Pam Zekman
Appearances
Criminal
The Mirage
That was extraordinary because that was an easy way to get ourselves into the corruption angle without being accused of entrapping the inspectors.
Criminal
The Mirage
I was outside the bar waiting. This was the date and the time that our Mr. Fix-It, Phil Barish, had told us to expect an inspector. And he came just as Barish said he would. And he was the fire inspector, a lieutenant. And he came in and he looked around. I don't know what he was looking for, but it certainly wasn't fire violations.
Criminal
The Mirage
He asked about the condition of the basement, and Jeff Allen told him, well, we never use it. And the fire inspector said, well, as long as it's clean, no trash, no junk down there, which was laughable because it was a fire hazard. There were all kinds of open ceilings that plaster had fallen off the ceiling. A fire could have gone right through there. He never went near the basement.
Criminal
The Mirage
And then, out of nowhere, he started talking about how much he liked beer and how he loved, loved beer. And it got to the point where we thought that maybe what he was hinting at was that he wanted beer or a keg of beer as his payoff. At that point, it was obvious that the inspection was done, if you call it an inspection.
Criminal
The Mirage
And Jeff Allen had the envelope that we were supposed to give to him, according to Barish. And there was some hesitation, nervous hesitation. And then he just scooped it up and acknowledged it. that he was done and he was leaving and he wasn't citing us for any code violations. And he walked out. He said, it's a beautiful day and walked out. We'll be right back.
Criminal
The Mirage
We wanted to make sure that we got a shot, so we put bar stools up on the bar so that they would have to do their business, fill out their reports, do whatever it is that they do at a key spot where the cameraman could get a picture. And you can see in the picture of the building inspector, you can see the bar stools up on the bar. Behind him? Yeah.
Criminal
The Mirage
At one point, he looked up at the grill that our cameraman had put in the loft so that they could shoot down on top of the bar and capture what was going on. He looked straight up at that ventilation duct, and the cameraman thought that they were spotted. I mean, they froze. They didn't want to make a move. And they wound up, though, getting the...
Criminal
The Mirage
picture that we wanted of him scooping up the envelope. That was yes, one of the iconic photographs is he took the envelope. The same thing happened with the building inspector that followed.
Criminal
The Mirage
You like that, huh? But he's also got a cigarette dangling from him, too. They both do. I mean, we were very excited about those photographs. And, of course, the cameraman told us that right away, they told us that they had nailed it. And, you know, it happened over and over again. You asked me at what point did I think that we really were accomplishing or proving the point.
Criminal
The Mirage
that this was systemic. My wow moment came as we progressed through the different specialties and the ventilation inspector and the plumbing inspector and then the liquor inspector just telling us go to the cash register and get some cash. Did I imagine going into it that we found all the things we did? No. It was incredible.
Criminal
The Mirage
Finally closing up, you know, we wound up having to take down some of the decorations we'd put up. It was not depressing. It was the end of a huge, huge effort that had gone successfully and a huge sense of relief and of accomplishment in what we had done. But there was so much more to do.
Criminal
The Mirage
It became like a soap opera. People were buying the paper and sitting there and reading it on the train and following it very closely. And it went from the corruption to the tax skimming to the vendors to the features and the characters in the bar.
Criminal
The Mirage
I still have in my closet a Mirage jacket and T-shirts that say I inspected the Mirage. And I have matchbooks that we had made for the Mirage.
Criminal
The Mirage
Pam Zekman, Z-E-K-M-A-N, and I'm an investigative reporter now with the CBS station in Chicago.
Criminal
The Mirage
But one of the most difficult tips that we got was tips from small businesses that said that they were sick and tired of having to pay bribes to all kinds of inspectors that would demand payoffs and keep coming. It never ended.
Criminal
The Mirage
People would say, everyone does it. It's systemic. You'll never be able to do anything about it. It's just the Chicago way. And we wanted the tipsters to go public with us. And they wouldn't understandably, they would not.
Criminal
The Mirage
My biggest fear was that we would have something terrible happen in the bar and that it would become a horrible mistake.
Criminal
The Mirage
We looked at dozens of places, tried to find a bar that was in our price range. We were looking for a place where we could conceal our photographers.
Criminal
The Mirage
Most important of all, from the get-go, it had a lot of obvious violations. There were drain boards behind the bar that were rotting. There were bar sinks that dumped water directly onto the floor. There was a pool of water in the basement that we thought had maggots in it. It looked like maggots. There were electrical wires hanging down from all sorts of places. One of the toilets didn't flush.
Criminal
The Mirage
It was wonderful. And incredibly, the owner said in five years he'd never been cited for a single violation. We couldn't believe it. We had just started fixing the place up minimally when the first inspector that came in was a plumbing inspector. Older man, very heavy set. He was looking at behind the bar.
Criminal
The Mirage
He wound up being unconcerned about water that was like a waterfall, practically, dripping from the sinks. And he said, nothing here is up to code. And then he made a comment about probably we didn't have enough money to fix it. So leave it, he said. That's not something an inspector should say, leave your code violations. He said, don't worry about it. We'll work something out.
Criminal
The Mirage
Fear. I did not expect that we would have a lot of business in the neighborhood that we were in. I was wrong. I mean, on opening day, I was having trouble pouring beer. And a customer had wound up giving me a lesson in pouring beer without having it foam and out of the glass and gave me a pat on the back and said, that's very good. There was another time when somebody asked me for a Drambuie.
Criminal
The Mirage
And I said, a what? And he said, a Drambuie. And he said, I don't think we have that. And the customer said, what do you mean you don't have it? It's right behind you. I have no idea. One guy came in one morning and wanted a shot and a beer. And I poured the shot in the beer.
Criminal
The Mirage
But we were very concerned about never being accused of entrapping these inspectors. We did not want to do that.
Criminal
The Mirage
We weren't going to say, well, can we pay you off in order to ignore the violation? That was absolutely not going to happen. We needed to either have them ask for the money or hint that they wanted the money. The language and dance of the game was, well, we really want to work with you, and oh, you're nice people, and we want to help you, and things like that.
Criminal
The Mirage
Phil Barish is a very colorful character. He drove a Rolls Royce and he bragged about his gambling habits in Las Vegas. He was constantly talking about how much money he had. He had to tell us that he gets lots of sex, lots of trips, nice trips. He also had a criminal record.
Criminal
The Mirage
He said, okay, I want you to put $10 in an envelope for the fire inspector, $15 in an envelope for the building inspector, along with my card. And when they come in, give them the envelope. Tell them that Phil Barish told you to give this to them.