A Bad Night in Deep Ellum Cost a Barbecue Vendor a Month of Income and 7 Days in Jail

Montis James, a 63-year-old entrepreneur known for selling barbeque in Deep Ellum, was pulling out of the parking lot of Charlie’s Star Lounge near midnight on Saturday, March 23. He had just wrapped up a stint hawking his wares to friends and frequent patrons and was making a quick delivery. Unbeknownst to him, a drunk man had latched on to the back of his truck.

“I didn’t feel anything,” James tells the Observer. “I didn’t know he was back there.”

The man, who we’ll call Brian, fell off the truck as James pulled away, sustaining a head injury and landing in the hospital. James says his friends called him to share what happened, so he returned to the scene to give a statement. That’s when he was arrested on the charge of collision involving injury, entering a nightmare that, as of this writing, is still going on.

James was arrested on the spot and spent a week in county jail. He lost his car and one of his pit smokers, both of which are impounded by Dallas police as part of their ongoing investigation. Over a month since the incident, he still is not sure when or if he can retrieve his property. The street vendor, known for his sharp hat, dance moves and friendly attitude, now finds himself contending with red tape, bureaucracy and a mountain of bills he's struggling to pay. He estimates he has lost as much as $20,000 in missed sales thus far.

“I’m basically in limbo,” he says, “all for something that wasn’t my fault.”

Brian agrees.

“It was all my fault,” he told the Observer, adding that he showed up to the bar “on a good time” and was not overserved. “I didn’t press any charges; it was all the damn cops making a huge deal out of it.”

Brian also says that he visited the district attorney’s office to fill out an affidavit of non-prosecution, a formal document in which an alleged victim states they do not wish to participate in criminal proceedings. The DA’s office declined to comment for this story, and the Dallas Police Department offered a contradictory perspective.

According to them, “the driver of the truck left the location without rendering aid to the victim.” It didn’t help that James doesn’t have an active license or vehicle registration. The department didn’t offer a timeline for when James’ property could be returned to him, saying, “that will be dependent on the status of the investigation.” While the investigation itself could take weeks, a court case could conceivably take multiple years.

“I don’t wish him any ill will,” James says of Brian. “I just want to get back to work.”

James has been in the food vendor business since 2000. Prior to making Deep Ellum one of his frequent stops, he would set up shop in Lower Greenville, particularly during St. Patrick’s Day festivities. He also works in Galveston, South Padre Island and Denver, where his son manages a pair of dispensaries.

He previously frequented hair salons and car dealerships, though he seems to have found a niche selling food outside bars. The people love him. He’s fun to be around, and he gets drunk people one thing they often need: food.

“He’s a really great resource,” says Corey Howe, a co-owner of Charlie’s Star Lounge. “We like to focus on keeping people safe. If they need water or need a place to be safe, we're never going to deny someone compassion. Montis fit in well with that.”

Howe witnessed the incident, and to him, it’s clear James didn’t mean any harm.

"His truck is incapable of speeding,” he says. “I’ve never heard him screech tires. I'm not even sure it's running on all cylinders.”

Dana Gorham met James in the Charlie’s parking lot roughly a year ago. She knew him as the friendly guy who would set up shop for a half hour most nights, sell some food, and maybe venture inside to dance and take photos.

After what she calls “the incident,” she and James connected through friends and have since grown close, especially as Gorham has helped James navigate the many questions surrounding the case against him.

“He’s freaking out, basically,” Gorham says. “No one is helping him, and he doesn't know what to do, so I've been the one to look online and help him piece things together.”

For instance, she found out that James would have to request the police report himself. He has now done that, but he was told he’d have to wait three weeks to receive it.

She also conducted some research online and determined that the ongoing investigation is the reason he has yet to receive his truck or his smoker. While the investigation itself could take weeks, a court case could conceivably take multiple years.

For his part, James says he spent several weeks trying to reach the police department and get some answers (“I didn’t want to call too often,” he says, “because I didn’t want to bother them”). He finally reached someone, but he says he wasn’t told much.

“I really can’t discuss it with you,” the officer told him.

It likely complicates matters that James’ work was illegal: It’s against the law to sell food out of a car. That said, he notes that police officers were often some of his biggest customers.

“They never had a problem with me,” he says. In fact, he adds, “they protected me.”

When James talks about his plight, he doesn’t seem overly frustrated. He has even retained his humor; he chuckles from time to time, thinking about the absurdity of it all. His weeklong incarceration might have been the most absurd time of all.

When he was booked into county jail in the early morning hours after the incident, James gave up his clothes and his phone. He saw a judge the next day and learned that bail would cost him $7,500. Some fellow incarcerated people (“jail lawyers,” as he calls them) informed James that he didn’t need to pay the full amount; 10%, or $750, would do. There was just one problem:

His phone had all of his contacts in it, and he couldn’t recall friends’ or family members’ numbers from memory. Had his brother not shown up a week later at the jail, he might still be there.

James laughs when he shares this story, then grows quiet. When he speaks again, he sounds tired. He’s been selling some custom-designed hats, he says, and some barbeque from his house. But he wants to be back on the street with his customers.

“I already miss it,” he says. “That might be the worst part: missing the job, missing the people.”