If you get a message to call the Lewiston tax collector in the next few weeks, return that call.

One person didn’t on Wednesday and missed out on a pair of tickets to Friday’s sold-out Maineiacs game at the Colisee.

“Keep in mind that it’s tax time and I am a tax collector,” said City Treasurer Paul Labrecque. “I guess they didn’t know what to think.”

Labrecque selected four random Lewiston properties on Wednesday as part of a city promotion and called each property owner to offer a pair of free tickets to the sold-out game.

“I tried not to sound too much like a telemarketer,” Labrecque said.

The first three called back by Thursday to claim their tickets. When the fourth pair went unclaimed by Friday afternoon, Labrecque changed tactics.

“I saw this guy registering his car at about 1:30 p.m. and asked him if he liked hockey,” Labrecque said. That guy, David Stone, walked out with the tickets. The other winners were Helena and Terry Gray; Lorraine and Benoit Bell; and Barbara and Claude Dubois.

“They’re all taxpayers,” Labrecque said. “We just used a different approach.”

Labrecque said he expected the city to do the same thing in coming weeks when the Maineiacs are in the playoffs.

“I think we’ve grappled on to something good here,” Labrecque said. “We’ll definitely do it again next year.”

– Scott Taylor
If it bleeds, it leads

The Sun Journal had a brief cameo on national TV Wednesday, when ABC aired its third hour of Stephen King’s new Lewiston-based miniseries, “Kingdom Hospital.”

A nerdy security guard in King’s haunted hospital is shown reading the paper, sporting its familiar sunrise logo but crammed with a jumbled assortment of stories.

The biggest headline reads: “Accused killer of 6 held in Androscoggin County Jail.”

Meanwhile, the guard mumbles about the comics: “I want to read Beetle Bailey and catch up with Sluggo and Nancy.”

The newspaper joins several local institutions that may be referenced by the TV show. Already, patches worn by United Ambulance paramedics have appeared on actors’ costumes. Lewiston police have also sent their patches to the show, at the producers’ request.

– Daniel Hartill
No OT for hockey duty

Call it a score, maybe more, at the city-owned Colisee.

Between 15 and 20 city workers who moonlighted at the former civic center before Lewiston took over the operations continue to work part-time there, according to City Administrator Jim Bennett.

Never fear, though: They’re not on overtime.

Bennett explained that the Colisee is a separate corporation from the city itself. That means, he said, that people working there work for that entity and get paid by it.

None of the workers get overtime pay from the city, and they’re not technically paid with tax-generated money, either, Bennett noted.

Of course, not every city employee also works for the Colisee. Take Bennett, for example.

“I’ve been known to get behind the counter between periods and start pouring beers,” he said earlier this week. “It’s to help make things run smoothly. I do it when the line gets too long.”

He does it as a volunteer. He doesn’t get paid.

Of course, that’s not to say he’d refuse a tip.

– Doug Fletcher