The shady business of police-ordered shutdowns

No one wants a business in their neighborhood that attracts trouble.

Shootings, rapes and physical attacks of course have no place at bars, restaurants or other establishments.

To ensure proprietors are held accountable and put preventive measures in place to keep their patrons safe, Chicago police have been given the power to immediately close city-based businesses after a violent incident on or near their premises.

Sounds fair. Except clout-heavy downtown and Near North Side bars have been given a pass since the summary closure ordinance was approved under Rahm Emanuel’s leadership in 2015, a Sun-Times Watchdogs investigation published Sunday revealed.

Most of the 58 businesses shut down under the ordinance were in low-income neighborhoods on the South and West sides, including gas stations and liquor stores, reporters Tim Novak, Frank Main and Sophie Sherry found.

How many downtown businesses were closed? Just one: The Sound Bar at 226 W. Ontario St. was shut down after a security guard was killed and the bar’s owner wounded in a 2019 shooting in a nearby alley.

But the city didn’t shut down LiqrBox on the Near North Side, owned by businessman and attorney Carmen Rossi, after a man was killed outside the establishment when he and a friend were kicked out of the bar following an argument in September 2021. Rossi also holds the liquor license for Lollapalooza and is a political contributor to Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

A few months before that, a man was shot and wounded on the sidewalk near Joy District, a club that Rossi also owns along with others. At least six other people have been arrested at the bar, 112 W. Hubbard St., in the last three years, but Joy District’s doors were never closed, according to the Sun-Times report.

City officials and Lightfoot maintain there has been no special treatment given to downtown businesses or the political donors who own them.

But this is Chicago, where clout dies hard, if it’s dead at all. So don’t blame Chicagoans for being suspicious about any denials. More likely than not, they’ll simply roll their eyes, shake their heads and mutter about the “Chicago way” being alive and well.

Politics at play?

Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) has questioned why police in his downtown ward barely use the summary closure ordinance.

“Some of the bar owners are politically active,” said Reilly, who has also received a campaign contribution from Rossi. “I hope that doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

It’s no stretch to say it might. Rossi has clout: He rubs elbows with the mayor, and Ken Meyer — the head of the city’s Business Affairs and Consumer Protection Department, which regulates establishments and liquor licenses — has hosted parties at Rossi’s bars.

We also have to wonder if the “nuclear option,” as Reilly describes the ordinance, is effective in the long run and not just because it’s being enforced unevenly.

The crime rate, in many cases, stays the same and has even increased on the blocks of businesses closed by police, the analysis by the Sun-Times’ team found.

More oversight of the ordinance’s enforcement, and its overall effectiveness, is greatly needed if shutdowns are to continue.

Otherwise, small business owners will be justified in viewing the ordinance as nothing more than a tool to hurt their businesses while allowing their wealthier, clout-heavy counterparts downtown to thrive.

Meanwhile, why were Rossi’s businesses left alone, while a gas station owner on the West Side, Ahmed Mohsin, had to close his Citgo following a murder?

Rossi’s spokeswoman said only that the “breadth of” Rossi’s “hospitality portfolio and related entities” employ over 900 people, perhaps in an attempt to show how many workers could be affected if his businesses did shut down.

Mohsin doesn’t have hundreds on a payroll, but he told the Sun-Times he had to pay his eight or nine employees for the 18 days he had to close in the spring. He also had to agree to hire 24-hour security and had to pay rent before he was able to reopen.

Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) said he didn’t think the gas station had anything to do with the May shooting. But as the City Council member also pointed out, “We don’t fight the police.”

Getting into it with the police isn’t the answer. The solution is a fair application of the law.

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