Latest news with #MoonPalace
Express Tribune
04-05-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
'I love vanity'
In an interview with Ahmad Ali Butt, Nabila Maqsood shared how her upbringing influenced her career as a renowned beautician. Nabila, who has primarily lived in Karachi, began by speaking about her mixed descent. "My mother is from an Afghan-Persian background, and those people are very vain. They may not have money to eat, but they must have Yardley soap. That's the kind of background it was," she said. Nabila grew up surrounded by up-do hair wigs, hooded hair dryers, and the smell of product mixed with the breeze of the air conditioner. She recalled that she frequented a Chinese beauty salon called Moon Palace in Karachi's Tariq Road during the 1970s. "As a kid, I remember going there on the weekends," she added. "I used to love the smell of hair spray. Even though the haircuts would be terrible, I'd still visit to take in the mixed aromas." Making tough calls The stylist was 11 years old when she got the chance to use a pair of scissors on someone else's hair. "The first haircut I did was for my mother's friend, though I had been cutting my own hair ever since I was a child," she shared, expressing surprise over the fact that the lady trusted a little girl with a task as delicate as a trim. That led to a flourishing pursuit of haircutting, which Nabila did for friends, relatives, neighbours, and more. But it wasn't until she had become a mother of two that she realised she had a knack for the craft. Only 21 years old then, she invested her personal property to move to London and receive professional training at Vidal Sassoon's salon. Setting up shop sometime later, she began her business with a 75 rupees haircut in 1986. But given social and cultural constraints, Nabila's journey wasn't easy. "I come from very humble and conservative backgrounds, so my family and in-laws both said that I had lost my mind," she said. She shared that, naturally, her loved ones opposed her decision to sell off her jewellery and leave her kids behind for this new endeavour. "They all thought that this was a temporary hobby that I would soon lose interest in. But that hasn't happened yet, and it's been 40 years." The stylist added that she went through phases of self-exploration before eventually finding her calling. "I knew that I wanted to do something. I dabbled in graphics, art, fashion and clothes, and then I realised hair is my métier because that's something I love. That's something I always had bad and had to fix it myself, and I thought I could do it better than others. So now there's no looking back." Meeting the Queen of Melody What began as a risky venture took Nabila and her styling business to great heights, earning her recognition from showbiz legends like Noor Jehan. "When she was in the hospital, I think Dilip Kumar was coming to Karachi. So at that time, she expressed her wish to her daughters that she wanted a haircut done from Nabila." The beautician added that her close friend Hina linked the two up. "I don't do home visits, but you know, I was totally in awe. Out of respect, I went to Aga Khan Hospital at that age. And we hit it off so well because she was so vain, and I love vanity. I love people who are aware of hair, makeup, and fashion." Nabila gushed over the actor-singer's passion for beauty, which helped make the visit an enjoyable experience for her. "She told me that she went to Paris, where someone bleached her hair before dyeing it again. Since she had very silky hair, that added volume to the texture. So they lightened it and brought it back to a darker shade." Moving with the times While Nabila can't speak for others in the game, she feels that she's still learning, and a part of that is keeping up with current business practices. "As we speak, I've hired someone who's going to groom me through AI because I feel that I should 100 per cent know what's happening in current times, whether it's developing products, trends, architecture, ingredients, or fabrics. I need to be up to date on what is happening." This curiosity comes from the fact that the beautician doesn't believe in sticking to her forte. "Someone once asked me, 'You've done everything now, so what is left to do?' But I feel that I've just gotten started because now is when I'm bottling myself. Literally. Now with my 40 years of experience, you don't need to come to me. I'll be the one to send you my packages." But Nabila's journey is proof that even the biggest success stories aren't free of past regrets. "Since my business was my priority, I think my kids didn't get the time and attention that they should've gotten then. When I realised this by the age of 35, they had already gone to boarding schools. Since then, I've been trying to mend what I lost in those years." However, she's been putting her heart and soul into that part of her life as well. "I can happily say that for the past 15 years or so, my relationship with my family has been really good," she shared. "It's not easy to balance everything, so there's always a price to pay."
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Yahoo
Off-duty WSP trooper was frequent regular at Richland bar before fatal crash, say police
Washington State Patrol Trooper Sarah Clasen and her husband were frequent customers at the Richland bar where she spent four hours before a DUI-suspected fatal collision, police reports show. Richland investigators say the Clasens' bar tab from March 1 is missing, but they seized 42 handwritten tabs from the Moon Palace for December, January and February with the names 'Trent and Sarah,' 'Sarah and Trent' or 'Sarah.' The bar tabs appear to show the couple visited the small bar at a closed Chinese-American restaurant three to five times every week in the two months before the deadly crash, according to police. One bar employee told police the Clasens were great customers who 'don't over drink.' She described them as 'responsible and respectable people,' said the report by Richland Officer Steve Heid. She said Sarah Clasen was a 'sweet, wonderful and caring person. ... She also acknowledged that anyone could make a mistake.' Sarah Clasen, a trooper for 13 years, is under investigation for driving drunk while off duty and hitting a 20-year-old Richland motorcyclist, killing him. At the scene, she denied being impaired but refused to take any field sobriety tests. Six hours later her blood sample taken with a court order reportedly showed her blood-alcohol level was 0.17%, said police reports. That's more than twice the state's legal limit of 0.08%. Richland police used camera footage from traffic lights and businesses to determine Clasen and her husband, Trent, a retired state trooper, met at the Moon Palace after her shift ended Saturday afternoon and they stayed there for four hours. Sarah Clasen, 35, then picked up a pizza she'd ordered online and was turning off Highway 240 into her Horn Rapids neighborhood a few minutes later when she hit Jhoser Vega Sanchez about 7:30 p.m. The nearly 400 pages of reports Richland police released to the Tri-City Herald under the Open Records Act show the Clasens were regulars at the Moon Palace, as well as at the Bombing Range Brewing Company and neighboring The Dive Restaurant and Bar near Horn Rapids. The Bombing Range brewery co-owner told investigations that she 'adores' Sarah and was shocked to hear that she was involved in the deadly collision. The Moon Palace has operated in the shopping center across Symons Street from the Uptown Shopping Center for more than 40 years. It's unclear when the restaurant closed but the bar continues to operate with access through a red side door. State liquor control records show the bar has had no violations in over 10 years. Some Richland police officers noted in the reports that they didn't even know the quiet little bar was open for business. While police said the bar's manager wasn't fully cooperative, the lounge does not have a history of problems. The dark cash-only lounge has a full bar with stools and a scattering of tables and TVs broadcasting sporting events. The handwritten bar tabs seized by police show drink prices are cheap, and one officer was told by a neighboring business owner they are 'very heavy-handed with their pours.' Washington state Liquor and Cannabis Board has no restrictions on accepting cash only and, in fact, cash-only businesses are not unusual in Eastern Washington, according to the board's enforcement team. The Moon Palace bar tabs didn't show what customers order, only the date, the cost of drinks and a total. In the case of the 42 tabs marked 'Sarah and Trent' or just 'Sarah,' they generally showed a list of four to six entries, usually $6 to $7.50 each. The tabs seized for December showed one or both of the Clasens visited the Moon Palace at least five times, said police. In January, there were 20 tabs in 18 days with one or both of their names. And they had 17 tabs on 15 days in February, said police. Though it doesn't show what was ordered, it's clear customers aren't there to eat. The bar doesn't serve meals, just some prepackaged frozen appetizer items that can be heated quickly. Sarah Clasen was driving home in a Kia Telluride about 7:30 p.m. on March 1 after stopping by Domino's Pizza on Jadwin Avenue. She was taking a left from the highway onto Village Parkway when she collided with Vega Sanchez on his motorcycle. The Lamb Weston employee had taken the 2002 Suzuki out for a ride, after asking his parents if he could go for a drive on the bike he'd recently purchased. Investigators say he driving under the speed limit. In the hours after the crash, Sarah Clasen never mentioned stopping by the bar. At one point, she told Officer Kevon Skinner she was out grabbing dinner. 'She also said, 'I should have paid the $6 delivery fee,'' Skinner wrote in his report. Police started searching for where the Kia was earlier in the day by using traffic cameras. The footage showed the SUV was driving through north Richland between 12:30 and 1 p.m. Officer Jonathan Holen, who did the search, realized that Sarah Clasen couldn't have been behind the wheel because she was at work until 3 p.m. The police saw the Clasens' other registered vehicle, a GMC Sierra at 3:20 p.m driving on the 1400 block of Jadwin Avenue, just a few businesses away from the Moon Palace. Later, the Sierra and Kia were seen leaving the area about 7:30 p.m., Holen said. Police went to a nearby bar to ask if the Clasens had stopped there. They hadn't, but the employees there said the Moon Palace also has a bar. Security video from other businesses also showed the Clasens' two cars stop in the Moon Palace parking lot. The footage showed Trent Clasen went inside at 3:12 p.m. and Sarah Clasen arrived at 3:24 p.m. They are next seen walking out of the bar at 7:26 p.m., less than 15 minutes before the fatal collision. Three days after the crash, Officer Heid visited the Moon Palace at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 4, to find out more about what Sarah Clasen was doing before the collision. 'I saw that the bar was a poorly lit, dingy drinking establishment. I saw that it was occupied by approximately 10 middle-aged to elderly men at this time,' he wrote. Benton County Assessor records show the longtime owners are Jim and Chang Woo, but police reports say it's managed by their son Bradley Woo. 'Based on my little interaction with Bradley, as well as the overall environment at the location, I determined that Bradley would not likely cooperate with my investigation and provide me with documents willingly,' Heid wrote. So, he and Sgt. Shawn Swanson returned the next day with a search warrant from a judge to seize the bar's records for March 1. They showed Bradley Woo photographs of Sarah and Trent Clasen, and he 'gave a hesitant pause before answering, 'I, I, they've been in here a long time ago,'' Swanson wrote. Woo told officers he wasn't working that day. 'Woo refused to answer who the employees were. Woo was clearly uncomfortable with the conversation and said, 'You know, I don't really want to answer anything because I don't know what this is going to turn into.'' When the officers handed him the search warrant, his first call was to attorney Scott Johnson, the same private attorney who is handling Sarah Clasen's defense. 'I found it suspicious that Mr. Woo didn't identify himself by his full name to his attorney when he called and left a message. This made me suspect that Mr. Woo and his attorney had spoken beforehand, and that Mr. Johnson was expecting the phone call.' Woo got a call back from Johnson within a minute and they talked about the search warrant. Heid said he expected the quick call back was 'related to the attorney's prior knowledge of this incident as well as its high-profile nature.' Johnson told the Tri-City Herald he didn't know about the search until he received that phone call. 'I can unequivocally tell you that in the thousands of cases that I have handled, I have never advised anyone to destroy potential evidence. Any inference in any report that suggests otherwise is false,' Johnson said. The investigators wrote that they knew the Clasens had been in the bar, but when they searched for the tabs from March 1, they only discovered two tabs with other names from that Saturday shift. Bookkeeping at Moon Palace is 'unorganized and scattered,' Swanson wrote. They don't have computerized records and everything was written by hand and stacked on a counter behind the bar, wrote Heid. There were dozens of tab lists on waitress 'Guest Check' notebooks dating back a few months. 'Based on the number of times that Sarah and Trent had apparently visited this location, I was concerned that the receipts or the bar tickets ... had been intentionally destroyed,' Heid wrote in his report. When he asked about the apparently missing tabs, Bradley Woo 'was unable to provide a reasonable explanation regarding how he documents the transactions and how he keeps his books,' Heid said. 'His statements seemed inconsistent with the records that I observed and it seemed apparent to me that he likely had destroyed this piece of evidence,' Heid claimed. The officers, believing the would lose more evidence if they waited, asked a judge to broaden their warrant to let them collect the bar tabs from December through the end of February. Establishments with liquor licenses are required to keep a record of sales data for tax purposes, but individual bar tabs are not the required documentation, according to Samantha Guter, spokesperson for the Washington state Liquor and Cannabis Board. Disposing of a customer's receipt does not violate any laws or rules the board reinforces, Guter told the Herald. Moon Palace renewed its liquor license in 2024 and had no violations from the state for 12 years. At that time, they received a written warning for not having proper alcohol server permits. And in 2004, it was among 45 of 120 Mid-Columbia businesses that sold liquor to minors in an undercover sting operation. Guter also said state records show no pattern of the Moon Palace being a trouble spot for drunk drivers. The state's 'Place of Last Drink' program gathers information on where DUI suspects had their last drink. The data is shared with the Washington state Liquor and Cannabis Board and may lead to increased premises checks, Guter said. The program, however, is based on breath test results. Blood test results are not reported to the liquor board. State records show the most recent DUI linked to the Moon Palace based on a breath test was in 2013. However, in light of the March crash, Guter said state liquor control officers based in Pasco will be looking more into the operations of Moon Palace to ensure alcohol service and consumption is following state laws. An inspection on March 13 by Benton Franklin Health District employees show the business passed it's latest food safety inspection. Clasen has not been charged with a crime and was released from jail on her own recognizance on the Monday following the crash. The Spokane County prosecutor is handling the case to avoid any potential conflicts of interest in the Tri-Cities. More evidence testing is under way in the case, officials told the Herald. Clasen remains on paid administrative leave pending an internal investigation and potential criminal charges. Tri-City Herald reporter Annette Cary contributed to this report.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Yahoo
Docs: WSP trooper's blood-alcohol level was 0.17% 6 hours after fatal crash
This story was originally published on Washington State Patrol (WSP) Trooper Sarah Clasen was driving her personal car on March 1 when investigators said she turned in front of a motorcycle, resulting in the death of the 20-year-old rider. According to court documents, she was drunk hours after the crash. The crash happened along State Route 240 (SR 240) and Village Parkway in Richland at 7:30 p.m. The motorcyclist, 20-year-old Jhoser Sanchez, died at Kadlec Regional Medical Center after Clasen collided into him in her Kia Telluride. He'd only ridden the motorcycle about three or four times before, police reported. She was driving at approximately 20 mph when the accident occurred. Now that more than a month has passed since, more details are being revealed about the fatal crash. The WSP Seattle Toxicology Laboratory found that Clasen's blood-alcohol level was 0.17%, nearly six hours after the crash—more than double the legal limit of 0.08%. Clasen also tried to leave the crime scene, but couldn't, according to the documents obtained by The Tri-City Herald. One witness reported she attempted to drive away before deciding against it, while another witness described Clasen as more like a nervous teenager than a seasoned police officer. According to witness testimony, it wasn't until other people approached her SUV that she began helping at the scene. She then assisted the team of firefighters who arrived at the scene in their attempts to save Sanchez's life. Both Spokane County prosecutors and her defense team are conducting their own investigations, as of this reporting. Clasen, a 13-year veteran with WSP, was at Moon Palace, a Chinese restaurant with 'stiff drinks' that she and her husband, Trent, regularly frequent, according to court documents obtained by The Tri-City Herald. Seen through security cameras, prosecutors determined she and her husband were there for approximately four hours, leaving the establishment after ordering a pizza from Domino's just 10 minutes before the fatal crash occurred. 'Up to this point, I was unaware that the Moon Palace was currently a functional business even though I was aware the building was at this location,' Richland Office Steve Heid wrote in his report, obtained by The Tri-City Herald. 'The years that I've worked for the city of Richland, I had presumed that it was an abandoned building that used to function as a Chinese restaurant.' There is no record of a bill or a bar tab from the Clasens that day. Police are investigating whether Moon Palace destroyed any evidence of the two of them being there. Clasen told officers that Sanchez was driving fast when he was struck, but police reports found he was driving less than the speed limit when the accident occurred. According to documents obtained by The Tri-City Herald, Sanchez was going two miles below the posted speed limit of 55 mph. Clasen agreed to provide a written statement detailing what happened, but declined to do a field sobriety or a breath test.
