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NEWS
City may put restrictions on big clubs
Three people received gunshot wounds at Venom nightclub early Saturday morning at approximately 2:45 a.m.
Purchase this photoHUNTINGTON -- Mayor Kim Wolfe says his administration will propose a city ordinance that places restrictions on large night clubs in the wake of another weekend shooting.
"The problem that we're seeing over and over are these megabars that let in hundreds of people and are run by irresponsible bar owners," Wolfe said Tuesday. "I think we need to come up with some guidelines."
Wolfe and Police Chief Skip Holbrook say a shooting early Saturday at Club Venom in the 1100 block of 4th Avenue is the latest in a trend of violent incidents that have occurred inside or outside large night clubs in downtown Huntington. Two West Virginia State University students and a South Point, Ohio, woman were shot in the club about 2:45 a.m. Their injuries were not life-threatening. No arrests have been made.
The incident comes three months after violence erupted at Club Babylon, located in the 800 block of 4th Avenue. Three men were shot outside the club, and a fourth was shot and killed by a Huntington police officer inside the club.
"I cannot emphasize enough that it comes down to a very small number of bar owners who we're having repeated problems with," Holbrook said. "And in every case, it's a bar with large occupancy levels, inadequate staffing to police themselves and a fly-by-night system that includes letting criminals with weapons inside."
It's common practice for a small contingent of bar owners to shut down one establishment and reopen another under a different corporation name to avoid paying underage drinking fines and other citations, Holbrook said. They also use the practice as a marketing tactic to attract customers looking for a new bar, he said.
Holbrook called the circumstances inside Club Venom that led up to the shooting Saturday "absolutely ridiculous." He said the bar's manager has told investigators that 300 to 400 people were inside at the time of the shooting, yet only four bar employees were on duty. Three of those employees were bartenders, Holbrook said.
"By all accounts, patrons who were at the bar for a party were running security and taking a cover charge," he said. "It was as if the bar owner turned the entire place over to his customers for the evening. They even brought their own deejay."
The back door to the night club also was padlocked, a fire code violation, and a magnetic wand to detect weapons was never used on patrons as they entered the club, Holbrook said. The wand was found behind the bar, he added.
"After the shooting, we found evidence of rampant marijuana consumption as well," he said. "It was absurd what was allowed to happen in there.
"If you're not regulating who you let in the bar and don't care what goes on once they enter, it's a recipe for disaster. And that's what we've seen play out in the downtown recently."
Club Venom owner John Flowers did not return a phone message seeking comment Tuesday. Officials with the state Alcohol Beverage Control Administration said he surrendered his liquor license after the shooting. The license was listed as "canceled" on the ABCA's web site Tuesday.
Holbrook said the city should impose guidelines on bars that have occupancy limits of several hundred or more. Those guidelines should include dress codes, detailed security measures involving metal detectors or wands and requiring a certain number of bouncers based on occupancy limits, Holbrook said.
"If you put those parameters on these fly-by-night operations, they will cease to exist because it goes against their business model," he said.
Holbrook said the guidelines should be enforced by his department, even though law enforcement officers are prohibited from entering private clubs unless they have probable cause or are invited in by an employee.
"I don't see how this would be any different than code enforcement," he said. "Whatever guidelines we put in the ordinance, there should be a provision allowing law enforcement to enter these clubs with the narrow focus of verifying whether they're in compliance."
Wolfe said he doesn't know how long it will take to put the ordinance together, but that he will request that it go before City Council's Public Safety Committee for initial review.
The city has taken additional security measures since the Club Babylon shooting in November. Nearly a year after City Council approved the purchase, video surveillance cameras were installed on 4th Avenue in December. One camera is located at the intersection of 4th Avenue and 10th Street. Another was installed at the corner of 4th Avenue and 11th Street. A third camera should will be installed in the 800 block of 4th Avenue next week, said Charles Holley, the city's director of development and planning.
The camera at the corner of 4th Avenue and 11th Street is angled away from Club Venom, but investigators are checking to see whether it captured a suspect fleeing from the scene, Holbrook said.
"We don't have anything conclusive to draw from yet, but we're working on it," he said.
