FeedsState won’t renew liquor license at club
A decision from the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (LCC) puts the immediate future of Club Xtreme in doubt.
Wayne Police Chief John Williams said the city received word on Monday that the liquor license for the dance club on Michigan Avenue would expire at the end of this month.
“They’re basically saying that they’re not going to renew the license unless the Wayne City Council approves it,” Williams said. “In essence, they’re not renewing the license. The Wayne City Council has already made that decision.”
The city council met in a special session last week to discuss the issues that have come up since Club Xtreme opened in June of 2004. The meeting mirrored one that took place in February, except the city now has additional local ordinances in place that were required before the resolution they approved in February could be effective. The resolution indicated that the council did not want the license renewed because of repeated violations and an increase of crime in the vicinity of the club, which is just west of Wayne Road.
“This isn’t something that either the police department or the city council wanted to do to any business in the city,” Williams said. “We have to look out for the benefit of the community.
“We just didn’t think that the owners of the club cooperated with us or that they cared about the community in general,” Williams added. “If they had heard these cries and please to do the right thing and acted on them, this probably would never have happened.”
Representatives from Club Xtreme attended the February meeting but did not attend the meeting last Wednesday.
Club Owner Bob Wojtowicz and his attorney, Lawrence Shulman, did not return calls seeking comment on Tuesday.
Since June of 2004 there have been 17 felony arrests, 257 misdemeanor arrests, 61 misdemeanor warrants, 17 LCC violations as well as 83 parking violations issued near the club. Police have sent 24 reports to the LCC that resulted in 92 citations. Those resulted in several temporary suspensions of the liquor license. One of those suspensions will take place this weekend.
Williams said that the issues far and away exceed those that stem from the other bars in the downtown area.
“From time to time we’ll have to cite them, but they’ve always responded in a positive way,” Williams said. “They always wanted to improve and work with us. We were going the opposite direction with Club Xtreme.”
“They had more than two years to prove to the staff and the council that they can operate their business properly and control the actions and the grounds and to be a good neighbor to the nearby businesses and to the nearby residents,” added City Manager John Zech. “They didn’t. It wasn’t like they weren’t given a chance.”
The ruling doesn’t necessarily spell the end of Club Xtreme. The business can still operate without serving alcohol. The non-renewal period is only for May of 2007 to the end of April, 2008. The violations on the license apply to the registered owner of it—Wojtowicz—but he has the option of selling it to another party or corporation. The license itself would be clean, but the new owner would have to follow city ordinances before it could be sent to the state to be approved.
In Wayne, since serving alcohol is a regulated use, that means the new owner would require a signature of more than 50 percent of the property owners within 500 feet. The building would have to be looked over by city inspectors and any violations fixed. The police department would do a background check on the new owner. Any liquor license transfer would have to be approved by the city council, too.
“Who knows what they’ll try to do there,” Zech said. “But if they proposed the same kind of operation as before, I don’t know if they could get the necessary signatures.”
Williams said he suspected a suspension of activity at the club would only be temporary, though.
“I don’t think this is over yet,” he said. “This is a first step.”
