The Bird pummels the MSCO, Scottsdale PD, and saves some licks for both Anonymous and Scientology

That last query was the punch line, peckerwoods. Even Hendershott's three-tiered chin would jiggle at that one.

BAR BUSTERS

The Scottsdale Police Department has been making loads of bar arrests lately. Not for drunken fisticuffs or other rowdy shenanigans. Nope, Scottsdale's finest have been arresting whole bars of patrons, usually at the busiest times of the week for a slew of south Scottsdale drinkaterias.

Typically, the po-po show up on a Friday or Saturday after midnight, sometimes six to a dozen strong. They ask to speak with the owner, and inspect the joint's liquor license, employee log, fake ID log, and other records. They run through a checklist of liquor-related issues. And they prevent anyone from entering or exiting the premises. Sometimes the cops check customers' IDs, running them for warrants.

So far, this beaker's identified five establishments raided in the past month: Longshot Bar and Grill, The Rogue, Chasers Bar and Nightclub, Flicka's Baja Cantina, and Club Mardi Gras. Most bar owners, citing fear of reprisals, would not talk to The Bird on the record.

Club Mardi Gras owner Jeffrey Chazen was the one exception. Chazen described how the bulls raided his saloon about 1 a.m. Sunday, March 9, during a performance by geezer rocker Barry "The Fish" Melton of Country Joe and the Fish fame.

"Why did they stop me from doing business and hold my people hostage?" wondered Chazen, adding, "The more I think about it, the more it rubs me the wrong way. I mean, if I held my customers for an hour, wouldn't that be kidnapping?"

To borrow a line from that flick Team America: World Police, "Fuck yeah!" But apparently some Valley law enforcement agencies feel they can screw over the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.

Chazen's establishment passed inspection. Other bars had minor problems. Chasers didn't have signs warning against fetal alcohol syndrome. The Rogue was over-capacity. One person at Longshot had an outstanding warrant. None of this justifies raids reminiscent of Prohibition-era clampdowns on speakeasies.

Plus, the folks this finch chatted with about the raids complained that the cops acted like class-A pricks.

DJ William Fucking Reed recalled how the Rogue was raided during the three-year anniversary party of his club night Shake! by a dozen coppers wearing Kevlar vests.

"They were essentially holding everyone hostage for an hour," said Reed. "It was insane!"

One club proprietor squawked that nothing like this had ever before happened to him during the many years he'd been in business: "It wasn't routine. Not even close. It looked like a warrant roundup."

Yet Sergeant Mark Clark, the Scottsdale PD's spokesman, insisted such "bar checks" are routine, and not part of some crackdown on booze barns. He asserted the PD is permitted to do this under Title Four of the Arizona Revised Statutes, which allows peace officers to inspect bars "during the hours in which the premises are occupied."

As for the reports of customers being detained by Scottsdale cops, Clark equivocated in classic cop flack-ese.

"A typical bar check does not include the detention or seizure of any patrons," Clark claimed. "However, the officers may restrict customers from entering based on articulable officer safety concerns or in the furtherance of an investigation."

The AZ ACLU's legal director, Dan Pochoda, thinks differently.

"It's a Fourth Amendment violation of unreasonable seizure," said Pochoda. "Seizure is defined as when a person unreasonably isn't permitted to leave pursuant to the orders of law enforcement. That's exactly what's going on here."

Why Five-O's doing this is a matter of speculation. Some say it's Mayor Mary Manross' latest crusade. (Scottsdale flack Mike Phillips denied this was true.) Others say it's an attempt to rein in underage drinking, sparked by a raid on the Mondrian Hotel's Skybar in February, which netted 24 underage cocktail-snorters.

Whatever the reason, the Scottsdale PD needs to stop pretending it operates in some police state paradise where it can bully local businesses and patrons sans consequence. Be forewarned, flatfeet: A lawsuit by a pissed-off patron will surely be around the bend if you keep up this b.s.

PROJECT MAYHEM

So who expected the voice of reason to be a Scientologist's? Not this cynical starling, who still thinks Scientology's full of hooey. But that's what church spokesman Sanford Block sounded like the other day when describing the secretive anti-Scientology group Anonymous.

Speaking of Anonymous' March 15 protest before the Church of Scientology's PHX HQ on Seventh Street just south of Indian School Road, Block acknowledged of the Internet-savvy horde, "This is sort of their way of taking things out of virtual reality."

Indeed, the majority of 50 or 60 individuals who made the scene for the largely peaceful protest, two days after the birthday of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, were 20-something Net-obsessed geeks who'd watched V for Vendetta and Fight Club one too many times.

Guy Fawkes masks from V for Vendetta were all the rage, as were signs ripping Scientologists Tom Cruise and John Travolta. One cherub-faced protester wore a giant hat inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas. Another, dressed as a penguin, toted a "Fuck Scientology" sign.