Testimony ends in Lucky’s Tavern assault trial

BANGOR – When patrons became lewd, argumentative and violent, Lucky’s Tavern owner Paul LaChance, 41, and his assistant manager Brian Craigue, 25, had every right to remove them from the bar, a team of attorneys maintained Monday in Penobscot County Superior Court.

LaChance, accused of assaulting two men, and Craigue, charged with assaulting one, not only had a right to do so, but also a legal responsibility to keep the tavern safe and secure for the remaining patrons, attorney Joshua Tardy of Newport told the jury, which will hear closing arguments and deliberate this morning.

LaChance and Craigue are being tried together before a jury of four women and nine men and Justice Joseph Jabar.

Both accused men and several other witnesses, including two of the three alleged victims, testified that LaChance had ordered the trio to leave his tavern after a female patron complained about their behavior.

Once they refused or failed to leave, Tardy maintained, they were considered to be trespassers and the owner had a right to defend his premises.

That argument, however, was countered by the testimony of the men who went to Lucky’s last January for “dinner and drinks,” ended up staying about six hours and running up a $108 tab, and then claimed they were attacked without provocation, beaten and kicked by both LaChance and Craigue.

Todd Whitaker, 30, of Hermon, Alan Shaw, 26, of Bangor and Jeff Chasse, 35, of Woodland told the jury that after Chasse simply told another patron she was pretty, LaChance approached them and pushed Whitaker to the floor.

Whitaker said both men kicked him in the face while others held his arms behind his back. Whitaker maintained that LaChance used pepper spray in his face at least three times, once inside the bar and twice outside.

While he was testifying, however, Whitaker admitted that a $2,000 wage reimbursement he had submitted to the district attorney’s office as part of a request for damages was false and that he had never mentioned Craigue in his initial police report.

Whitaker also admitted he lied at a liquor license hearing held in April where he testified that LaChance attempted to punch him first.

“That was a lie?” asked Tardy.

“Sure,” answered Whitaker.

LaChance, Craigue, and three other patrons and employees said that when LaChance asked the men to leave, reportedly after one of them pinched a patron on the buttocks and made lewd gestures at her, Whitaker became enraged and attacked LaChance, knocking him backwards.

Craigue testified that he came to LaChance’s aid and with the help of another patron, Todd Braley, wrestled Whitaker to the ground.

“We were trying to contain him, just trying to get him to cool off,” Craigue said.

In the process, however, Craigue’s shoulder dislocated and he retreated.

LaChance testified that he had just used pepper spray outside the bar’s entrance on Chasse, who was tossed from the bar but returned three times. When Braley and Whitaker tumbled through the door into the parking lot, LaChance said he used the pepper spray on Whitaker.

“My duty [as the bar’s owner] is to protect everybody,” LaChance testified. “Whitaker presented quite a danger. He was threatening to kill everybody.” Once Whitaker was released, he returned to confront LaChance.

Whitaker testified that he kept his arms up and asked LaChance for his credit card and some water to wash the pepper spray off his face.

LaChance and several others testified instead that Whitaker confronted the bar owner again, challenging him to a fight.

“I Maced him again,” LaChance said. “I felt myself and the patrons were in danger.”

Throughout the melee, no one in or outside the bar called the police.

“Looking back, I wish I had,” LaChance testified.

Four months after the incident, the state liquor licensing division of the Maine Department of Public Safety upheld the town of Newport’s decision not to renew Lucky’s liquor license.

The town had maintained that there was a management pattern at Lucky’s that allowed patrons to continue to drink after they were intoxicated.

Behind the fighting, the state ruled that just two of the 10 drunken driving arrests stemming from Lucky’s in the past year would have been enough for Newport to prove its case.

The jury will hear closing arguments from attorney Charles Cox of Newport, representing Craigue, Tardy and Assistant District Attorney Alice Clifford at 9 this morning and then begin deliberations.