A fight broke out early Sunday morning in Chicago’s River North entertainment district which quickly escalated into gunfire.

Eight people were shot in the culmination of the incident which took place near Erie and Franklin. Video posted online and captured by @CPD1617Scanner shows multiple shooters unloading:

On Sunday, the alderman for the area, Brendan Reilly, placed the blame on Blüm (formerly known as Clutch), a late night club at 316 W. Erie Street. Blüm, the Alderman wrote in an email sent to constituents, is a “bad establishment” at the “source of chronic neighborhood complaints” and “linked to prior shooting incidents. Inexplicably, the city has allowed this nightclub to continue to operate, despite my prediction that it was just a matter of time before another shooting incident would occur.”

Reilly indicated that his office has been “working to facilitate the sale of the building to have Blüm shut-down and evicted. In fact the property is currently under contract to be sold next month.”

Reilly stated that he had asked the Chicago Police to issue a summary closure notice “to ensure this nightclub does not reopen before the building is sold and they are evicted next month. It is my understanding [that] CPD is issuing a summary closure order today.”

The order was issued earlier Monday.

Blüm is operated by So Clutch, a restaurant group headquartered in Dallas. The club has not been implicated by police in any of the violence.

Once issued, summary closure notices require club owners and management to develop a plan for security on and around the premises. Summary Closure Notices have been disproportionately used against venues on the South and West Sides of Chicago since 2015.

Last June, more than 50 bullet casings were found outside Blüm after a brazen daylight shooting. A bouncer at Clutch was shot in 2021 after refusing entry to a patron.

Of the eight people injured in the latest shooting, four are listed in critical condition according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Photo by Max Fleischmann on Unsplash

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