The city is targeting a “problem bar” on what’s become Akron’s deadliest street corner.
Twice this year men have been shot dead in or just outside of Game 7 Bar and Grille at 627 S. Arlington St.
“What’s going on over here at 627?” asked Councilwoman Tara Mosley-Samples, who like police and residents is fed up with the violence and crime the bar attracts.
On Jan. 28, D’Cortez Taylor, 23, was found shot to death inside his vehicle in the bar’s parking lot. The crime remains under investigation. Witnesses won’t talk. There are no charges and no arrests.
On the afternoon of March 4, bar owner Leslie Garr shared a Facebook post from her manager, Anthony Hunt. In it, rapper Mozzy, the entertainment for that night, tells fans to attend his show. “Now pull up, pull up, pull up. …” the rapper says in the manager’s marketing video.
Police pulled up shortly after a gun went off at 9 p.m. They found bouncer Daniel Turner, 33, lying in the doorway. He later died at Summa Akron City Hospital.
Anthony Cox, 21, is charged with aiding in the murder. Timothy Dunn III, 19, is charged with pulling the trigger. Police believe Dunn, who turns 20 next month, was turned away from the bar for his age.
He returned to retaliate at a bar so dangerous that off-duty police officers have refused to work security there. “It behooves the police department to make sure its officers are safe,” said Lt. Rick Edwards, who explained that a request for off-duty officers to work the bar was originally denied before police told the bar managers that they would need to hire at least four officers to cover the front and back doors, inside the bar and a large parking lot in the back. “We’ve had police officer attacked there while on call. One got hit in the head with a bottle.”
“My residents are sick and tired of it,” said Mosley-Samples.
She said the neighborhood is still reeling from the tragic death of Paris Wicks. The star Ellet football player tried to defend a friend from muggers when he was shot dead behind a convenient store at the other corner of Arlington Street and Lovers Lane.
“They are, frankly, afraid to go to their cars after a certain time of the day,” Mosley-Samples said.
Reached by phone, Hunt said Tuesday he might meet a reporter at the bar on Wednesday. But he did not return phone calls seeking to confirm that appointment and was not at the bar Wednesday when he said he might be. Garr did not respond to a message sent to her Facebook account.
Mounting a case
Mosley-Samples, a police commander and a city attorney have called for a meeting this Friday at the prosecutor’s office to review recent complaints of late-night noise, violence, shootings and other issues.
The city officials used state records to determine that Joe Salem and Gary Thomas, not Hunt and Garr, are the current owners of the bar and property, respectively. And so they expect Salem and Thomas to attend the nuisance hearing Friday.
Salem owns the company that controls the liquor permit. He said he sold everything, including kitchen and bar equipment, to LG&H Entertainment, which is registered to Garr.
Thomas, whose real estate company 627 S Arlington LLC owns the bar property, did not comment for this story.
The meeting with Thomas, Salem and possibly the new operators is the first step in mounting a lawsuit in the Summit County Court of Common Pleas to shutter the bar for at least a year.
“Even if I get it closed under the nuisance ordinance, someone else with a liquor license can move in and open it up,” Mosley-Samples said.
Outlawing liquor sales
Council voted unanimously on Monday to block the old operator, Salem, from transferring a liquor license owned by his company Grant Street Tavern LLC to the bar’s new operators. The application is pending before the Ohio Liquor Control Commission, a three-member regulatory agency in Columbus staffed with governor appointees.
Mosley-Samples won’t leave the matter in the hands of state officials who collect fees for granting liquor permits. She is summoning local residents to the East Akron Neighborhood Development Corp., 550 S. Arlington St., at 6 p.m. Thursday to consider outlawing liquor sales in the neighborhood around the bar.
Mosley-Samples expects to get the 57 signatures needed to place an issue on the ballot that would bar the sale of alcohol in Precinct 1 of Ward 5. She said local clergy have agreed to campaign for the issue.
“The residents over here need a break. They’ve had to deal with a lot of the violence and the loitering of the young people at the dive thru across the street. It’s too much,” she said. “I just can’t let my residents continue to come to me day in and day out without doing something.”
She and city prosecutors also remain hopeful that law enforcement has made a strong case to shutter the bar.
Along with the two shootings, police have visited the bar once every two weeks this year. A car was stolen there and a woman was assaulted in its parking lot earlier this year.
On Feb. 1, officers made a surprise visit to check on after-hours activity and to investigate the first murder, committed four days earlier. When they arrived at 3:29 a.m. in the middle of the week, two patrons ran into the bar and locked the front door. Hunt, the manager, unlocked it minutes later, according to police.
Police found cold Budweiser beers, unmelted ice and freshly poured shots. Police ordered Hunt was to unlock a side room. Inside, beneath a couch, police said they found two silver, loaded handguns. The serial numbers for the Smith & Wesson trace back to a theft from a police department west of Mansfield.
In all, five were arrested — the first two for locking the door and obstructing justice, one for providing a false identity to hide from an outstanding warrant, another for the stolen gun and the manager for serving after hours.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug .