Great Food and Great Experiences are the goal of Albany’s newest eatery

Coach’s Sports Bar is the dream of long time sports fan Wayne McClung. While Albany has one or two places to ‘go and watch the game’ these are more along the lines of ‘big box’ places. Wayne saw a need for a dedicated sports bar where you can meet your friends or bring your family and hang out while having some top quality food and a beverage or two.

With a large investment in televisions and a enormous projection system, Coach’s is designed to ensure there isn’t a bad seat in the house. Ample seating that is designed to be moved around as needed allows accommodation of groups, both large and small. It will be a great place to go when you dont want to clean up your house after the big game party, or a place to meet a couple friends to take in a game or a race.

“The love of sports starts young and youth sports organizations are huge in South Georgia. They provide essential organized activities for young people and teach them important lessons that they will carry with them for the rest of their life”, says owner Wayne McClung. In a show of support for the local community, Coach’s plans to partner with local youth sports groups in many different ways to help them with their important missions. Sponsorship of teams, team nights with a portion of sales going back to the leagues, even ways to recognize young local athletes in the restaurant are all part of the goals Coach’s hopes to achieve.

Of course, a restaurant won’t stay in business for long it the food isn’t good. Wayne looked to consultants from Atlanta to help build his menu and insure he had the best quality he could offer at a price that would allow customers to enjoy their experience without breaking the bank. “One of our more popular items will be our burgers. Of course they are American Angus, but what sets us apart is how they are made. The beef is chopped, not ground which gives the burger a texture and flavor much more like steak.” You can’t have a sports bar without wings and Coach’s wont fall short in that area either. 10 different flavors PLUS “Coach’s Special Sauce” will make them a local favorite. Other items like a shrimp and crab cake salad will appeal to those who want something a bit lighter.

Come see them today for lunch! Located at 2610 Dawson Rd, Albany, GA 31707 – in the old Cask and Kilt location

South Georgia has always been ‘Sports Crazy’. Here is another place to enjoy your games

Owner Wayne McClung is knee deep in renovations as he turns the old Cask and Kilt location into something he feels the community needs. A locally owned, family friendly place to get together with friends and family and watch sporting events while someone else does the cooking and refreshes your drinks.

A custom made wooden bar with the establishments name ‘COACH’S’ deeply cut into the wood and filled with a darker color was being finished over the weekend when I sat down to talk with Wayne McClung. A rabid sports fan himself, Wayne has taken it upon himself to make a place that he would like to relax and unwind with friends.

While going over his menu offerings I was impressed with the range of options available to customers. Of course the standard fare will be available but Wayne is going that extra mile to make sure his food stands out and offers options that you just dont see in South Georgia. Wings, yes they have got them! Made with a very special recipe sure to get you excited, these will constantly be in demand. Burgers will stand out from the rest with high quality angus beef and special buns. Other items will include crab cakes, meat pockets and specialty salads, just to name a few.

Wayne told me he feels that a key to success in South Georgia is in giving back to those around you. With this in mind, Wayne hopes to partner with local youth sports organizations via fundraising and special ways to honor high performing athletes in our community.

Coach’s will be a place you can bring the entire family. Open 7 days a week from 11am until 11pm look for them to open the doors in the middle of April

Say it isn’t so! Bassist Dave Cortez to leave the band?

Dave Cortez announced on Facebook today this he will no longer be a member of Highway 55.

We are sad to see Dave go.  I had heard some rumblings about this a few months ago and was waiting to see how it all panned out.  Highway 55 has plans for a tour of the western reaches of the USA this summer.  Several dates are ‘on the books’ for shows at several of Toby Keith’s bars in Colarado and other venues as well.

With Dave having a career outside the band and bills to pay, I was concerned he might end up not being able to make this tour.

Paul Harrell is taking over as bassist.

Late yesterday afternoon, local Albany Station WALB changed their website commenting system to ‘facebook comments’

In what may have been a move to reduce the massive amount of racist and ‘Amos and Andy’ style comments that previously ran rampant on WALB news stories, WALB has moved to the popular Facebook comment system.

This comment system allows users to comment on articles by logging in directly with their Facebook account. Previously, users had to create a special account on WALB to post a comment, however that account was easily ‘anonymous’ in that it allowed use of any fake name the user may have desired. Many user names were patently racist and it appeared several users spent time daily posting inflammatory remarks without having to reveal their identity.

With the new system, a person could certainly take the time to create a ‘unique’ Facebook account using a false name however, these accounts are quickly ferreted out by Facebook employees. Administrators on the WALB webpage will now also have the ability to easily report spam comments directly to Facebook where the account will be flagged and reviewed.

I applaud WALB in this move. It is my hope that the Herald will also move to this system so that people can not hide behind their keyboards quite so easily.

Tired of having high hopes for the new man in your life, only to find out the results were less than you desired once you got him in bed? Dont make that mistake again! With the help of your cell phone, you can put those worries behind you

Now you can use a brand new Android app (sorry, not for Iphone yet) to predict just what that new guy might be packing before you get your hopes up.

Reportedly developed by a Toronto-based family physician, “The Predicktor” attempts to predict a man’s penis size, using stats such as his height, sexual orientation and finger length while cross-referencing trends from scientific studies, according to its website.

Though the site stresses that the app is strictly for humorous purposes, Dr. Chris Culligan says he also hopes the Predicktor to dispel myths and relieve the “penis-related insecurity, anxiety or dissatisfaction” men have about themselves.

“It’s not how long your pencil is, but how you write your name,” he says, quoting his father.

Though he says a man’s race “has never been shown to be related to penis size in any reasonable published study,” Culligan refers to studies that found that many gay men have longer, thicker genitalia than heterosexual men on average. “Gay pride just got a little prouder,” quipped Culligan.

Cant wait to get this on your phone or just want to learn more? Visit the Google Play store, or check out this website for more info.

Lee County Dixie Youth Baseball needs volunteer coaches for the season

With tryouts coming up this weekend, is seems LC DYB has come up a bit short on coaching for their PeeWee Division (ages 7/8)

Lee County always has a great youth sports program with teams making it to the state championship tournament each and every year. Unfortunatly, due to other commitments some of the regualr volunteers are not able to participate this year.

If you or someone you know is interested in helping 7 and 8 years young men as they learn teamwork and good sportsmanship, as well as improving their skill set please contact Tracy Block via email @ block12@att.net

Many small businesses accept Paypal or some other method to accept credit cards – Is it fair or even legal for them to directly charge these fees to the customer?

With wages down and the economy only just starting to recover from the doldrums of the recession, many people have found methods to supplement their income or even start new full time careers as small business owners. Todays financial systems make it easier than ever for these people to accept credit card payments, however it’s important for business owners to understand how their business structure may not only impact their client, but also their tax status.

In this rambling, I’m going to take a look at two different scenarios that I have first hand knowledge of.

Situation #1 – Enterprising person decided to start up a home based business in what amounts to todays ‘cottage industry’. Perhaps they decide to sell Avon. Perhaps it’s magic diet powder or some combinations of baubles and bows, or maybe they are selling a product that they manufacture. Regardless of product, many of them face the same challenge. How to get paid for the product they are selling. In the old financial model, these entrepreneurs would collect cash for their goods or a check. Often, they would wait for a check to arrive in the mail. When customers paid with a check, this would always involve a trip to the bank to deposit the check and often, a hold might be placed on the funds until the check had time to clear. Unfortunately, all of us, from time to time, would have a check bounce. Accepting checks was always costly to the merchant when you factor in the trips to the bank, the cash flow slump while waiting for funds to become available and the increased cost and aggravation when a customers check bounced. These factors are certainly “costs of doing business”.

Did we as business owners try to profit off those “costs of doing business”? Did we tell our customers, “Sorry, if you are paying by check, you will have to include $3.37 more, to cover my additional expenses (gas,time,delay of funds,bad check recovery expenses). NO. If we did, many of our potential customers would have been astounded and while they might have paid it once – they probably would silently make a vow that this would be the last transaction with your company.

Today, it is becoming more and more commonplace for businesses to tack on a ‘paypal charge’ – above and beyond the cost of goods. Paypal charges the business between %1.9 and %3.9 of the transaction total as a fee to the business. ATTN BUSINESS OWNERS : in many, if not most cases, this is LESS than your ‘true cost’ of accepting checks! For some time now, I’ve seen business owners publicly stating ‘if paying by paypal, please make sure to add 3.9% to cover the cost of my fees’. Recently, I purchased a $7.00 trinket and when the invoice arrived the merchant added a line item ‘paypal fee’ of AN ADDITIONAL $1.25! On a $7.00 item! That’s an 18% markup for accepting my Paypal payment!

Not only is this very bad customer relations, it’s directly in violation to Paypal’s Terms of Service agreement which states that merchants CAN NOT do so. This will cause a merchant to lose their ability to process credit cards.

Under Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express regulations and the laws of several states, including California, merchants may not charge a fee to the buyer for accepting credit card payments (often called a “surcharge”). You agree that you will not impose a surcharge or any other fee for accepting PayPal as payment. This restriction does not prevent you from imposing a handling fee in connection with the sale of goods or services, as long as the handling fee does not operate as a surcharge (in other words, the handling fee for transactions paid through PayPal may not be higher than the handling fee for transactions paid through other payment methods). Nor does this restriction apply to Pound-denominated transactions by sellers residing in the United Kingdom listing items for sale on a UK-based website.

This same merchant also neglected to charge me GA Sales Tax but when my item arrived, it was clearly shipped from a address in Georgia to my GA address. Certainly something the Tax Commissioner would love to know about.

In closing, when developing a pricing structure for your small business, set your prices high enough to cover your expenses. If you are pricing so low that you can’t afford to absorb a credit card useage fee, perhaps you need to take a look at your business plan again. You probably have not accounted for all the other small costs that are common in businesses.

Local Leader Says Reduced Punishment Is The Answer

Two High Schools in Dougherty County have drop out rates at 50% or above while another has a rate of 45%. Local Community Leaders are outraged and have formed a partnership to study the problem.

National Black Fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha is working with several organizations as well as various attorney’s to come up with solutions to this problem. Saturday, they held a seminar to discuss the issue of the high drop out rate in Dougherty Counties high schools.

According to FOX31, Attorney Ira Foster (Senior Attorney for Georgia Legal Services in Macon) states that 70% of black males who drop out of high school end up in jail or prison. He also believes that the high drop out rate is mostly brought on by strict punishments that are given out by the schools. Maintaining that suspensions should only be used as a last resort, Ira Foster seems to be advocating for more lenient disciplinary actions as a means to combat this problem.

As a frequent voice of dissent on the Dougherty County School System, I believe it’s worth looking beyond just Dougherty County on this matter. Fox31 calls the county drop out rate ‘surprisingly high’ but when we compared it to the rates across the State of Georgia, Dougherty County is ‘average’ at worst. That’s right, DCSS has no worse a record in black student graduation success than the statewide average.

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Really Georgia? States like Mississippi and Alabama are doing better than us? Neighbors, Tennessee and North Carolina have black drop out rates as low as 28%!

What’s going on here? Perhaps it’s a cultural perception? Are we, as Atty Ira Foster suggests, too quick to suspend students in high school or are we just forgetting these students somewhere along the way?

According to the 2004 Schott Report, Black Students actually perform ever so slightly higher, when compared to national averages, than their white counterparts. The report also notes that once high school begins, black students are suspended from school at a much higher rate than their white counterparts (87% of suspensions in the Atlanta area involved non Hispanic blacks). However, to put this in context, fully 90% of Atlanta area high school enrollment during the same sample period, were non Hispanic blacks, which would tend to indicate there is nothing skewed about these numbers of suspensions.

Dougherty County has been hit hard by the recession. Job loss has been astronomical. Unemployment rates are through the roof locally. The city and county are trying their best to entice existing business to relocate to the area in an attempt to prop up a horrible job market, however businesses are just not coming. A big part of the reluctance to relocate businesses here is the job force. Our citizens just dont have the skills needed compared to other locations around the region. Part of this can be blamed on the extremely low graduation rates in our schools.

We have to fix this problem with our school system. While Dougherty County does not seem to ‘stand out’ from statewide numbers, it is of particular importance here. Atlanta, while faced with the same miserable numbers as Albany is saved by the large number of skilled workers who move to the Atlanta area to take jobs there. Atlanta creates jobs because employers know they do not have to rely solely on the graduates from their local educations facilities. Dougherty County has no such luxury.

How do we fix it? I dont believe we do it by relaxing disciplinary policies as Mr Foster suggests. Rather, I believe we need a more community based approach. First, we have to remove the gang influence from our young people. This can only be accomplished via law enforcement. Secondly, I believe we need a strong community movement not just from black leaders but from white leaders as well to set up community and social outreach programs to get a vast majority of these at risk students involved in programs that keep them off the streets and involved in alternative activities that can mold a new generation of skilled workers and generational leaders who contribute to society instead of living off it. Thirdly, I believe that Albany must at some point, confront the skeleton in the closet and race relations in the area. The 1960s mentality on the part of BOTH whites AND blacks has to end. Our resistance to change and reluctance to seek common ground has left us in the position we are today. Finger pointing and the ‘makers and takers’ mentality isn’t going to change things. Whats next, a 20 foot high fence erected on the Lee/Dougherty county line?

Petitions, Letter Writing Campaigns, as as well as many other shows of support from the community is what it took

CHARLEY B’s liquor license has been renewed!

More to come……

I’m just about fed up with the debacle that is going on down at the City Council concerning Charlie B’s. The hearing was held and not one single piece of ‘evidence’ against this venue held water.

Here is one way we can help stop this! Sign this online petition. Once you sign it, it will automatically send an email to our Mayor as well as each member of the City Council. Let’s show them that people in this town do not want to lose a landmark establishment. This action will flood their mailboxes and show them what YOU, the VOTERS want. After your sign it, put your own testimony below in the comments section if you like. This will give the ‘powers that be’ even more to consider when they make their decision!

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