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The chairman of the You know, I usually pour my coffee into my mug and I forgot to do that.

So, that's why I'm sitting here with this paper cup and I'm drinking coffee.

And the people in Brentwood, well, they might like coffee, but they ain't too hot on Seven Brew because they say it's going to cause massive traffic jams at the corner of Manchester and I guess Brentwood Boulevard.

So Joe, man, you stand with the business or you stand with the people or did you drink coffee?

I drink coffee.

I make my own coffee and I am all for anything that cuts down the amount of traffic on Manchester, on Brentwood, especially Manchester.

I mean, you know, okay, if you just absolutely have to get that cup of coffee and you can't park somewhere and go in and get it.

I'm, you know, I everything's a drive-thru now, and so you'll come around a corner and there's a line queued up out into the regular street.

So, no, I I would declare a moratorium on all drive-throughs.

I go past that corner sometimes to get to uh my daughter's house and when you are coming from like Big Bend and Hanley and you make a lefthand turn on Brentwood at Manchester, you go past that Snooks where they're going to put where they want to put the drive-thru in and you go two blocks and on your left there's already a drive-thru coffee place and that's why Brentwood is in the jam.

It's in, right?

Like they have so many of these national chains that are just dying to place.

It's not a national chain.

Oh, okay.

Also local little coffee place and I it seems that ought to suffice.

Make yourself a big pot at home.

Get a thermos and you're good.

It's you know Manchester and Brentwood we're talking about.

We're not talking about Milstad, Illinois where it might add too many cars.

That that's already a mess.

I I intersection with Manchester.

I was just going to say, so let's make it more.

You know, Rover, Missouri or whatever, you know, or St. Albans, you got issues.

I don't think this is really going to add much to the mix.

I You know where else they have traffic?

New York and Chicago and Nashville and all these places we want to be until I don't think it's because they have too many Seven Brews.

I I mean, it's quick.

We need more Seven Brews.

I mean, uh like Brentwood is not going to become Manhattan if we get more coffee.

Come on.

I will say this, like, see, we do it right in Kirkwood.

The Seven Brew is off of the road and there is a line there all the time, but I have not been there yet, so maybe I'll visit you one day.

All right, Bill.

Um, on the Illinois side, a St. Louis sheriff deputy testified in a case where a man was uh charged with murder.

Uh, ultimately, I guess it was reduced to manslaughter, but he testified in his sheriff's uniform.

Um, you got any problem with that?

Yeah.

Yeah, I do.

I I think that uh if he was working as a sheriff's deputy in uniform as a security guard, he should be able to testify in his uniform.

But if you're not working in uniform or as a police officer, I don't think you should be allowed to.

Like if if I was in an accident with an offduty police officer, say, and there was a lawsuit about it, I don't think that he should be able to wear his uniform uh when he testifies against me because he he wasn't acting as a police officer.

He wasn't in So I I think it it was wrong for uh the court to allow a sheriff's deputy to wear his uniform when it had nothing to do with him being a deputy.

So, this was my colleague Ryan Krull's story uh at St. Louis magazine, and he reported that the prosecutors had their nose a little out of joint about this.

They they felt like you felt that this was sort of putting the impremature of law enforcement on something that didn't deserve it.

I got to say, I feel a little bit differently here.

You know, you always have cops that'll show up and they'll testify for the prosecutors when they're wearing their uniform.

And I bet they're doing that when they, you know, were testifying about an incident where they weren't wearing their uniform when they responded.

If you're there to testify truthfully, which I believe this sheriff's deputy, no reason to think he didn't, you should be able to wear your uniform no matter which side of this you're on.

I agree.

And I don't think a badge is always a bonus in the eyes of a jury.

You know what I mean?

They might look down on it, especially on the prosecution side.

This was a murder case in East St. Louis from a couple years ago, I think, outside a nightclub, right?

and the uh the uh suspect, the accused has another charge because he was a convicted felon already and he had a gun.

So that's another case.

So when a plea bargain is out, that charge was not touched.

So he does still have to go to I would take it to the extreme.

I don't think any police officer should be allowed to wear their uniform anytime they testify.

What you're wearing has nothing to do or shouldn't with the court of law.

It's about what you say and it's about the evidence.

And I think that too often a person could I would say more often than not, though I I grant your point as being true sometimes, more often than not will give more credence to a police officer as telling the truth as opposed to someone else.

I think everybody should be in civilian clothes because it has nothing to do with what you're wearing.

It's what you say, what you did, what you testify to.

Well, I I think that a police officer ought to be able to wear his uniform when he's testifying as a police officer that this is what I saw or what I did.

I mean, most of the detectives, they they don't wear uniforms when they testify, which you don't want, right?

But you would if a doctor comes in in a malpractice suit, do you want them to wear the white coat with a stethoscope?

I mean, you know, the purpose is if you want a fair and impartial trial, don't let people bring things in that have nothing to do with the case.

The case is the evidence and nothing else.

It's not what you're wear case where a priest who was accused wore his Roman collar.

Well, and priest will tell you right away that's not a uniform.

That's what they wear.

Well, I think a lot of cops would say, "Hey, this is what I wear."

No, they don't.

They don't wear that when they're going out to the ball game.

So, will Dr. Sam Page where his that would be good.

I was on a in Greene County.

I did not over yet.

I did not get picked for the jury, but I was on jury panel and a man had shot a police officer in Rock Hill and paralyzed the police officer.

And when they were, you know, picking the the jury, the hallway was lined with uniform police officers.

They packed the courtroom and this was just, you know, for like selection of a jury.

I was not I didn't find that intimidating myself, but I could see where a juror, potential juror would.

And I do have to add this is where the defense attorney when we had to go up and say, "Have you heard anything about the trial?"

And we did it individually, the defense attorney said like, "Hey, you're Alvin Reid that's on Donnie with this, you know, police officer shooter who was found guilty sitting there."

I said, "Thanks a lot, man."

All right.

Hey, somebody up North County Way at least purchased a winning Powerball ticket last week.

And even after tax, they're going to walk away with like $400, $500 million.

I just asked them, if it were you and you're holding that ticket, are you out of St. Louis?

Are you still going to live here?

Or like, what would you fix in St. Louis if you won the money?

Personally, I think some of this shenanigans down there in Jefferson City is enough for me to find a really, really nice place on the Pacific Ocean in Northern California, and I would watch the seals and the sharks and the people.

Well, now I I would say right now I will remain in St. Louis.

I will probably move to the presidential suite at one of the hotels right by the airport so that when I wake up one morning and go, man, it seems a little chilly out here.

I can just walk across the interstate, hop on an airplane, and go.

But yeah, no, I mean, I know too many people in St. Louis.

Of course, I would, but I'd be here a whole lot less.

Oh, there you go.

All right.

Well, I uh if we could convince my two grandchildren who live here and my daughter to move somewhere, we'd probably be gone.

But if they stayed, I could not get my wife to leave.

You can buy them out, Bill.

Hey, wait.

The money.

A freshman in high school.

I'm not sure I could buy her.

I'm in the same boat as you.

Like, my kids friends are here and their school is here that they love and so I'm going nowhere.

It doesn't matter what kind of Powerball comes my way.

But you got little kids, right?

Yeah.

But they love their school.

It would break their heart if we left our current house.

So we would just live in our shabby doicile after we win the the Powerball.

Andy, I might see if Bill wants to go in with me and use use it use it for seed money for a new dome in downtown.

Well, well, that was I was going to say like if we I would All right.

I might banker dome.

Banker dome.

Banker dome.

And they think that's a good name for it.

I like it.

Would you would you hire would you buy buy police officers?

You know, that's one of those things where I said like I might not be here, but I would say, okay, all right, this 40 more police officers you want.

I'm going to throw a large sum of money to make sure we put 40 new police officers in the city for, you know, I don't know how long that would last, 5 million, 10 years, whatever.

I think somebody should do something like that.

I hope Elvin wins and then you Carmen say, "Well, what are we going to do?"

We're hiring 40 new police officers, right?

And we will be here to see if it works.

First thing Al's going to do is come down here and burn the tape for this show.

Never said that.

Never said that.

No.

All right.

Now, speaking of speaking of billionaires, David Stewart uh is the richest man in the St. Louis area.

Very high on the Forbes uh 400 list.

His partner uh Jim Kavanaugh is on there as well.

So, I mean, we've got a lot of wealth and I don't want to, you know, like point out David Stewart, but that's a lot of money.

He could fix some things.

Him and Jim could get together and fix.

He writes a lot of checks.

He's a very I think he's actually supportive of this station as well.

He is really his son was chair of the board.

So, I'm not picking on him.

I'm just I said like while we're sitting around saying if you had like, you know, half of a billion dollars, Alvin, what would you do?

And I'm talking about leaving.

He has stayed.

Yeah.

And the company is here and the company is doing great and so is this show and so is PBS.

But hey, you want to support us, feel free to do so.

Once again, thank you Andy.

We'll see you next week on Donnybrook and Last Call.

Have a great week.