Terry Martin was on the verge of losing the Outback Lodge, when Lady Luck– or something– stepped in.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Preston Avenue nightclub owner Terry Martin figures he was about a week from losing everything he’d worked for. The phone had been cut off. He couldn’t pay to renew his liquor license, and the $15,000 he’d recently spent renovating the Outback Lodge appeared wasted, as he was drowning in debt. That is, until fate intervened. He won the lottery— $100,000 worth.

The timing of his August 13 win and the $71,000 after-taxes giant check couldn’t have been better for Martin.

“I was the brokest I’ve ever been,” says Martin, who was also reeling from bad publicity and a whole lot of police attention stemming from a November shooting in his parking lot after a hip-hop event at his new downstairs dance hall, Club OBL.

But the threat hanging over his head was the imminent loss of his liquor license.

“I never lost it,” explains Martin. “But it was so bad (more)