Co-Owners of Otter House Arrested, Charged

Co-owners of the Otter House, Stephen Cameli and Paul Stoddard, were arrested and charged with maintaining a public nuisance, Fredericksburg police public information officer Natalia Bledsoe said Thursday.  

Bledsoe told Fredericksburg.com that the charges are related to "repeated incidents" at the downtown business.

In an email, Bledsoe said the charges against Cameli, 33, and Stoddard, 32, are misdemeanors. Both men were released on summonses, said Bledsoe.  

According to Fredericksburg police, there have been over 60 reported incidents and arrests since September 2011 at the Otter House including urinating in public, vandalism and drunk in public, among other incidents.  

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 More than eight police cruisers, including two state police troopers, shut down Princess Anne Street to respond to the incident.

The Otter House was under police attention again following a drug raid at the business in late July. 

In an earlier interview Stoddard told Patch that the business was cooperating with police following the drug raid. 

"We don’t want to have a bad relationship with the police and we don’t want them to think we’re doing something bad," "We are doing everything we can to help them."

In a from the raid, detectives found two pills in a green plastic bag, a smoking device in an office and another smoking device in an outside alley way in a broken down small fridge and green plant-like material in the alley.

A DJ that entertains at the Otter House on Thursday nights, DJ the Don, posted on his Facebook page that he was informed Wednesday that the restaurant was canceling its entertainment for an "undetermined amount of time."

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