The most difficult part in writing is deciding what to leave out. So often, a wonderful sidelight gets deleted at the last minute because there’s simply no room for it, especially if it does not really add to the main story. Fortunately, there are always other venues to write about the issue thus deleted — like this column.
On Saturday, July 2, 1960, one Garland A. Mines, 40, was arrested by the DC police on the charges of being a peeping tom. He was taken to the 9thPrecinct house for processing, and was released under deposit of $100 in bail.
Mines raised eyebrows when he not only managed to pay off this sum in cash, but did so by peeling a 100 dollar bill off a much larger roll that he was carrying in his pocket. When the police became inquisitive, Mines told them that the large sum he had his pocket was due to his being a manager at the Atlas Theater, and he was to bank this money, which he claimed to be $8000.
Needless to say, the police now became even more suspicious, and called the owner of the theater, one Francis J. Storty, know to one an all as Frank. Storty had movies in his blood — he had begun working for his father, a theater-owner, as a young man, and taken over the operation of multiple theaters on his father’s death 20 years earlier.
The Atlas Theater in 1958. (Atlas Performing Arts Center)
Storty was surprised to hear that there was this much money to be banked, and promised to get back to the police after having checked the books. Which turned out to be a good idea, as no money had been deposited for a good week prior to Mines’s arrest. Mines confessed to having embezzled the $3300 dollars thus missing, and a search of his house found the money — minus $1000 Mines had already spent — including, presumably, the $100 bail he had posted.
Mines was immediately rearrested and held on a $1000 bond, one which he was presumably unable to post without access to the Atlas’s money. His trial was set for two weeks in the future.
Unfortunately, this was as far as the Washington Post was willing to pursue this intriguing story, they saw no reason to print the final disposition of the case, whether Mines was ever convicted of either being a peeping tom or an embezzler.
One final footnote did appear: Around 1997, a TV crew made a documentary on the fight for Iwo Jima. One of the people who had fought there who was interviewed? A Garland A. Mines of Washington DC, whose age is such that he would have, indeed, been 40 years old in 1960. The same guy? It’s impossible to tell, but he is listed as a retired heating contractor. If it is indeed the same person, it is good to see that a slip-up (or two) are not enough to permanently cripple a man’s career.
For much more on the Atlas Theater, see the November Hill Rag.