Gas Station Porn Video Spurs Revamp of City’s Licensing Process

Hometown Gas Station, 3381 N. 35th St. Photo taken Feb. 21, 2023 by Jeramey Jannene.

The fallout from two customers recording a pornographic film in the aisles of a N. 35th St. gas station convenience store is poised to lead the Milwaukee Common Council to change how the city rejects alcohol and operating licenses.

The attorney for the gas station, Emil Ovbiagele, has repeatedly argued the Common Council violates the constitutional rights of license applicants in making its rulings. He now has a circuit court ruling that says so.

The November 2022 ruling, by Judge Kristy Yang, explicitly builds on an October 2022 appeals court ruling that found the council’s licensing process resulted in a violation of the due process rights of a Family Dollar store in how it voted not to renew the store’s license and was inconsistent across multiple businesses.

“It’s just dysfunctional,” said Ovbiagele in an interview with Urban Milwaukee. “I think the reason we have the system set up the way it has been for as long as it has been is because it protects the politicians. It basically allows aldermanic privilege to run supreme.”

Council members have long given special credence to the recommendations of area council representatives, even if they’re not on the Licenses Committee.

The city is now poised to amend its licensing ordinance to require a “preponderance of evidence” be used as the basis for the nonrenewal, suspension or revocation of any license. This standard is an established civil law practice.

Ovbiagele said he supports the change, but still has a separate due process concern about what’s included in the notices. “We have a generic notice that is sent to every Tom, Dick and Harry,” he said. “Every licensing hearing is a random drawing of luck. You don’t know who’s going to show up. You don’t know what they’re going to say.”

It’s the second major ruling Ovbiagele, the managing partner at his namesake OVB Law & Consulting, has won in recent months. He also scored an appeals court victory that the city’s towing ordinance reporting requirements were in conflict with state law. The attorney, in a separate lawsuit, is pursuing a claim that they’re also unconstitutional.

About The Filming, And What Followed

While the pornographic film was created by the two participants, an employee and Kulwant Dhillon, the owner of the Hometown Gas Station, 3381 N. 35th St., looked on from behind the counter.

Dhillon later said he told the two to stop, but the male participant threatened to “shoot up the establishment” if the police were called.

The video was subsequently posted on the website Pornhub by the male participant. He regularly filmed himself engaging in intercourse in public places and was earning advertising income via the millions of views his tens of thousands of followers racked up.

The incident, which occurred in the summer of 2018, came up in the business’s 2019 license renewal hearing, but only because an aldermanic aide introduced it after being told about it by a constituent.

Dhillon said he knew his failure to call the police was a “mistake,” but he was scared. He subsequently agreed to testify in court against the participants. This was after the male participant involved in the sex video later beat up someone near the gas station and walked to another store owned by Dhillon, leading to a battery conviction.

The committee recommended a 20-day suspension for the gas station. Had it ended there, there would likely be no lawsuit.

But things changed after Alderman Khalif Rainey, whose district includes the gas station, said that only issuing a suspension for the business was “unbelievable” and he successfully moved for the measure to be sent back to the Licenses Committee. He had not attended the original hearing.

The committee then recommended nonrenewal despite no substantial new evidence, with Rainey condemning the sexual incident.

“Keep in mind, it was right next to the chips, and across from the sunflower seeds,” said Rainey at the July 2019 hearing. Neighbors testified for and against renewal.

When the measure came back to the full council in September 2019, Rainey distributed three still images to his colleagues from the six-minute video. The council supported nonrenewal, only for Judge David Swanson to rule that Dhillon’s due process rights were violated by Rainey’s introduction of the evidence and to order a third hearing.

The third hearing, which took place in September 2020, resulted in the same outcome. Ald. Nik Kovac, who originally moved for the 20-day suspension, moved for nonrenewal, citing Rainey’s testimony.

At that same committee meeting, a potential buyer of the business, Baljinder Dhillon and his Neighborhood Petro entity, also had a hearing for an entirely new license for the same gas station. The committee, and subsequently the council, moved to deny the new license based on testimony from Rainey and neighbors that referenced issues under Kulwant’s ownership. The two Dhillons are related, as a court ruling has noted, but their business operations are separate.

Neighborhood Petro, represented by Andrew Arena at the hearing, also sued. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys Timothy Baldwin and Olivia McQuade. Baljinder’s suit was joined with Kulwant’s initial lawsuit.

Yang found that Neighborhood Petro’s due process rights were violated during the license hearing because the committee relied on neighborhood testimony about Kulwant’s operation of the business, which isn’t legally relevant in a request by a new owner for a new license. Yang, however, did rule that the city didn’t violate Neighborhood Petro’s Fifth Amendment rights because the business had no right to a license it never had.

A similar situation played out for a second prospective new owner, Manwinder Singh Bhagat of Neeti Preeti Inc., and his attorneys Jason Luczak and Christopher M. Hayden from Gimbel, Reily Guerin & Brown. There was a denial of the license application, followed by a lawsuit by the applicant, joined with Kulwant Dhillon’s suit.

Yang ruled the committee violated Singh Bhagat’s due process rights because the committee relied on neighborhood testimony about Kulwant Dhillon’s operation of the business.

In a 33-page opinion, Yang overruled the city and granted Singh Bhagat his license request. “This Court finds the Committee acted arbitrarily, oppressively, unreasonably, and without substantial evidence,” she wrote in reversing the council’s decision.

Due to the sustained turnover in the City Attorney’s Office, the attorneys representing the city repeatedly changed since the case was first filed. Assistant city attorney Tyrone St. Junior initially oversaw the case, only to resign and be replaced by John McNally, who later resigned for a job at Gimbel. The point person for the city is currently deputy city attorney Todd Farris.

In a Feb. 17 email to the City Clerk‘s Office, Farris said the new ordinance is legal and enforceable, but noted the section on revocations is “a little glitchy” without further explanation.

The ordinance change, which the council could vote on Feb. 28, also allows for the City Clerk to issue a provisional license for an applicant when the application is remanded back to a committee for an additional hearing.

What Happened to the Man in Porn Film?

Judge Pedro Colon awarded Kulwant Dhillion a $144,513.31 judgment in 2021 against Frederick Alexander Allen, the male participant in the sex film, for lost profits, costs of defending business licenses and attorney fees. Allen, now 30, never appeared in court to defend himself.

During the same summer Allen filmed the video in the gas station he was charged with battery for beating up another individual near the gas station. In May 2019, he was sentenced to six months in the House of Correction with work-release privileges by Judge Dennis R. Cimpl for the incident.

In addition to his porno film exploits, Allen is a rapper under the name Fella Run It All. As of 2021, he reports living in Florida. You can subscribe to his explicit videos on OnlyFans for $12 per month or listen to his music for free on YouTube. The lyrics of the music frequently include references to his film work.

“If I wasn’t doing porn I’d probably be selling drugs to fund my music career and live my expensive lifestyle,” he told Jukebox Culture that year. Allen told the music website he is his one and only role model.

Before he got to Florida he appeared in court repeatedly in Wisconsin.

When Allen was subject to a 2019 paternity case he stated he had no income. He was also cited that year for driving without a valid license and insurance in Racine and Walworth counties.

In 2012, Allen was given a suspended sentence of 12 months in the House of Correction with a two-year probationary period by Judge David A. Hansher after pleading guilty to being party to felony burglary of a building. But Allen’s probation was revoked in 2014 as part of a restraining order.

Future judge and Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz was the prosecutor in the felony burglary case. She did not represent the district attorney’s office during the sentencing hearing.

About the Family Dollar Decision

The October 2022 Family Dollar decision dealt with a 2020 decision by the council to effectively close the national chain’s retail store near N. 27th St. and W. State St. by nonrenewing its food dealer license. In a May 2020 license renewal hearing, area Alderman Robert Bauman and then-Near West Side Partners executive director Keith Stanley opposed the renewal of the store’s food dealer license, citing issues with loitering, shoplifting and other nuisance activities.

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals found the council’s votes against renewing the 16-year-old store’s license were “arbitrary, representing its will rather than its judgment.” It found Bauman had prejudged the matter, acted as an advocate against the license’s renewal and that the Licenses Committee followed Bauman’s lead despite his not being a member of the committee, which violated the due process rights. The city, in its defense, argued Bauman was being a passionate advocate for his district.

Attorney Joshua Gimbel represented Family Dollar throughout the matter. The appeal court’s ruling is cited in Yang’s decision as a similar situation for having multiple hearings with different outcomes despite the lack of a substantial change in facts.

A copy of Yang’s ruling is available on Urban Milwaukee.