Bad checks plague Lawrence merchants
By MARY JO HOWARD
Staff Reporter
KU students are public enemy number one. At least that's the impression most area businessmen give when asked about those "returned because of insufficient funds" pieces on paper.
Many Lawrence merchants said this week they were fed up with students' casual attitudes about bouncing checks and with the hassles involved in tracking down the hot items. Some businessmen are showing their ice by strengthening check-cashing operations in some cases, by refusing to acceptchecks atall.
"We weed to take checks, but we got way too many bad ones," said Doug Lucas, manager of The Sub Shop. 530 W. 23rd St. "So we just said, 'the hell with it.'"
Other businesses have taken a milder approach to the problem by tightening their check-cashing
KROGER'S SUPER Store. 23rd Street and
Naismith Drive, requires anyone wish to cash a check to have on a Kroger checking-cash card. To get a person must fill out a form stating his name, contact information, address, telephone number and physical description.
Wynne Dillon, co-manager of the store, said Kroger's had dropped its check casing limit from $50 to $10 in the past few years because of a high percentage of returned checks.
Because of bad checks, Falley's Discount Foods,
2525 Iowa St., has dropped its cash cashing limit
from $20 to $5, said Jack Leatherman, store
manager.
Despite lowering their limits and trying to enforce more stringent policies, some stores are still plagued with bad checks that can take months to track down and collect.
Jim Meyers, manager of Rusty's Hillcrest, 101a Iowa, said he had a drawer full of bad checks and the process of recovering money for a bad check was long and complicated.
MEYERS SAID HIS first step after receiving a check from the bank marked "insufficient funds" was to sent a letter to the check writer asking that the account be closed and the writer also pay a $5 returned-check fee.
If the check writer does not pay within two weeks, he said, another letter is sent asking the writer to pay within seven days. On the back of the second letter is a statement that states the penalties for writing bad checks
Rusty's calls the check writer's bank in the meantime. Meyer said, to see whether the check will work, you need to call Rusty's three approaches fail, the store follows one of two options: it notifies a collection agency or sends a memo.
A COLLECTION AGENCY is notified if the amount of the check is less than 810. Mewsers and a certified accountant must have done this.
delivery. This assures the store that the letter was received.
A certified letter carrier is required by law to try to deliver the letter four times, waiting one week before delivery.
Upon receipt of a certified letter, the check writer must sign a piece of paper acknowledging the
Dennis Barritt, president of the Credit Bureau of Lawrence, said that whatever a check was turned over to the bureau to collect, they sent a letter to the check writer or called him.
IF THE WRITER does not pay, the check is placed in a credit file with the writer's name on it, be said. If someone calls to check on the writer's credit rating, the caller is informed of the writer's bad checks.
"We count on this leverage to get people to pay their debts," Barritt said.
If the certified letter and collection agency does not succeed in prompting payment, Meyers said, the check is sent to the Douglas County District Attorney's Office.
Judy Crossfield, check investigator for the district attorney's office, said her office sent a courtesy letter
asking for payment in seven days if the check writer was a first offender.
CROSSFIELD SAID that writing a bad check for less than $50 was considered a misdemeanor, and writing one for more than $50 was considered a felony.
If no payment is received within seven days after the courtesy letter is sent, the check is sent to district court. The court sends a summons to a person who has written a bad check for less than $50 and a warrant is issued for the arrest of a person who has written one for more than $50.
Jean Shepherd, assistant district attorney, said the penalties for writing a bad check for less than $100 were up to one year in jail and a $2,500 fine. The penalty for writing more than $100 was one to five years in jail and a $5,000 fine.
A BAD CHECK WRITE in Lawrence can expect businesses to try to track. Firm down because most employees don't.
THE SUMMER SESSION
KANSAN
Thursday, June 14, 1979
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
Vol. 89. No. 151
Lunar watch
Pat Briggs, Sacremento, Calif., graduate student, looks through the University's 27-
infra refractor telescope. The telescope, built in 1927, is the largest in the state. (Moon photo courtesy of the KU Observatory).
KU Observatory opens its telescopes to amateurs
By VALERIE HOWARD
Staff Reporter
June is a month to leave a person starry-eyed, KU astronomers say. And July and August are also hot months.
On a clear June night Jupiter and Saturn are clearly visible and a bright spot in the constellation Hercules turns into thousands of tiny stars when seen through its dense stop Luna Hall, according to Donald Bord, professor of astronomy.
Besides these permanent objects in the night sky, KU astronomers said they are curious about the moon.
The orbiting lab is visible in the Lawrence sky around 5 p.m. on the north side of the North Star, opposite the Big Dipper, he said.
Skylab is the world's first space station. Its orbital is steadily decaying.
According to Alex Horvatz, director of the Kansas City Museum of History and Science Planetarium, there is a 50 percent chance that Skylab will fall to earth about
Skylab will highlight the summer's skywatching, John Davidson, professor of astronomy.
THE LAB, which is now 170 to 180 miles from earth, looks like a bright light because the sun reflects off it, Davidson said.
"We really can't predict when and where it will fall because there are so many factors that can affect it."
The Lawrence park and recreation department will sponsor a trip to the KU Museum.
and the condition of the lab itself that are not known," he said.
PERSONS INTERESTED in the trip should meet at 10:30 p.m. at the Community Center on Thursday, Jan. 26, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Or, for those who don't want to wait, the Observatory is open to the public every day.
Clubs pleased to see liquor pools dry up
By PAUL WORTH Staff Reporter
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is the first in a series of stories on liquor by the author.
On July 1, liqueur pools in Lawrence will dry up. Private club members will be able to push through the swinging doors and amble up to the bar to order their Gimelts or Harvey Wallbangers without hassling with a liquor pool card.
Supporters of firmament, merriment and mirth were victorious in their latest liquor-battle in the Kansas Legislature. As a result of legislation passed in February, liquor by the drink in private clubs will be for the first time in Kansas history.
Liquor pool cards, which allow club members to draw from the "pool" owned in common by all members, have long been a source of frustration for bartenders, club owners and members, according to several private club managers in Lawrence.
"CUSTOMERS HAVE had to hassle with liquor pool cards being lost, stolen and misfiled. Employees who can't print properly, spell correctly they've caused a breach for members." Ace Johnson, owner of the Sanctuary, 140 W. Seventh St., said yesterday.
"The problems are inherent to the liquor pool system, which really slows down the process of getting liquor. All that will be over soon," he said.
Steve Lyle, co-owner of G.P. Lloyd's,
Seventh and Massachusetts streets, said
it was a great experience for him.
time preparing drinks and that waitresses could provide better service to customers.
"The bartender's job will be 100 percent easier," Iyla said. "With the new law, club owners will have the best of both worlds. Being a club, we can effectively limit what they have to serve anyone that walks in, yet we'll be able to treat our members right."
BECAUSE PRIVATE clubs don't own the liquor they serve under the liquid pool system, the Alcohol Beverage Control of Kansas requires clubs to make a "casual purchase" of all the liquor owned by its members.
So, at the end of June, club members who haven't used their liquor pool cards will either get a cash refund or credit toward the purchase of drinks.
Instead of paying for the "set-up," or mixer, and having credits deducted from their liquor pool cards, club members soon learn that the price will be higher at most clubs than the combined price of a set-up and liquor was with the liquor-pool system because of a large fee.
THE PROVISION allows for a 10 percent tax to be assessed on all lounge sold in private clubs, according to Bill Strukel, chief enforcement officer for the Kansas ABC bureau. Receipts from the tax will be placed in the city where the club is located.
Curtis Reinhardt, president of Opera House Investments, and that prices at the opera house in New York.
See LIQUOR page five
Branch banks issue splits large and small bankers
Cushing was at the University of Kansas to participate in the Bank Management Clinic being held this week at the Kansas Union.
Kansas bankers are divided over an issue that would allow banks to open branches in different cities, according to Ned Cushing, chairman of the state affairs and legislative committee for the Kansas Bankers Association.
He said yesterday that a proposed law that would allow branch offices to issue loans might lead eventually to a trend in bank lending, where established branches in outlying small towns.
The current law states that a bank can have three facilities in addition to its main branch. The bank must also be within 2,000 feet of the main bank. The law also states that these branch banks will provide only limited services, such as banking and non-arbitrary facilities. They may not issue loans.
CUSHING SAID some bankers want to change the law to allow them to turn their branch banks into full-service banks. Some small town bankers, he said, think this move would lead to a new law allowing banks to have more than three branches.
Bill Beinlark, vice president of the First National Bank in Lawrence, said his bank has not taken a position on branch banking in towns other than Lawrence, but was interested in providing his branch bank customers with loan facilities.
Vic Johnson, vice president of the University State Bank, said his bank had already expressed an interest in branch banking.
On the other side of the issue, Arthur Gabriel, chairman of the board for the DeSeo State Bank, said he did not favor taking from banks in larger cities to smaller towns.
"THE LARGER BANKS would drain the funds from the community and return them to the community."
He also said the larger bank usually got a better interest rate on revenue than the smaller bank. The money was returned to the larger city.
State Rep. Mike Glover, D-Lawrence, a member of the Committee for Commercial and Financial institutions, said that branch issues in banking leaseniation
He said the issue had been brought up year after year but had not been enacted into law because a great deal of time was spent on lobbying against it.
However, the lobbying issue may change next year. Gary Reser, director of public relations for the Kanaa Bankers Association, the association had decided to support the law.
The decision to support the law came after Cushing's committee recommended earlier this year to the governing council of the Kansas Bankers Association that the decision reflect the views of the Association's members, Reiser said.
Local family is caught in border dispute
By JIM BLOOM Staff Reporter
The Hodges, who live 15 miles southwest of Lawrence, in Douglas County, are planning to petition the Kansas State Board of Education later this summer to change a school district boundary so their children can attend Lawrence schools.
Willard and Kay Hodge are fighting for what they think would be a better education for children.
"As property owners and taxpayers, we should have some right to decide where our children go to school," Mrs. Hodge said yesterday.
The Hodges' children, Lisa 16, and Doug, 9 have attended school in the Sea Fe Trail Unified School District No. 434. This year, Doug has joined the school and Doug went to Overton Grade School.
THE HODGES live on a 20-acre farm on the boundary of both the Lawrence Unified School District No. 497 and the Santa Fe Trail Unified School District. The Hodges want tills boundary changed to make their land part of the Lawrence district so their children can attend Lawrence学校. Lisa, a senior, would attend Lawrence High School. Sharon Stucco, a dough grader, would attend Wakauras Valley School RFDS.
The Santa Fe Trail includes three
Osage County communities—Overbrook.
Carbondale and Scranton—and the southwest corner of Douglas County.
"There are several reasons we want our kids to go to the Lawrence schools," Willard said. "We teach them at the Lawrence schools until two years ago, when we moved out here. Our daughter was in a learning disabilities program there and our work had improved because of the program."
"The Santa Fe Trail schools didn't have a learning disabilities program at the high
WILLARD HODGE said that before school opened in the fall of 1977, the Santa Fe Trail district started a learning disabilities program at the high school.
"We decided to give the program a try even though it was new," he said.
But by the end of that school year, Willard Hodge said, the new program had not worked for his daughter. On May 9, 1978, she attended a private school before the Santa Fe Trail district Board of Education requesting a change in the boundary. The letter would have been the first step in altering the district so that the school would be included in the Lawrence school district.
The Santa Fe Trail Board denied the
request. The Hodge children continued to attend the Santa Fe Trail schools and Willard Hodge said his daughter's grades began to suffer.
"AT THE BEGINNING of the year, the school did some testing," the father said. "She tested pretty well, but on the same day we had the classmates. But she was still needing help in two areas. They decided to move her out of the disabilities program and into regular school."
She was not ready for the change, Willard said, and her grades and interest in school were declining.
Willard Hodge said that earlier this spring he and his wife sent a letter to the Santa Fe Trail district. In that letter, the Hodges told the district that the boundary change request would be resubmitted, this time to the Lawrence district.
"We're not trying to take land away from another school district and put it on our tax rolls." Taylor said. "We just wanted to try to get it back in the queue to request to transfer their land into our district."
"NORMALLY, THE state will not approve this type of request, since one district has approved the transfer and the other has denied it," said Clarence Hickman,
THAT REQUEST WAS approved by a four-to-two vote Monday night, according to Bob Taylor, assistant superintendent of the Lawrence school district.
Now that the Hodges have approval from one of the school districts involved in the land transfer, a petition can be sent to the Kansas State Board of Education requesting a change in the boundary. Taylor said the state requires at least one of the school districts before the state would consider a case.
superintendent of the Santa Fe Trail school district.
Yesterday Hickman will not offer any reason for last spring's denial of the Hodges
However, Hickman said, the Santa Fe Trail district had approved similar boundary requests in the past. The only request he made was to ensure that he remember obtaining state approval was a "trade"—transferring one piece of property from another piece out of the Santa Fe Trail district.
Willard Hodge said if their petition to the state failed, there were other steps the family could take to enroll the children in the Lawrence schools.
"We can pay tuition for our daughter to go to the Lawrence schools, which would be $1200," he said. "Or we can sell this farm or buy it out, but we might lose a lot of money doing that."