Daily Press from Newport News, Virginia • Page 27

Pgjljl DteggH Saturday, August 3, 1991 TVComics Joseph Pryweller Broadcast News 3 Taxing reality to hit NN cable subscribers 6 i 4 If ilfVi Vuf 1- Photos by ADRIN SNIDERStaff photographer Outer Limits' owner Steve Zarpas says he wants his club to offer its patrons an alternative to the traditional nightclub atmosphere. nrrru Outer 1 l. a Starting this month, cable subscribers in Newport News are being taxed an extra 7 percent of their cable bills by the city. Newport News Cablevision isn't happy about it and has fought it. Cox Cable is suing the city of Norfolk over a similar tax added to its subscribers' bills.

So far, Newport News Cablevision hasn't gone to court. Before this month, its 48,000 subscribers already paid a tariff, equal to 5 percent of their cable bills, to the city as a franchise fee. Cable subscribers in every Hampton Roads locality pay between 4 and 5 percent of their bills in franchise fees. A 1984 act of Congress deemed that franchise fees can't surpass 5 percent of a customer's total cable bill. But Newport News cable customers now pay a total of 12 percent to the city, more than in any other Hampton Roads locality except Norfolk.

The extra 7 percent added payment is called a city tax. The tax was passed in June by the Newport News City Council during its budget sessions, said Newport News city attorney Verbena Askew. The city hopes to raise about 1 million in revenues during the current fiscal year from the cable tax revenues, Askew said. "We hadn't heard a lot of opposition to it during the meetings," she said. "City management thinks it's a good way to raise revenues, especially from people who don't pay property taxes." The city could get some angry calls when subscribers pay the city tax with their August cable bills.

The added amount can range from about $1.40 a month for a basic cable subscriber to more than $2.50 a month for a subscriber buying several premium channels. Nationwide) some cable systems are fighting city cable taxes in court. The city of Norfolk added a similar 7 percent tax for subscribers of Cox Cable in the spring of 1990. Cox and several of its subscribers joined to sue the city on the grounds that the tax violated Cox's First Amendment free speech rights and that the city had no authority to levy such a tax, said Wayne Lustig, a Norfolk-based attorney representing Cox Cable. Norfolk Circuit Court decided in favor of the city, but the cable system has appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Cox's appeal but hasn't set a hearing date, Lustig said. "We believe it's our customers who bear this burden," Lustig said. "It discriminates against them." Newport News Cablevision is closely following Cox's case, said general manager Steve Santamaria. Santamaria said he and other company executives told City officials this spring, when the tax was under consideration, that they were opposed to it. "We fought it behind closed doors with the city," he said.

"We don't like it, and we know that nobody's going to be happy to pay more taxes. But we understand, too, that the city needs to raise revenues." PN THE RISE: While on the subject of cable rate increases, Warner Cable in Hampton, Poquoson and Williamsburg has raised its prices. Subscribers now pay $1.11 more a month for their cable TV, starting this month. A basic cable subscriber, for instance, now pays $19.33 a month instead of 18.22 previously. General manager Bill Day said the xate increase was necessary to cover rising programming costs from such cable networks as ESPN and Turner Network Television.

Those networks charge cable operators a fee to show their programs. Those fees, naturally, are passed on to consumers. Each Warner Cable subscriber now Please see News, D4 Those words guide Zarpas, a 30-year old, former commercial real estate agent, who transferred his love of progressive rock music and surfing into his livelihood. "I want a club where everyone feels comfortable," said Zarpas, looking more like an accountant than a club manager with his bald pate and gold-framed glasses. "We don't have waitresses with bleached hair and breast augmentations.

We don't have macho, body-builder bartenders. It's not a status thing to come here. We're for normal people." Zarpas is experienced at club work. He and partner Joe Englert own and manage 15 a Washington, D.C., club opened less than two years ago and already named one of the hottest dance clubs in the district by Washingtonian magazine. Zarpas said he could have been happy staying in Washington.

Except for one thing: He wanted to surf. His brother, Michael, who works in real estate in Virginia Beach, located the space. Zarpas found a house near the beach, leased the shopping center property and christened the new club. His partner, Englert, stayed in D.C. to run 15 Mins.

Named Outer Limits, the club's interior is pure Twilight Zone. It features a 1968 Volkswagen bus doubling as a bar, a silver-painted surfer mannequin catching a wave and lots of thrift shop trinkets. That's part of the no-attitude look, Zarpas said. "We didn't want plush leather couches and mirrored walls," he said. "You don't have to pull up in a limousine to be welcome here.

You can come in blue jeans." The club slogan, found on stickers New club wants to be different from the average club JOSEPH PRYWELLER Staff Writer As the red van rolled down Atlantic Avenue, Michael Zarpas handed lollipops, sugary Atomic Fireballs and brightly hued condoms out the window to surprised passer-by. "Hey, come to Outer Limits," Zarpas shouted with missionary zeal, as he tossed a blue condom to a couple. "And practice safe sex. At home, not at the club." Outer Limits, a new Virginia Beach club, opened two months ago. On a recent Friday night, friends and employees passed out goodies on the ocean front strip to entice people to visit the area's newest night spot.

The lollipops, red hots and condoms all bore messages about the club glued to their wrappers. The beach front marketing campaign is designed to combat a less than successful legacy. It's been a bumpy road for Hampton Roads rock clubs showcasing live bands and cutting-edge music. Others have tried, failed and folded, unable to woo a college-age audience. All were victims of good intentions and poor patronage.

Steven Zarpas, the co-owner of Outer Limits (and Michael Zarpas' brother), said his club isn't like the others. His philosophy is different. Postcards handed to customers as they enter depict a stuffy-looking man, surrounded by a circle with a slash through it, and the words "Attitude is Out. Fun is in." People play pool near a 1968 Volkswagen inside the Virginia Beach club. with thrash-rock bands such as Buttsteak and rock-funk group Ant Man Bee having performed there recently.

On Wednesdays, the club normally plays industrial dance music dance grooves with a hard, electronic beat. The bands play in a back room whose wall looks like a large crushed tin can, designed to remind customers of a road-house blues bar on a dusty back road, Zarpas said. On other selected nights, Outer Limits tries to bring in nationally known rock acts: Groups that aren't popular enough to play a hall but have found a cult following among people of college age. The Posies, Firehose and Please see Club, D5 and signs, is "Beyond the Scene, You'll Find Outer Limits." In a geographical sense, the slogan is apropos. The club is away from the trendy clubs and restaurants along the Virginia Beach ocean front or in Norfolk's Ghent area.

Instead, it occupies a quiet corner of New Pointe Shopping Center on Newtown Road, near the Norfolk-Virginia Beach border. Until now the center's liveliest tenant had been the Food Lion supermarket. The music lineup is sure to stir things up. Weekends are set aside for the blues. Zarpas has recruited top Washington, D.C, blues artists Charlie Sayles and Bobby Parker to play his room.

Thursday is what Zarpas called "edgy music," Forget force-feeding children What to do about Pee-wee's public? A child will eat what he or she needs, experts say The oddball TV character has his good side By SUSAN CAMPBELL The Hartford Courant i-U v'A MOVIES: "Hot Shots!" with Charlie Sheen is funny. Also: Reviews for "Another You," "Return to the Blue Lagoon and "Doc Hollywood." SmD2. line in front of the k-i-d-s. On Monday, Reubens denied the charges that he was fondling himself during a showing of "Tiger Shark" Friday at Sarasota's triple-X South Trail Theater. It was the 38-year-old Reubens whom the police apprehended the mugshot is of a goateed, Maynard G.

Krebs-type beatnik. It was the 38-year-old Reubens who was freed on $219 baiL Yet the media glare is on Reubens' alter ego Pee-wee Herman, the bow-tied boy-child in the boxy gray suit Admittedly, it creates an unfortunate perception problem when a figure whose public persona is that of an overgrown child is linked with an alleged sex act But if in his heyday ven- Please see Pee-wee, Do I A By CARRIE RICKEY Knight-Ridder Newspapers Like peanut-butter casserole and bad puns, Pee-wee Herman is an acquired taste. And if Paul Reubens (aka Pee-wee) exposed himself, as the Sarasota, police allege, then he is also guilty of bad judgment and even worse taste. Pee-wee is a children's hero, for heaven's sake, and even though the rest of the trench-coats are probably doing it, a kiddie icon does not engage in solitary sex at an adult movie house. Because if he violates this propriety in public among grown-ups, the reasonable won is that he might cross mis I The father eating with his family at the Red Lobster restaurant had good intentions.

"Cmon," he said to his young daughter, who was scowling over a plate of crab meat. "Finish it" He tried to fork some food into her mouth, but the girl, who was probably no more than 4, turned her head away, lips clamped shut "You have to finish it," the man pleaded. "It's good for you." No go. The girl would not budge. Worrying about getting your kid to eat is normal.

But when the table becomes a battlefield, the ramifications can last a lifetime. When parents try to force their children to eat more than they Please see Eat, Da i VIRGINIA ROLLINGS: Interest in black family history is generating intensive searches for records. Set D4. Mt)Mimy HEARTBURN: Antacids could spell more than relief for chronic.