Craig,
There were 4 gun shots fired Sunday morning at about 2:45 am, by or at persons who had been in the Island Groove Cafe and were hanging on the corner outside the club. After hearing the shots I looked out my window and saw several people scatter in all directions on the street, some going back into the club.
15 minutes or so later a large group of young men, some of whom had been running and yelling in the street just after the shots, came back outside of the club and went north on Sheridan Road.
About 4 squad cars responded, and they seemed to find shells casings in the middle of Sheridan Road which they picked up. The police spoke to the club owner Mike at one point, and to someone in a van who stayed on the scene. The police I spoke with on the scene said they do receive complaint calls about noise from club patrons regularly, and they urged attendance at CAPS meetings.
Signed,
Tired of Shooting by Island Groove Cafe
18 comments:
Where is the Island Grove Cafe?
7644 N. Sheridan. Somehow its not surprising that something like that would happen there. Rogers and Sheridan is not exactly the safest part of RP.
Craig, sorry to change the subject here, but there is something going down at the corner of Bosworth and Howard. It's about 9pm or so on Monday. There are at least 7 squad cars blocking the street. We saw an ambulance leaving the area as we drove up. Any news from readers or your trusty police scanner would be greatly appreciated for those of us NOH. Thanks.
I was just up there and made a blog post about it. You guys got some serious issues up there. I believe they are going to close Gale Park early tonight.
Wow, we haven't heard a thing over here on Sheridan Road from west on Bosworth. Not even any sirens. Sorry to hear it but not surprised. The neighborhood to the west of Sheridan is much worse.
Sheridan & Rogers is actually a nice corner, much quieter than just west of here. There is one bad landlord, Isaac Sargon who has a bad building just north of the Cafe. He also owns the Island Groove Cafe building (which used to be Biddy Mulligans). The guys renting the Cafe from him have no liquor license (yet) and are currently renting it out to private parties. They are not controlling the types of people who go there even though they promised the neighbors they would. The types of crowds have been getting steadily worse over the weeks this summer in terms of late night noise and bad looking characters. The Cafe renters need to be held accountable for the behavior of their patrons.
If indeed the owners of the club are not controlling the crowds they get in the pre-license stage, it will severely damage their quest for a liquor license.
Maybe we still have too much a preponderence of lowlifes in this area to deal with, to encourage bars and clubs at just this stage, at least in the NOH area.
I'm not opposed to clubs and bars on principal, and we surely want more entertainment venues down the road, but maybe we want to get the lowlife population out of the nabe before we let more open.
I was all for Island Groove, but it sounds like they have blown it with their failure to contain the situation at their property. Neighbors will be very troubled by the shooting and will surely obstruct their efforts to get a liquor license.
Better get to the C.A.P.S. meeting so the police will know what is going on. What a joke. Island Groove Cafe is a mistake. JoMo is a chump. North of Howard anything goes.
The CAPS program is a useless joke and ought to be scrapped. The police already know damn well what's going on- 911 gets the calls and it all goes over the scanner and onto that day's reports.
Notice that either a neighborhood doesn't need CAPS because it has no problems, or that CAPS does no good.
All that happens at the meetings is that the police recap crime and problems that have happened and the citizens present complain about problems the police already know exist.
I'm NOT being rough on the police, mind you. I'm merely pointing out that when your "problem" population becomes overwhelming, to the point where the police are flooded with violence and crime to deal with, a handful of citizens coming to meetings to spend a half hour or hour to complain about what every one already knows about and has called about is an exercise in futility.
The police are better deployed on the street than at CAPS meetings, and the citizens would do better to take the time and direct their energy toward applying pressure to remove the source of the problem, which is dozens of badly-run apt buildings stuffed with the unplaceable refugees from the demolished housing projects. We got the people who were too big a problem, because of criminal records or too many kids, to be placed anywhere else, while other areas got the good project tenants.
I agree about CAPS generally, though I do think it can serve the purpose of bringing neighbors together in a common setting so they can compare notes and/or rally together, in situations where they might not know of others who are going through the same problems. That's especially true for renters in apartment buildings who have less contact with the surrounding neighbors.
Regardless, I will try to go to next month's CAPS meeting so at least I can say I went.
As for the Cafe, the owners have demonstrated complete ineptitude or disregard for all of the things that they said they would control, and all of the potential problems their neighbors warned them about when they first opened. I hope that north coast is correct in saying that this will help prevent them from getting a liquor license. I plan to do what I can to investigate the license process.
I have a clear view of the front of the club, and every weekend when I am woken up in the middle of the night, I watch the patrons out my window (I also call 911). The type of patron has steadily changed from well-dressed 30 to 40-something people (who were still noisy and thoughtless) to thuggy, younger, long-white-t-shirt wearing, tattoo-sporting, almost naked (literally) girl toting (prostitutes?). And yes, these people are seen coming in and pout of the Cafe itself, not just hanging on the corner.
The shouting, loud talking, car radio blaring, car honking has continued just as it was with the older crowd, but for longer and louder periods, and with more hanging on the corner at 2 and 3 am. Mike can often seen standing in front of the Cafe, doing *nothing* or taking a walk around the block, doing *nothing*.
Bah.
breecat, document every episode of unruly behavior you can, and take pictures if it is safe for you to do so.
Then blog it to get your neighbors interested. I don't speak for Toni at 24/7 Howardwatchers, but she might be glad to get photos of things that take place there.
Call 311 and better yet, send photos of unruly actions and the perps to Toni, Joe Moore, and all relavent city authorities, and to all your neighbors.
When the community meeting takes place at which local citizens are invited to voice their opinions on whether the place should get a license, you all can stand united in your opposition and offer all this stuff as proof of why the Groove should not be granted a license.
Good luck.
Thanks for the suggestions, north coast. Taking photos is a good idea. I want to stay out of the spotlight in this fight, but I certainly will be documenting the events, and participating wherever I can be useful, and I am already in touch with the local police and the alderman's office about the situation.
Also, please keep us up to date about any liquor license or zoning hearings concerning this property that we can get involved in.
"Also, please keep us up to date about any liquor license or zoning hearings concerning this property that we can get involved in.
Thank you for advising us of this terrible incident."
Well, here you go - below is the email reply I got from Michael Land when I wrote to the Alderman's office about the shots fired incident. He confirms that the special use permit application was granted. The Ward office has not yet announced this to my knowledge, and I have not seen the Zoning Comm's minutes posted on the Ward 49 site yet, though I have looked almost daily.
I have not heard back from Jim Ginderske yet, and my follow-up phone messages to Mr. Land have not yet been returned. I hope that one of them will indeed contact me so I can get some details about the process and confirm some things with them.
From Michael Land:
"I will forward this email to Mr. Ginderske, and urge you to talk to each other directly, however the zoning committee approved the special use permit application. The next step is for the owners to actually apply for the spcial use permit in order to proceed with the liquor license application."
Michael Land
49th Ward
I'm happy to report that Michael Land returned my call. We chatted for quite awhile, and I was able to tell him that the type of patron at the Cafe has changed quite a bit over the last 4-6 weeks, and I reiterated that the gang/thug looking people who were involved in the shooting the other night were indeed patrons of the Cafe.
He in turn said that his understanding of the reason the special use permit application was approved by the zoning board was that they decided that they didn't want the two Mike's having any more of these "private parties" where they seem to have no control, and they want them to be subject to the laws and restrictions that a licensed nightclub has to abide by. He also mentioned that they were told to hire security, or I think he used the word 'bouncers.' He said they were also told they have to provide parking. I don't know what the details of that are, we didn't discuss it, but I know it's a big issue for some of the neighbors.
Michael stated that it is still a long process for them to get a liquor license and that there are means by which the community can register its objection. I briefly discussed the Cafe's proximity to the local nursing home and the Baptist church around the corner, but he said he was unsure if those two facilities were within the 100 feet boundary restriction which prevents a tavern license, and he also wasn't sure if either one was the type of facility included in that legal restriction.
I told him it is my intention to look into and follow up on the various options to prevent the licensing, because the owners have not shown any good faith toward their neighbors. He agreed that they have not shown very good sense or discretion in their entertainment and security choices so far.
For what it's worth....
To find all the legal options that we as neighbors have, go here:
http://egov.cityofchicago.org/city/webportal/home.do
Then click on:
the For Business column: Licenses
then Licenses again,
then Business Licenses,
then Business Licenses again,
then Liquor Licensing
then you can read the Guide in pdf form (the first link in list) and see pages 19-23.
Or read the Restrictions and Special Regulations link, as well as the Community Meetings and Deleterious Impact Ordinance sections.
So let me get this straight: Mike Land said, ". . .the reason the special use permit application was approved by the zoning board was that they decided that they didn't want the two Mike's having any more of these "private parties" where they seem to have no control, and they want them to be subject to the laws and restrictions that a licensed nightclub has to abide by."
So they are allowed to (implies encouraged to) apply for a license BECAUSE they don't control their events properly? BECAUSE they show a total lack of concern for the surrounding community? BECAUSE their patrons are getting more and more out of hand? And this is why? So they will be,". . . subject to the laws and restrictions that a licensed nightclub has to abide by"? So in the meantime, the neighbors have to put up with this dangerous, raucous behavior - this regular disturbance of the peace? All so that eventually they can be cited under laws governing licenced establishments? What possible sense does that make? Why can't they get closed down now? Why do we have to wait?
Sounds like a payoff to me....how else could that make sense?
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