What is sad is... Kris was right. They did find a way. One of the kids who was arrested that night had weed on him. They found it when they got back to the station.
The next day we got served charges for it. Kris protested.
"Why the hell am I responsible?" he asked.
"The kid was on your property. As a minor, you are responsible for him while he is here." the officer said.
"No way." I said. "There is a chance that this kid didn't even ever come in Kronos, which means he is not affiliated with us."
"That's right!" said Mae. "If he didn't have a wrist band, that means he never came in."
After a few days of refuting the charge, they ended up only fining Kris for "inadequate security" or something like that.
It was a $700 fine.
"We are going to have a find a different place." Kris said holding his head at his desk. "They will keep finding ways to get us until we do. And there is no way we can pay these fines AND keep the place running."
We all knew we had to throw a benefit show to raise money to pay the fine. It wasn't anything we hadn't done before, but this time we were scared. We were scared that something else would happen. We were worried that the cops would shut us down for good. We wondered what would happen if the cops came and found a kid IN the building that was breaking the law in ANY way. We were worried that now that we were under fire that there was nothing we could do but lay very very low.
We started planning a benefit show, and decided to break it up into parts. We'd have a band at 3pm, allow 35 entries for that, then another band at 5, allow 35 entries for that, and then the last one at 7, and again only allow 35 people in. If someone wanted to see all three bands, they'd have to pay 3 separate times. The bands were far enough apart that we could keep things relatively calm. And we decided that we'd sell 35 slots for each band, and that is it. No wait list, no chaos. We decided that this would be the last show for Kronos in the spot on Byers Street. We had already started looking for a different space. Kris was stressing out because there were not many places that fit our budget that also fit our need. But we kept hope.
The day of the show I showed up at Kronos at 1pm and started getting ready. The other Kronos kids trickled in, and helped. Kris was in an out all day, because he was looking at potential properties. The first band showed up at 2 for set up and sound check. During sound check an officer came up the stairs.
"What's going on here?" he asked.
"We are getting ready to have a benefit show." I said looking around for Kris.
"A show?" he said looking around.
"Yea?" I spotted Kris coming up the stairs with a defeated look on his face.
"Hello?" he said to the officer. "Is something wrong?"
The officer took a breath. "Yea Mr. Post. We told you that you can not have shows here anymore."
My mouth fell open. WHAT?
Kris raised his eye brows. "Uh, no you didn't."
The officer went on to explain that because of the level of complains, paired with the charge and the fines, has caused the city to place a ban on Kronos.
"It might be temporary, but it is meant to help you, Kronos, keep out of trouble."
"Yea THIS is meant to HELP us." Kris yelled. "I'm sure THIS will HELP us!"
The officer tried to say something else but Kris slammed the office door.
He left with out saying another word to us.
Kris cancelled the rest of the bands for that day.
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