The Nooner | Chicago news and beyond | July 19, 2011

The Nooner: Chicago news and beyond, plus what TOC editors are reading now.
Today, there's good news about Chicago's recycling program

Finally! Recycling program back in gear
Is everyone else as embarrassed as I am that Chicago doesn’t have city-wide curbside recycling? A friend of mine who moved away several years ago recently came back to visit, and she laughed—laughed—when she realized my apartment still doesn't have recycling. I’m fed up. So, apparently, is Rahm Emanuel. He’s going to introduce a little old-fashioned competition—letting city services and private companies duke it out for the lowest-cost contract—in order to get the long-stalled recycling program rolled all the way out. This means that I can stop “losing” my recyclables in other wards’ blue bins on my way to work in the morning.

City Hall still trying to close city’s only topless bar, 18 years later
At VIP’s A Gentlemen’s Club, billed as “Chicago’s only full liquor and topless bar,” the club's right to sell liquor AND have bare-breasted and bare-butted ladies working the premises is a matter of free speech. Or so the club’s owner, Perry Mandera, has argued, even trying to get the matter heard by the Supreme Court (which declined to review the case). The club’s still open while Mandera’s lawyers continue the fight. Currently, Mandera’s trying to toe the line by having the performers wear bikini bottoms (rather than thongs) and cover the bottom halves of their breasts with breast-colored latex coverings.

Chicago Dancing Festival tickets released today
Tickets to the Chicago Dancing Festival’s five days of free dance-related events are being released starting today. Each venue's tickets will be available on a different day; venues are the Harris Theater the MCA and the Auditorium Theatre. The festival runs August 23–27, and previous years’ tickets have “sold out” very quickly; everything’s free, but you need a ticket to attend. Today, the MCA’s tickets are being released (as in, right now); visit the MCA Stage Box Office at 220 E Chicago Avenue, go online to mcachicago.org or call 312-397-4010. Tomorrow at noon, Harris Theater tickets will be released; Thursday at 11am Auditorium Theatre tickets become available. Visit the festival's website for details on those ticket releases.

New Illinois casino now open
The Rivers Casino in Des Plaines opened for the first time yesterday; there were folks lining up to be among the first gamblers in the doors. Burt Constable at The Daily Herald interviewed some of those early adopters—in what to me, is a pretty sad article. Rivers is about a 30-minute drive northwest of downtown Chicago.

Worst house party ever?
A Florida teen apparently sent out Facebook invites, killed his parents with a hammer and hosted a rockin’ house party. In that order. His parents’ bodies were locked in the master bedroom during the festivities. The boy, Tyler Hadley, 17, will appear in court today for the first time.

Bike Night at the Burlington
If you were planning on tying one on tonight, you might as well get a chance to win a bike, right? That’s my thinking, anyway. The Burlington bar in Logan Square is having a buy-a-drink-get-a-raffle-ticket event tonight, and the raffle prize is a vintage bike. You don’t get a ticket if you order an el-cheapo PBR, unfortunately. There’s also not much info provided about the bike—in the photos they sent TOC, it looks like the bike might have been turned into a fixie. Still waiting for that trend to fade. At least the raffle bike appears to have brakes. Plus, it’s cute. That goes a long way with me.