Of Race and Bars: Rule one when your bar license is in trouble is not to claim you didn't know what was going on or shirk responsibility over what patrons are doing outside the bar when they leave. Montal Hinton, owner of Montal's Lounge at 2525 N. Holton St., apparently didn't get that memo.

After the Milwaukee Licenses Committee saw video footage of people urinating in doorways and street-clogging melees involving bar patrons, Hinton told the panel that was considering revoking his license that he can't control what goes on outside the bar after patrons leave and that it's just a normal thing that happens.

Wrong answer.

Montal's Lounge is the site of the former Luther's, which created the same issues for the neighbors. Montal's just finished serving a 90-day suspension in December and apparently the party picked up where it left off for the tavern-goers. Neighbors promptly petitioned the Council to revoke Hinton's license.

Hinton's attorney, Andrew Arena, also tried to play the race card, saying that some of the complaints were because neighbors didn't like black people -- a seriously tough and ludicrous claim to make in Riverwest, one of the city's most integrated neighborhoods. The committee didn't buy that angle either and voted to revoke Hinton's license. The matter will be heard at the Feb. 5 Common Council meeting.

Focusing on race isn't going to work for Tamara Norwood-Thomas either. In a 36-page $2 million claim against the city, Norwood-Thomas states that she was discriminated against when the city Licenses Committee last year refused to recommend she get a tavern license for a bar/restaurant at 5950 N. 76th St.

She claims that Ald. Joe Davis -- African-American himself -- organized the neighbors around the bar to object to her license because she is black. Obviously, she could use a better lawyer. In her claim, she also asserts that a past bust for coke dealing should not have been brought up and wasn't relevant. We're sure the committee raises an eyebrow or two when convicted coke dealers want to start running bars.

Norwood-Thomas brought her claim before the Common Council's Judiciary Committee this week, which immediately turned her away, since the committee can't make judgments dealing with more than $50,000. Perhaps she should have read the fine print.

Players Come into County Exec Race: Outsiders are coming into the Milwaukee County executive's race and the practitioners are of somewhat ill repute. Political pit bull Todd Rongstad formed the Thomas Paine Democracy Network to funnel cash into an advertising campaign against current exec Scott Walker. Billboards are planned for the county with various problems plaguing the county highlighted featuring the tag line "I blame Scott Walker."

Rongstad's sordid past -- he was referred to as a "sleaze peddler" during his earlier efforts -- has mainly involved smear campaigns against Democrats while using Republican money. He was fined $5,500 in 2001 for failing to file campaign finance reports on time after receiving $145,000 from the GOP to run direct mail campaigns that were called "vile" and "extremely cruel." He was also fined $65,000 for refusing to release a list of contributors to his effort. He also lost a defamation suit when one of his campaigns went too far, according to the courts.

While some have said billboards are a cheap way to go to get the word out, they are effective for something like a county exec race. And they aren't inexpensive either, running into the tens of thousands a month depending on location.

The campaign of Walker's opponent, state Sen. Lena Taylor, has distanced itself from the ad blitz. The issue brings up the perennial campaign debate on what to do about outside expenditures, which give candidates a convenient arm's length excuse to allow independent groups to sling the mud while the candidate presumably stays clean. The outside groups also do not have the funding restrictions or reporting requirements required of the campaigns.

The Walker campaign has used the news to continue his weekly pleas for more money for his campaign.

Meanwhile, his camp has hailed his new group, "Students for Walker," a holdover from his failed gubernatorial bid. It looks mainly to be a pitch for volunteer labor, but this week's "student of the week" is Katie, from Wisconsin Lutheran College, who states, "When it comes to core fiscal values, Scott doesn't just talk the talk -- he also walks the walk! You can tell he genuinely loves this county." That's a pretty intimate statement for sure.