News and Media
Best Restraining Order
Tom Kiefaber
Best Restraining Order: Tom Kiefaber
Published: September 19, 2012
For a long time, we’ve thought of Kiefaber, the erstwhile owner of the Senator Theatre, as just another kooky Baltimore character—that crazy uncle who rants about conspiracy theories and occasionally bursts into City Council meetings to announce his intentions to run for office. (Hey, it’s cheaper than a press conference.) But in August, after the Senator’s new owners complained that Kiefaber was habitually trespassing at the theater and threatening and harassing workers, he was arrested and a restraining order was issued (for the second time), requiring him to stay away. The Senator had been in Kiefaber’s family since his grandfather opened it in 1939, but the city bought it in 2009, after he couldn’t make mortgage payments, putting the theater in danger of foreclosure. Since then, it’s been taken over by Charles Theatre owners Kathleen and Buzz Cusack, who are currently renovating the theater. Based on various Facebook rants, it seems Kiefaber blames his downfall on nefarious forces headed by Abell Foundation President Bob Embry, a board member of the city’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation, and Jay Brodie, former president of the Baltimore Development Corporation, who, he seems to imagine, head a shadow government that pulls the strings at City Hall. We’re not buying it and we’re glad the courts have intervened to keep Krazy Kiefaber from disrupting the renovation of the historic theater. Here’s hoping he shows some legally mandated restraint going forward.
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