Detroit's Lindell AC Sports Bar Relish Tray Brawl

Lindell Athletic Club Bumper Sticker

It looked to Jimmy and Johnny Butsicaris like 1980 was going to be the Lindell AC's year. The Alex Karras/Susan Clark co-produced a Made-For TV Movie Jimmy B. and Andre which debuted on March 9th to strong reviews. Much of the movie was shot inside the Lindell, and the bar got lots of free publicity.

Sixty-year-old Jimmy Butsicaris also had a popular Sunday night radio program on WXYZ-1270 AM which aired 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm called Sports Talk: Live from the Lindell AC. Jimmy interviewed coaches, managers, and local sports heroes from Detroit's professional sports teams and their opponents from a booth set off in a quiet corner of the bar. A special phone line was installed so Jimmy could take questions from area sports fans to ask his guests on-air.

Then on April 29, 1980, some out-of-town trouble walked into their neighborhood sports bar. Two off-duty Pontiac police officers left a Tigers vs. Texas Rangers afternoon game early at Tiger Stadium that they attended with sixteen fellow Pontiac policemen. The game wasn't going well for the Tigers, so two of the officers left early. They tucked a note under the windsheild wiper of the church bus they had taken from Pontiac, Michigan. The note said they were at the Lindell and come by to pick them up after the game. Incidently, the Tigers lost that game 10-5.

The pair had a few beers at the ballpark before they walked several blocks to the Lindell.The brawl started when the police officers became loud and rude to some of the Lindell customers. Fifty-nine-year-old Johnny Butsicaris told them to tone it down. Then the pair began eating from a relish tray at a nearby table without ordering food. Johnny told them the relish tray was for people who bought hamburgers. The two men became obnoxious and threatened Johnny.

Johnny Butsicaris

 

Jimmy Butsicaris told the Detroit Free Press two days after the brawl, "Johnny took their beers and told them to leave. Then one of them grabbed a nearby beer bottle by the neck motioning like he was going to hit my brother with it. His partner wanted to get in on the action too, so I grabbed him and threw him up against a pole. That's when my bar's security stepped in and started pushing them out the front door.

"Then their friends arrived. Ten or twelve of them. They saw what was happening and jumped in. They knocked my brother John down and punched and kicked him until they broke his ribs. My tailbone is still bruised and my spine hurts. My foster son Andre Reynolds got hit hard on the head with a steel beer keg tapper, and my son-in-law David Jackson was hit in the eye with it too. When Andre went outside to write down the license plate number of the bus that the group had taken to the ballpark, one of the original trouble-makers pulled a concealed weapon and waved him off." 

Detroit police investigators discovered the rowdy bar patrons were off-duty Pontiac police officers. They questioned several Pontiac officers involved in the incident who claimed they were attacked rather than the other way around. When Jimmy heard from a reporter that the assailants were police officers, he was outraged.

Jimmy Butsicaris

"Thirty-one years I've been in the business, I never had anything happen like this and then to find out it was coppers. Cops are supposed to stop fights, not start them. I'm gonna do something. I want some satisfaction. They just can't come in here from the suburbs and jack up my bar. I'll never allow bus loads of people into the bar again. They're always zonked and make trouble. We don't run that kind of bar."

Beyond the bar fight, his brother Johnny was bothered by how the press portrayed their bar as a dangerous place to go. "Me and my brother worked hard to make the Lindell a neighborhood sports bar where Detroit fans might meet their professional sports heroes."

On May 2nd, officers Donald Weyer (34) and Raymond Felice (32) were suspended with pay pending an internal investigation. At the end of the month, the Pontiac Police Department released the findings of their investigation concluding that the incident was caused by "unauthorized consumption of peppers and pickles from a relish tray which caused unjustified and excessive harshness on the part of Lindell AC employees."

The investigation concluded that Officers Weyer and Felice "were not drunk anytime during the (two-minute) incident nor did they conduct themselves in a disorderly or unlawful manner." No mention was made of the gun Officer Weyer pulled on Andre Reynolds.

Jimmy was incensed. "The reputation of our establishment is hurt after this white-washed investigation. My brother and I promote the Lindell as a place where people can bring their families. We don't want the reputation of being a skid row saloon where a brawl can break out at any time."

Although Jimmy Butsicaris said there was no real damage to the bar, the brawl sent four people to Henry Ford Hospital. The Butsicaris brothers brought a $50,000 lawsuit against the Pontiac police officers and the City of Pontiac on June 5th. The suit asked that police pay for injuries he and his family sustained, their court costs, and their attorneys' fees. Any money beyond that would be donated to a church charity.

Sixteen days later, the two Pontiac police officers countersued the brothers for one million dollars apiece for assault and slander. Both lawsuits were settled out of court, but Jimmy was the victim of further collateral damage.

In July, Jimmy's radio program contract ran out. Operations manager Michael Packer at WXYZ-AM cancelled Jimmy's popular Sunday evening Sports Talk: Live at the Lindell AC after nine successful months on the air. The bad publicity from the brawl was more than the station bargained for, but Jimmy wasn't too broken up about it. Preparation for the Sunday night show took up a good part of his week, and he wasn't making enough money to make it worth his while.

Jimmy B. and Andre made in Detroit