Norfolk rethinks the way it shut down two Waterside bars

NORFOLK

Although the city nabbed a victory last week when a judge ruled that two Waterside nightclubs should remain padlocked indefinitely, some city officials say they wish they had handled the ordeal differently.

Many among the general public, they say, feel that Bar Norfolk and Have a Nice Day Cafe were treated unfairly.

"We're getting beaten up," Councilman Barclay C. Winn said. "Even good restaurant owners are saying to me, 'I know you'd never shut me down, but it looks bad.' "

Attorneys for both nightclubs told city officials last week that they were ambushed.

The bars were not told by city leaders that their "special exception" permits were in jeopardy until hours before an Aug. 18 council vote. The permits allow the bars to sell alcohol and provide entertainment. Without them, the bars' owners have said they cannot sustain profitable businesses.

After the city revoked the permits, the nightclubs opened and served alcohol in defiance of the council. Waterside Associates, the housing authority agency that owns Waterside, then evicted both tenants and padlocked their doors.

That has led to numerous lawsuits. After two days of hearings last week, Circuit Judge Norman A. Thomas ruled that the council's vote was legitimate and that the housing authority could shut down the bars, which he said sold alcohol in violation of zoning laws.

The bars have sued to regain the right to sell alcohol and are seeking $16 million in damages.

Most council members now say bar owners and the 120 employees thrown out of work should not have been caught by surprise.

Five council members said they were surprised, too. They were unaware that they would be urged to vote no on the permits until hours before the meeting, they said.

"I thought that our tactics came across as heavy-handed," Councilman W. Randy Wright said. "I thought it needed to be done. But we didn't use the right route."

Mayor Paul Fraim and Vice Mayor Anthony L. Burfoot led the effort to shut the nightclubs, saying that both had repeated health, code and alcohol violations.

Councilwoman Theresa Whibley asked City Manager Regina V.K. Williams and Planning Director Frank Duke just before the vote why, if the bars had so many violations, the Planning Commission wasn't told about the problems. In June, the commission approved the clubs' permits at the recommendation of the planning department.

On Friday, Whibley said she still had not gotten an answer.

"I was very disappointed in the way we handled this," she said.

Fraim said he wishes some things had been handled differently.

"In hindsight, there are always things you could have done better," he said. "But the truth is, we followed our processes."

The mayor said there were compelling reasons for denying the bars' permits.

Over the past two years, promoters began taking over the nightclubs and splitting revenue with the clubs, a violation of city ordinances, Deputy City Attorney Cynthia Hall said. Citations were issued for serving under-age drinkers, selling untaxed cigarettes and hiring a convicted felon as a manager, she said. In addition, there were repeated instances of locked exit doors, security personnel not being certified and health code issues, she said.

"It was constant. They would say they would fix the problems, then problems would occur again."

Hall provided a link to an Internet video showing a promoter using a lighter to ignite alcohol spraying from his mouth, in violation of the city's fire code, at Have a Nice Day Cafe.

"Their bar staff is in the video, standing right there and watching," she said.

Burfoot began speaking out at council meetings nearly two years ago about stories of fighting, people urinating in public and of near-riot conditions when the clubs let out at 2 a.m. He said he witnessed some of the activity both in the Waterside parking garage and from a boat in the harbor with his wife.

"We could not believe the kinds of things we were seeing," he said.

Things escalated, he said, this spring. Two weeks after a young man was shot and killed in the Waterside parking garage, Have a Nice Day Cafe began promoting a concert with rap artist Jim Jones, he said.

A Norfolk resident was killed in Virginia Beach following a Jones concert in 2006. According to a story in The Capital newspaper of Annapolis, Md., officials at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore canceled a Jones concert in 2007 because of his alleged link to violence.

So Norfolk canceled the club's concert.

"That's when I knew then we had to do something," Burfoot said.

Fraim told the council earlier this month that he had received a flier for "Female Jell-o Wrestling Night," at one of the bars.

In court, bar owners painted a much different picture, saying every time they were told there was an issue, they fixed the problem. They said that after a January meeting with city officials, they beefed up their security, retooled their dress code and toned down the promotions.

Virginia Beach attorney Kevin Martingayle said that many of the alcohol violations cited by city officials had been dismissed by the state Alcohol Beverage Control Board.

Bar managers insisted the nature of the bars had not changed since the city recruited them to Waterside a decade ago.

Replied Fraim: "Jell-O wrestling is not the concept we originally agreed to support."

Fraim said the council will discuss Waterside's future at its annual retreat next month. City officials want the facility to be more family friendly, but a final decision on the waterfront attraction won't be made for months, Fraim said.

Meanwhile, closing the bars will cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars. The two bars were providing an estimated $280,000 in rent and taxes annually. Legal expenses and the cost of any settlement will add to that bill.

City leaders' actions will cost Norfolk future business, Martingayle maintained.

"Come here and we'll let you do business for a decade, and then if we get tired of you, then we'll take steps to kick you out," he said. "Good luck selling that to corporate America."

Fraim noted that Jillian's, a nightclub that shared the second floor with the other two clubs, got a permit because its promoters "obey the rules."

Fraim said the bars have recast the city's actions as being driven solely by the need to transform Waterside. Instead, it's about two bars that have repeatedly broken the rules.

"All I know is that after the council decided not to give them an adult use permit, they went ahead and served alcohol anyway," he said. "That gives you some idea of how they operate."

Pilot news researcher Maureen Watts contributed to this story.

Harry Minium, (757) 446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com