08/26/2026
Time to update everybody placing bets on FanDuel!! Yesterday Jason had a 25 minute phone call with the Assistant City Attorney Gideon Wertheimer. Jason has been having a lot of phone calls with people in the City Attorney's office the past couple of years, he and Gideon are old friends by this point. Gideon’s job in these matters is to get people into compliance for various infractions. He’s typically been fair, as have others in the City Attorney’s office. But oh boy did Jason p**s him off this time!
But before we get into all of that, we just want to take a moment to highlight all the people commenting on all of these railing posts. Something we noticed is the people leaving comments against the stance Jason is taking, the overwhelming majority when you click on their profile are sharing trendy posts against flok cameras, and if you scroll down farther, trendy posts about No Kings. That is the type of irony we enjoy seeing. Anyway, as we have been transparent about for years, the Cavalier page is monetized, and we’ve been rage baiting since before rage baiting was a term on Urban Dictionary. It’s been the most successful way for us to increase page interactions. So our most sincere thanks for those of you who have not been able to help yourselves and take the bait with your clicks and comments, which is buying Jason his groceries for the week. He’s eating well. Keep up the good work playa haters!
Now back to the gambling matters on FanDuel. Last November the city building inspector issued Jason a citation for not having a railing on the roof of his carport. This got kicked over to Gideon to handle, who offered Jason a deal to dismiss the citation if he started making progress on the railing within a couple months. Translation, get a building permit so the city can take his money. Anyway, Jason complied, got a building permit, which is good for 24 months. So Jason assumed he had 24 months to complete the railing. Dude’s busy and this railing really wasn’t at the top of his priority list. Anyway, he’d started building the damn thing when he had some free time, but apparently not fast enough for our intrepid bureaucrats in City Hall who again contacted Jason to ask why the railing wasn’t completed yet. Sorry bro, the 60-80 hour weeks he works running a business and bartending haven’t really left him much time to work on it.
The city said get it done by a date a couple months in the future or the citation will be reopened. So Jason roped in a couple of upstanding members of the community who offered to help so he could get the railing he built mounted. Upon completion, Jason took a pic of the railing and emailed it to Gideon saying he was done. Fast forward a few weeks and the city building inspector emailed Jason saying he needs to come inspect the railing and sign off on it. Jason said sure thing. That email exchange was posted last week.
Where things went sideways was when the inspector said he needed access to the inside of the building to inspect the railing which is 100% fully outside. Jason evoked his constitutional rights to deny the request, which was met with a threat of getting a citation if the inspector was not allowed inside. Which gets us caught up to yesterday’s phone call.
Jason again stated his constitutional right multiple times, which Gideon responded every time that yes Jason has that right. But Gideon was definitely annoyed by this. Gideon said the inspector can get an administrative warrant to enter the property, which Jason acknowledged that yes they could and asked why don’t they just do that? Gideon responded that “getting a warrant is a pain in the ass.” They would need to prove probable cause and a judge would have to grant it. It’s over our pay grade to determine if a warrant would be issued to access a flight of stairs inside, which is outside of the scope of the building project which is 100% fully outside. Regardless, it seems pretty extreme and petty, just like everything else in this standoff.
Jason kept asking why the inspector can’t just use a ladder outside. Jason also suggested they use one of those city trucks with the cherry picker bucket that crews use to hang the holiday decorations on the light post downtown. Gideon responded he didn’t think that is a reasonable request. So Jason asked him what do the inspectors do when they have to inspect roofs of buildings and other outdoor things that are above ground level where there is no access. Gideon responded that they do not inspect roofs, which is pretty hard to believe. If any of you have had an inspector use a ladder to get up on a roof for a building inspection, we’d love to hear from you. Mostly just because Gideon said "prove to me that inspectors go on roofs.” But that aside, pictured below is Mike who builds things for a living at Badger Corrugated from a couple months ago, who helped with the railing project. He stopped by after work on a Friday and wanted to start setting up a work space. Since the bar was open and Jason was bartending, Mike didn’t want to be going in and out creating a disturbance. So around 30 times he climbed up and down the ladder behind him in the pic. This is a guy in his mid 60s with health conditions climbing a ladder to access that carport rooftop that our building inspectors claim they can’t and isn’t accessible. Them boys are clearly soft.
Jason asked Gideon “This current city government isn’t very popular in the community these days, is this really the reputation you want the city to have for how it treats its local businesses?” Gideon replied rather hastily “Yes! Yes it is the reputation I want if local businesses won’t be in compliance!” So take note folks, another of our entrenched unelected bureaucrats with unfettered power believes tax paying citizens are here to be told what to do by them. Gideon then said “If you don’t like it, then petition to change the city ordinance.” Did he mean the city ordinance that doesn’t follow fourth amendment rulings in the state of Wisconsin? He might be on to something, hey City of La Crosse Mayor or Alderman Kahlow, you wanna look into having your city ordinances follow state and federal law? And while you’re at it, maybe suggest to city employees that what seems to be their common practice of using unconstitutional coercion should probably cease?
Gideon was getting very annoyed at this point and was started to raise his voice. At this point he said “If you aren’t going to give them access, then I am going to reopen your citation from November, and you can either pay a reduced fine or it can go to trial.” Jason responded by saying “this sure sounds like that third time a city employee is using coercion for evoking his constitutional rights and this could be setting the city up for a lawsuit.” There’s Supreme Court rulings on this exact issue Jason is going through with city hall referenced in the screen shot below. But hey, maybe the city can waste another $90,000 of taxpayer money on a losing lawsuit. Gideon was PI**ED by this point and tried to clarify the citation that was to be dismissed he previously said he was going to reopen is still open so therefore blah blah blah. At this point Gideon told Jason he had two choices, either accept a citation at a reduced rate or have the citation go to trial. Jason responded by saying probably for the twentieth time that they can come inspect it whenever they want, but he has Fourth amendment rights to deny letting them inside he’d like to evoke and you should probably chill on that unconstitutional coercion. Boy was Gideon mad. Jason hadn’t seen this type of reaction to not obeying authority since his middle school principal Judy Mortell who he’d get sent to on the weekly to get yelled at. Jason then asked “so if this thing goes to trial, I still haven’t consented to letting the inspector into my building and the railing still hasn’t been signed off on, so what happens then?"
At this point Gideon was kinda crashing out and yelled out “Fine! I’m against you now! Is that what you wanted?” The conversation then for whatever reason shifted to Latino Bar and all the underage kids in bars downtown the city generates revenue off of, to which Gideon got some things off his chest that had obviously been festering and told Jason “You didn’t do s**t to help us with Latino Bar and just made everything worse for us! You wouldn’t testify for us when we asked you to! You could have submitted an affidavit and didn't!” Bro…
Gideon was big mad by now and eventually yelled “This is going to trial, I’m done with you!” And then slammed down the phone hanging up on Jason. Not long after, he sent an email Jason is not allowed to comment on as there was a big legal statement attached stating the content of the email was not to be shared blah blah blah. It seems the city is sick of Jason posting screen shots and took that step. This situation would all be so much less drama if Jason would just say f**k his constitutional rights and OBEY!
Anyway, if you placed your bets on FanDuel that this thing was going to go to trial in front of a judge, congrats, you’re probably going to win! Meanwhile, Jason will be spending his morning today contacting national news media to see if he can get any bites on covering this standoff. Stay tuned folks!
