After “voluntarily” closing for the weekend, the Chicago Police Department has shuttered Sound-Bar, the River North nightclub after a shooting that took the life of a nightclub employee.

A fight involving some 15 people in an alley off North Franklin Street after midnight on Friday morning lead to the shooting which killed Sound-Bar employee Thurman Bailey and injured a 58 year old man, identified by CWB Chicago as one of Sound-Bar’s co-owners.

Chicago Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi – notable these days for his social media updates regarding the case of Empire actor Jussie Smollett – announced that the city had issued a Summary Closure ordinance against the club, as “owners work with police and city leaders to develop an appropriate public safety plan.”

Local Alderman Brendan Reilly threw his weight behind the shutdown and stated he had previously placed for a moratorium on new liquor licenses on “every block” in River North.

The Summary Closure Ordinance is an extremely powerful instrument which has been yielded in the shutdown of other nightclubs. As we noted last September, Summary Closure “allows the City of Chicago to immediately shutter any establishment that constitutes a ‘public safety threat’; it can last 6 months, by which point most establishments are economically destroyed.”

At the time we noted that Evil Olive had become the “latest in a chain of closings of the minority of nightclubs in Chicago that served dance music and the electronic music community.” To the list of The Shrine, Green Dolphin, Primary and Evil Olive, one can add Sound-Bar (temporarily, one hopes) and The Mid, which closed in February. “Stick around long enough and you’ll see them all go,” we noted.

Bailey was shot “multiple times,” according to local broadcaster WGN. He was pronounced dead after being taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

No one has been arrested in connection with the shooting.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

1 COMMENT

Comments are closed.