince the Administrative Hearing Commission to reverse its license revocation and allow it to sell its product in Missouri. In the days leading up to Monday’s much-anticipated hearing, the state and Delta Extractions filed hundreds of documents detailing the investigation into marijuana products the state has deemed illegal and the company is aggressively arguing against.

St. Louis film and commercial editor Lucas Harger is headed for Hollywood — well, Austin, Texas, for now.  Harger, a partner and supervising editor at Outpost which is part of the St. Louis-based film production company Bruton Stroube, has not one but two sports documentaries, Clemente and Lions of Mesopotamia, playing at the 2024 South by Southwest film festival, which runs from Friday, March 8 to Saturday, March 16. “I'm pumped!” he exclaims.

Perez Hilton, Emily Gould, Ray Hartmann, St. Louis Police Chief Robert Tracy — what do they have in common? They're all bloggers, of course. You would be forgiven if you didn't know Tracy, who was appointed chief in January 2023, is a blogger.

Last week, the Missouri House of Representatives passed a bill aimed at relaxing the requirements for those 70 and older to work as school bus drivers, because in a state where neither the cops nor the local citizenry are capable of driving, why not get some septuagenarians behind the wheel of the vehicles we use to transport our children? House Bill 1626, which aims to spice up our increasingly lawless Mad Max-style wasteland of insane drivers by making it easier for the elderly to pilot 20,000-pound vehicles filled with the souls of the innocent, was sponsored by Rep. Danny Busick (R-Newtown). Its goal, according to a press release, is to address the state's school bus driver shortage while simultaneously giving Missouri's senior citizens greater opportunities to spend their golden years carting around other people's snot-nosed kids.

For an art form sometimes perceived as stodgy, opera goes way out of its way to bring in new voices and sharp new talents. There's no better example of that than Opera Theatre of St. Louis' New Works Collective, which breaks boundaries with every opera it mounts. Year one of the New Works Collective explored Black queer youth and drag ball culture, "the true story of an Asian American dance band heading to the Supreme Court to fight for the right to call their band The Slants" and a student taking inspiration from groundbreaking Black female inventors — talk about a fascinating cornucopia of stories you did not expect to see in operatic form!

When discussing his business, Dan Saettele often starts with a story about its previous ownership: In 2013, woodworker and homebrewer Matt Walters was hired to build a bar for Dogtown’s newest brewery, Heavy Riff Brewing Company. The brewers were so impressed with Walters’ craftsmanship that they asked him if he could also build them a foeder. “Sure,” Walters is said to have replied.

Activists and community members packed the St. Louis Board of Aldermen’s Public Safety Committee meeting yesterday to call for stronger police surveillance transparency measures. They say the mayor’s executive order on the topic, which she announced last week, is flimsy and doesn’t offer true accountability.  The mayor hoped to use the existence of the executive order to force aldermen to act on red-light and speed cameras with urgency, but aldermen are resisting.

Whether she was conning Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve or setting Fred MacMurray up for murder and insurance fraud in Double Indemnity, Barbara Stanwyck was one tough dame. And to see the full expression of her talent, you've simply got to explore her oeuvre before the Motion Picture Production Code — also known as the Hays Code — put a stop to all the sinful stuff. St. Louis' favorite microcinema, Arkadin Cinema and Bar (5228 Gravois Avenue) is exploring the pre-Code films of the 1930s in a series called Forbidden Cinema, and on Monday night, Baby Face is on the bill.

A new bill introduced in the Missouri House would force teachers to register as sex offenders if they use the names and pronouns of transgender children or otherwise support them and their identity.  HB2885, filed on Thursday, February 29 by state Representative Jamie Gragg (R-Ozark), would make it a Class E felony  for teachers or school counselors to aid the “social transition” of a child — meaning that a teacher "provides support, regardless of whether the support is material, information, or other resources to a child regarding social transition." The bill defines "social transition" as:

Nearly 30 years after Billy Madison, an early Adam Sandler vehicle that bravely explored the complicated relationship between man and gargantuan penguin, the comedian-turned-actor once again finds himself facing a colossal creature that just won’t leave him alone. Sure, Spaceman swaps the man-child sent back to K-12 schooling for a lonely astronaut journeying into deep space, subs the enormous flightless bird for a gigantic alien spider and reduces the number of bits to near-zero, but the fact remains: Even accounting for his recent run of serious roles, the Sandman can still find ways to surprise us with a performance. It’s been six months since the Czech Republic’s first independent astronaut Jakub Prochazka (Sandler) was launched into the outer reaches of our solar system.

After two recent fried chicken joint closures — Chicken Out and Sunday Best — the arrival of a new place to get our fix is more welcome than ever. The fourth St. Louis-area location of Chuck’s Hot Chicken opened Tuesday, February 27, at 3155 South Kingshighway Boulevard in south city, in the former home of Courtesy Diner. What started as a single storefront in Maryland Heights specializing in Nashville hot chicken has experienced remarkable success — including being named a Sauce Best New Restaurant of 2021 — and is now franchising locations around the St. Louis area, and even one in Wichita, Kansas.

A well-respected Phoenix-based restaurant group is bringing one of its fast-growing concepts to Frontenac — its first Missouri location. Flower Child, which is currently under construction in the previous home of a St. Louis Bread Co. at 10336 Clayton Road, right next to Frontenac Mall, has the same fast-casual vibes. But the offerings are much more California fresh than Midwestern carb-loading.

February broke our hearts a little with the closure of the beloved Sunday Best in the Central West End and Chicken Out in Kirkwood, some tasty chicken staples that will be missed (though if you find yourself in need of a Sunday Best fix, you can still find them at Citypark). But, as a mangled version of the saying goes, when God closes two chicken joints, he opens a chicken joint. Thus we are excited for the opening of the new location of Chuck’s Hot Chicken (3155 South Kingshighway Boulevard), which specializes in Nashville-style spicy bird fare.