NEWS
By Justin Fenton | August 13, 2009
A 54-year-old businessman, found bound by zip ties inside his Canton vending machine business last month, has died after being taken off life support, and police said Wednesday that homicide detectives are investigating. Constantine "Dino" Frank of Baldwin, who also owned pool halls and shopping centers in Baltimore County, was discovered July 29 in the vestibule of Precision Vending, in the 1000 block of S. Lakewood Ave., face-down and bound. He had managed to get one hand free, but suffered a stroke during the ordeal, according to police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
NEWS
By Larry Carson | November 4, 2007
An Ellicott City pool hall's owners were fined $1,000 for allowing drinking after the legal closing time, and a Jessup tavern owner got a $400 penalty for allowing an underage patron to drink. Sue Yim, Hyon Lee and Haeng An, the licensees of the Centennial Que and Karaoke Club in the 10000 block of Baltimore National Pike, received the larger fine from the county's Alcoholic Beverage Hearing Board for an incident March 17 in which five county police cars and liquor inspector Detective Martin Johnson responded to a fight on the parking lot just before closing time.
NEWS
By Sandy Alexander | June 10, 2007
Peter A. Palaigos, former owner of the popular Pete's Place pool hall in Annapolis, died Monday of Parkinson's disease at his Annapolis home. He was 84. Mr. Palaigos' establishment started out as Brunswick Billiards but became widely known as Pete's Place during the 40 years he ran it at 163 Main St. In a 2000 article in The Sun, former patrons recalled a diverse clientele of local teenagers, lawyers and midshipmen who enjoyed games of pool and kosher...
NEWS
May 27, 2007
Man fatally shot in West Baltimore An unidentified man was fatally shot in the 1600 block of Vincent Court in West Baltimore yesterday morning. Police responded to a call about a shooting about 2:30 a.m. Officers arrived to find a victim suffering from multiple gun shot wounds. The victim was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead at 2:52 a.m. Police said yesterday that they had no suspects or motives. Madison Park Fire damages Dundalk pool hall A two-alarm fire seriously damaged a popular pool hall in Dundalk about 9:30 p.m. yesterday.
NEWS
By Seth Rosen | August 21, 2004
Former Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dickey Betts, clad in a straw cowboy hat with a sweat-drenched red bandanna around his neck, commands center stage at the Recher Theatre, frenetically soloing as his band rolls though his timeless "Jessica." Tie-dyed teenagers and older fans in polo shirts sway as a unit to the dips and peaks of Betts' effervescent guitar work, which fills the converted movie theater's expansive concert hall. Betts, who with his band Great Southern played the Recher last weekend - followed a night later by Nils Lofgren of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band - is among a roster of music legends and rising stars who have performed there in recent years.
NEWS
BY A SUN STAFF WRITER | August 18, 2004
A group playing cards at a Pasadena pool hall were robbed early Monday when masked gunmen crashed the game and took their cash, Anne Arundel County police said. About 3:45 a.m., four men brandishing a machine gun and several pistols walked into Star Billiards and began barking orders at the group and a few others playing pool, said police spokesman Lt. Joseph E. Jordan. After cash, cell phones, jewelry and other personal property were taken, the victims were moved into the rear of the hall, where they were told to lie on the floor or to get into a closet, Jordan said.
NEWS
By Henry Magram | May 21, 2003
THE AIR is smoky. Twenty or 30 folks, mostly middle-aged men in jeans or sweat pants, stand casually around the tables between the occasional family and, always, the several elderly regulars who spend most of their waking hours here. Teens sometimes show up to play, but generally the pool hall feels like Adults Only. Pool is a game for thinkers. The pool ball, depending more or less on the age and condition of the walls of the table (and the presence or absence of spin), will bank in a line that is symmetric to a line perpendicular to the wall.
NEWS
By Glenn McNatt | January 28, 2003
Michael Lang grew up in the 1950s fascinated by the cool guys with slicked-back hair and cigarettes dangling from their lips who hung out at Benny Kitt's pool hall in West Baltimore. Lang wasn't one of them, but as a teen-ager he found a way into their world through his camera - an old Leica with a fast lens that allowed him to take moody, atmospheric, film noir-like photographs of the characters he encountered in Benny's dark, smoky interior. The photographs went into a box and stayed there until 1995, when Lang, by then a research scientist at the National Institutes of Health, looked at them again and realized he had unwittingly captured a pungent and historically important slice of Baltimore's storied past.
NEWS
By Amy Oakes | April 16, 2000
For almost 50 years, Pete's Place on Main Street in Annapolis was the place to go to meet friends, shoot some pool, have a beer. The clientele ranged from local teen-agers to lawyers to midshipmen. "Admiral" David Robinson, a Naval Academy graduate turned pro basketball player, and Napoleon McCallum, a midshipman who went on to a career in the National Football League, are said to have shot a few games at Pete's during their days in Annapolis. The billiard hall-turned-restaurant shut down almost six years ago and another tavern took over, but people haven't forgotten Pete's Place.
NEWS
By Amy Oakes | August 23, 1999
A Randallstown businessman's proposed restaurant, arcade and pool hall on an East Baltimore block known for drug traffic will only foster more illegal activity in the area, say concerned merchants and an elected official who oppose the plan.The city's Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals has approved plans to build a two-story restaurant, arcade and office in the 2400 block of E. Monument St., and is considering allowing a pool hall there. But opposition to the project has forced landowner Noel S. Liverpool to postpone applying for permits to build, and he is considering selling the site.