It's right there, can't you see it?

Christian Brielmaier, originally from Germany, moved to the U.S. in the early 90’s. His resume includes, naval engineer, professional pilot, as well an engineer for a major tire manufacturer. Not exactly the background you’d expect for the unsung hero for the rights of small business owners in Uvalde, Texas.

Christian is currently “at war” with the City of Uvalde to keep his smoke shop “The Luckiest Leprechaun” open.

Temporarily closed to restock

Brielmaier, ”I had originally planned to open March 1st, but then they [City Council] told me ‘we’re not going to let you open’, so I opened!” With a projected grand opening of March 1, 2010, the City Council pushed his hand and led to opening in early February. However, to soothe some of the cities qualms, he has opted not to advertise. Most notably in this effort, his complete, utter lack of signage! That’s right, “my customers sometimes can’t even find me! The only ones that can find me are the ones that are bitching.”

The controversy certainly didn’t scare off the clientele or keep them from seeking him out,”Just imagine someone giving away free beer somewhere. That’s what it was like.” Within 3 days, the stores inventory was completely depleted, the store has been closed since while he attempts to restock and meet demand. “…San Antonio, their prices were through the roof, we can still make money without ripping people off. People were like, ‘it’s so cheap, let me just buy everything!’” So they did, and they took his stock to ZERO. His customers, he points out, are the “…blue and white collar crowd. Homeless people aren’t coming here and picking up a pipe, they can’t afford it!” He also points out that his customer base are the locals, the citizens of Uvalde. While some travel from San Antonio for the “deals,” the majority of his customers live within the city limits.

The concept behind the shop was to bring a touch of culture to a city that, as of present, is severely lacking. A former resident of Asheville, North Carolina, Christian says, ”I lived there for a bit, that was a downtown with culture, with history. Where you have a mix of people. [Some] playing guitar on the street, not because they’re homeless, but because they enjoyed doing it! That is what I would like downtown here to be.”

Less than a block from the shop

The city’s response to bringing culture into downtown?

“The Mayor openly takes credit for parking police cars out here [in front of the store]. Everything they’ve done so far is harassment. They’ve called my landlord, they tried to call my work, it’s turning into quite a big thing[...]I haven’t really heard too much from him lately. Then again, we’ve been closed for 3 weeks.”

The city’s attempted scare tactics to deter business spurred a brilliant marketing scheme. “The Police Car Special”, come in when the car is parked out front and get 15% off your entire purchase!! ”On any given night, generally, both sides of the street are full with people that are in the shop. [...] nobody here seems to care about the cops because there is nothing illegal about it.”

God's House window display

So why is he downtown?

“..the rents cheaper.”

He in fact was close to signing a lease further out of the downtown area, but with the City Council meeting that spawned the controversy and subsequent media coverage, he HAD to open and it HAD to be downtown. “Now if I move it’s as if the City Council wins,[...] it doesn’t matter if its legal or not.”

“I have a lawyer that I keep, it’s not a tremendous amount of money. I have to make sure I have enough cash in the bank in case they want to try to do something  for real, other than their ordinance.” About that ordinance, you keep hearing about it. What does it state exactly? Well… I don’t know, but here’s this:

Under the new ordinance, future businesses would not be allowed to sell kits intended for or designed for use in cultivating or producing illegal substances or sell items used for handling, dealing or using illegal substances, among other things.*

This is part of the reason he opened as quickly as he did, when the store opened he was within the law, and perfectly legit. But that doesn’t mean Christian isn’t remaining prepared. “You pass an ordinance, I’ll put pipes in the window. You protest, I’ll start selling grow kits. We can either live in peace or we can fight about it.”

“kits intended for or designed for use in cultivating or producing illegal substances”

I visited the local plant nursery while I was in town to help my parents pick out some plants for their garden. I noticed they had an earth box on display. By that ordinance, they would have to shut down shop. Hell anyone planning to sell dirt, pots, and watering cans, is attempting to sell equipment for the intended purpose of cultivating marijuana under that ordinance.

As I said earlier in We don’t take kindly to your types ’round ‘ere! this is the craziest bunch of crazy I’ve heard in a crazy long time. Amidst all of the craziness, what does Christian want the people of Uvalde to know?

“I’d like to be here and left alone, that’s it.”

Don’t we all?

Tree City/Police State

*-Ordinance will limit business purposes

Posted: Wednesday, Feb 24, 2010 – 04:18:19 pm CST
by Margaret Palermo – Staff writer