STREET TALK

You might recall our July 1984 report about three local topless nightclub owners-DonFurrh (owner of the Million Dollar Saloon), Michael Murphy, and John Woodruff (owners of MJR Corporation, which owns numerous clubs)- who claimed their video and cigarette machine supplier was giving them poor service, so they ordered the giant B&B Vending Company to immediately remove its machines from eleven of their clubs. The three men also formed their own vending company. B&B immediately struck back with a civil lawsuit charging Furrh and his associates with violating “location agreements’-formal contracts that give B&B exclusive rights to put its machines in the three men’s nightclubs.

Now, after more than two years of legal sparring, the courts have spoken, and the news is bad for the Davids who challenged the B&B Goliath. Last April, state District Judge John Wittington ruled in B&B’s favor, ordering the three nightclub owners to pay B&B $1.7 million in damages. After the three announced their intent to appeal but failed to post the money for the appeal bond, B&B seized amusement machines from an Irving Boulevard warehouse owned by the three men as partial payment for the judgment. The three men blocked the seizures by immediately filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The case is currently on appeal.



KERA-FM radio officials are brainstorming a plan to put Dallas sportscaster Norm Hitzges on the national airwaves. A pilot talk show that Hitzges did last April, with hookups in San Diego, Chicago, Washington, and St. Louis, “worked very nicely,” says Susan Harmon, KERA vice-president and radio station manager. Harmon says the idea is still in the formative stages and probably wouldn’t air until 1987.



Jack Beckman. former Reunion Arena manager and now executive vice-president of arena promotions for the Mes-quite Rodeo Arena, has taken on yet another entrepreneurial challenge. Beckman has become a principal in Worldwide Productions Inc., a Garland-based company that has run the Southwest Sports and Vacation Show in past years. Worldwide will capitalize on Beckman’s connections and experience to diversify into other markets nationwide, including concerts, wrestling matches, and auto and boat shows, says president David Buchanan.