Update on Ultralounge
The Baltimore Sun's Justin Fenton attended this morning's hearing on Club Ultralounge, whose owners are asking a city judge to overturn a liquor board ruling to revoke the nightclub's license to sell alcohol.
And lest I forget, a helpful reader reminded me that in a previous story, we noted that a Bloods gang was caught in a police wiretap using the Belvedere as a meeting place to talk about drugs and other business. This is the same gang whose jailed members complained they couldn't get lobster smuggled inside.
Here is the account:
About 70 people – including two who were attacked over the weekend near the Belvedere hotel in Mount Vernon – attended a hearing Wednesday morning where the owners of a club linked to area violence asked a Baltimore Circuit Court judge to reverse the liquor board’s decision to revoke the club’s license.
Peter A. Prevas, an attorney for Louis V. Wood, the owner of Suite Ultralounge, argued that a new law governing BYOB “bottle clubs” that went into effect last year was “sloppy” and unclear, and said the club’s due process rights had been violated at a revocation hearing. The club operates from the basement of the historic Belvedere hotel and attracts a hip-hop crowd that sometimes swells to hundreds, though the hotel houses other bars as well.
But attorneys for the city and neighborhood association said the liquor board was within its rights to shut down the bottle club. At a hearing last fall, police and community members said the club had been linked to an uptick in violence in the trendy neighborhood, including a double shooting and a stabbing on Oct. 11. The club’s license was revoked in November, but it has remained open pending the appeal. Since then, the violence and noise complaints have only gotten worse, residents said.
“The liquor board has to ensure the safety,” said Alice G. Pinderhughes, representing the liquor board. “There is a danger to this community, and [the board] has to be able to do something.”
In attendance were two people who said they were attacked in separate incidents on Saturday night that residents believe stem from the club. Both said they were passing through the area on their way home when they became victims of unprovoked attacks.
A female victim sporting a black eye said she was attacked from behind by a group of young females who choked and struck her, and a 30-year-old man said he was also attacked while walking in the area. He did not remember the incident, due to a concussion, but his wounds told the story: cuts above and below his eye, which was nearly swollen shut, two missing teeth and 14 stitches to his lip.
“I don’t want this to happen to any of my friends or co-workers,” he told reporters outside the courthouse.
Judge Kaye A. Allison said she would issue a written decision following the hearing.
Categories: Confronting crime, Neighborhoods
Comments
I wonder. When you posted the accounts of the victims who were assaulted it was noted that police never showed up. The line of events occurring in this case sound very similar to what happened with Club 810-I believe that was its name. BPD had that under surveillance and in several incidents decided not to send police in order to maintain its case and surveillance. Then the city moved to revoke the bars liquor license before it and the Feds came down with a string of indictments that connected 810 with BGFs and witness intimidation. Perhaps that is what is playing out now with Ultra. You and your fellow reporters are doing a great job Mr. Hermann, the last bastion of what makes the Sun Papers an actual paper.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 13, 2009 2:23 PM
Good point. This is why you still need local newspapers. And good reporters.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 13, 2009 3:31 PM
Every Saturday night, which is when most of these incidents are happenning, the Suite Ultra Lounge hosts a party named "Teen Takeova". The event is run by Takeova Entertainment. Groups of teenagers leaving the Belvedere are picking out strangers to assault. Shouldn't someone hold Takeova Entertainment and "CJ Takeova" accountable as well? Also if the lawyer is arguing that these assaults might be attributed to one of the other 5 establishments with liquor licenses on the block.... exactly which of those other establishments is admitting teenagers?
Posted by: Anonymous | May 13, 2009 3:58 PM
We had similar problems in the Northeast corner of the city with a club called The Cameo on Harford Rd. near Lauraville, in an otherwise pretty quiet and peaceful neighborhood.
Once they started hosting all-ages nights, there were shootings, stabbings, other violence, parking problems, groups of underage kids running wild late at night, destroying people's property, urinating everywhere, leaving lots of trash, etc.
The Cameo has been shut down, and all is quiet now (it's now a neighborhood-appropriate place called The Parkside). It is amazing the difference. We have had none of that stuff since the Cameo closed.
I hope Mt. Vernon gets its peace back like we did. It's a much safer place here now.
Posted by: LJ | May 13, 2009 9:30 PM
Having given the specific situation at Ultralounge more thought, it's occurred to me that at least some particulars about the recent spate of violence around the Belvedere.
I'm in a generous mood, so I'd like to posit an alternative proposed series of events. For the sake of argumentation, as well as my bleeding-heart liberal guilt.
I'd like to volunteer that I'm in no way affiliated with Ultralounge, the Belvedere, or the several community associations in the area.
The Flickr pictures recently posted of a Team Takeova party actually seem rather innocuous. The kids seem quite fresh-faced, well-dressed, in the prep-hop, rather than a particularly thuggy style.
Imagine (again, purely conjecture) that the proprietors and staff of Ultralounge turned away the perpetrators of these violent acts, as they should, for reasonable course -- dress code, minor altarcations inside.
Would it be reasonable to imagine that these self-same individuals were (admittedly unjustifiably) incited to violence, out of frustration or anger with being denied entry or being ejected from Ultralounge?
So, I'll ask this -- is it fair to punish the establishment if they did in fact, do everything they should, by denying entry or ejecting these individuals? Would we ask any other business in the neighborhood to take any additional steps to curb violence, and what steps would those entail?
I'm curious as to the details of the agreements the MVBA has undertaken with other hip hop clubs in the neighborhood that have not proved to be workable with Ultralounge. Is this the basis of Ultralounge's argument that they are not subject to liquor board jurisdiction?
Ultralounge's argument, that as a BYOB club, they are not subject to liquor board jurisdiction further begs the question -- who are they accountable to? Particularly, when problems of public safety and welfare are at stake? Do they honestly believe they have a free pass to do whatever they please, by skirting around (admittedly Byzantine) municipal liquor laws?
As long as the issue is a fundamental problem of safety in the neighborhood, it unfortunately seems to me that the only reasonable recourse for the MVBA is to use every method at its disposal to forcibly shutter Ultralounge.
Posted by: Wronger Grammar | May 21, 2009 5:53 PM
I really just want people to be safe. The last couple months there have been no Takeova events.. and there have been no beatings. Now a new event is scheduled for this Saturday. I'm curious to see what happens.
Posted by: Anonymous | August 6, 2009 2:06 PM