RFT 📰

One detainee bit another this morning at St. Louis’ troubled City Justice Center, an incident severe enough that one inmate is facing assault charges while the other had to be taken to the hospital. The St. Louis Fire Department has confirmed they were called to the jail around 5:30 a.m. and that they took one detainee to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Midtown’s new Hidden Gem (3118 Locust Street; instagram.com/hiddengemstl) is the perfect dive bar to live out your pink, disco fantasies. Lucky for you, it opens to the public at 6 p.m. today.

Thursday 12/21 Let's Get Crackin' In one of St. Louis' most enduring traditions, the St. Louis Ballet is mounting a full roster of performances of Tchaikovsky's 1892 two-act ballet The Nutcracker through December 23, with numerous options to accommodate the younger ballet lover in your life (think: 2 p.m. matinees, 7 p.m. evening performances).

Not for the first time, the City of St. Louis' handling of public records requests has made it the target of a lawsuit, this time from a resident who wanted to know what city officials were saying about attempts to regulate short-term rentals. The resident’s lawyer, Dave Roland, says the suit seeks to prove that how the city handles requests for emails is unlawful.

St. Louis Police have busted a thief who burglarized several apartments in the Coronado Place & Towers — including at least once when the victim was inside their apartment. Christian Blake Schultz, 33, is accused of entering apartments with stolen key cards and taking residents’ possessions.

Mellow (7223 Manchester Road, Maplewood; mellowdiscgolf.com), a new disc golf shop in Maplewood, opened its doors to the public Tuesday morning after a month of renovations. Whether you're a beginner, professional or simply looking for a family-friendly activity, Mellow aims to encourage everyone to stay active and introduce them to a sport they may potentially fall in love with, co-owner Roger Martin explains. 

Country crooner Brett Eldredge returns this week to the Fabulous Fox for Glow, a Christmas show that has become an annual tradition. Eldredge, who has landed a series of Top 10 albums and singles on country radio since 2013, has carved out a unique place for himself within contemporary country music.

Long before Hollywood attempted to subvert the treacle of classic Christmas movies with machine guns and bad Santas, Billy Wilder explored the lonely underbelly of the season in what's now regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, 1960's The Apartment. Yes, it's a romantic comedy, but one with a properly dark view of human behavior and corporate America — you'll laugh, but you'll also cry, just like real life.

The Carondelet bar owner arrested and charged with assault after a St. Louis Police SUV smashed through the front of his business has now been released from jail — sporting a black eye and what his attorney says are bruises “all across” his body. Police originally filed felony assault charges against Chad Morris, but prosecutors with the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office have reduced those to misdemeanor assault.

The Riverfront Times has obtained video of a St. Louis Police SUV swerving on South Broadway and into Bar:PM. The video, taken around 12:30 a.m. Monday by a security camera on the opposite side of the street as the bar, shows the cruiser appearing to travel at a high rate of speed.

Two men have been charged after a group of brave St. Louisans foiled their attempt to rob the Starbucks on South Grand. Police allege Joshua Noe, a 37-year-old from Potosi, and Marquise Porter-Doyle, 35, of south St. Louis, entered the Starbucks at 212 South Grand around 2:54 p.m. on this past Sunday, December 17. Armed with what appeared to be handguns, they told the seven employees and one customer inside to get on the ground and give them their valuables.

The St. Patrick Center has opened a new cafe at the Central Library in St. Louis’ Downtown West neighborhood. Sacred Grounds Café (1301 Olive Street) is located on the first floor of the St. Louis Public Library branch, in the space that used to be Urban Eats’ Cafe Central.

It may be one of the darkest weeks of the year, but the Gateway Arch is about to shine more brightly than ever. That's thanks to a newly updated lighting system that the Gateway Foundation promises is not only more efficient, but also better illuminates the 630-foot stainless steel monument. And because the new system reduces the light being beamed into the night sky, it's better for the migratory birds who frequently pass through St. Louis skies (and even trigger semi-regular Arch blackouts).

A Carondelet bar owner is currently locked up in the City Justice Center downtown, accused of felony assault, a charge that has outraged many due to the fact that he picked it up after a St. Louis Police SUV crashed into the front of his business.  "This is embarrassing for the police department," says Javad Khazaeli, the attorney for Bar:PM co-owner Chad Morris.

A south St. Louis bar owner is now facing charges stemming from an incident that began when police crashed an SUV through the front wall of his business. The incident happened in the city’s Carondelet neighborhood around 12:30 a.m. today, when a police SUV traveling northbound on South Broadway swerved across multiple lanes of traffic and into Bar:PM just as the LGBTQ bar was closing up. 

MONDAY, DECEMBER 11. The Post-Dispatch reports that the once high-flying St. Louis developer Green Street is in trouble — it owes $800K in unpaid taxes and is getting hit with lawsuits from numerous contractors.

Unregulated cannabis products would no longer be found in gas stations or convenience store shelves if two Missouri legislators get their way next session.  State Representative Chad Perkins (R-Bowling Green) and Senator Nick Schroer (R-St. Charles County) have both filed bills that would bar products containing hemp-derived THC products, or any “intoxicating cannabinoids,” from being sold anywhere other than licensed marijuana dispensaries. 

Last night around 12:30 a.m. a St. Louis police cruiser smashed into the front window of an LGBTQ bar in Carondelet. But it was Bar:PM’s co-owner who wound up getting arrested and is currently being held in central booking.

Missouri’s crackdown on a cannabis company accused of illegally importing THC concentrate could lead to a showdown over the state’s authority to regulate the industry. Delta Extraction had its license to manufacture cannabis products revoked in November, months after a massive recall pulled more than 60,000 products off the shelves — which the state says were illegally made with a hemp-derived THC concentrate imported from out of state.

Former reality TV star, Clayton High grad and convicted fraudster Brittish Williams is headed to West Virginia to serve her four-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to 15 counts of various types of fraud earlier this year. Williams had requested to serve the time at a facility near St. Louis, where her family resides.