Lorain/Elyria, OH
Sale of Avon Lake bar worries some
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AVON LAKE - Residents and some Council members say they’re leery of talks that a restaurant and bar featuring waitresses clad in tank tops and short shorts may be coming to town.
The restaurant, Knockouts USA, has been in talks with McCarthy’s Ale House owner Jack Kraddock to purchase the Walker Road pub-style bar, Kraddock told Council members at a meeting last week.
Kraddock, who has only owned the bar for about six months, told Council he can no longer control the clientele who frequent his bar. Calling them “thugs,” he said the men that go there seek to only pick up women and pick fights, said Avon Lake Councilman David Kos, whose 1st Ward is where the bar is.
“He wanted to transform it from a pub-type, drink-first, food-later bar,” Kos said of Kraddock. “His real intention was to turn it into a sports bar, but he didn’t have the money. He felt if he had the money to hire security and transform it, he would have been fine.”
McCarthy’s has drawn the ire of residents who live near the Walker Road plaza where the bar sits. Complaints about loud noise and police visits to the bar have increased in the six months since Kraddock took over, Kos said.
Last month, police said two Cleveland men deliberately plowed into two women outside the bar with a pickup truck after a fight inside the bar.
Although about 15 people had gathered outside the bar after the fight, police believe the women were innocent bystanders. They were treated and released from a Westlake hospital.
As a result of the all the problems he said he has had, Kraddock said he has a verbal sale agreement with Knockouts USA, which has a location in Parma Heights and whose parent company is Diamond Men’s Club.
“When residents found out that the owners were Diamond Men’s Club you would have thought the world was coming to an end at that point,” Kos said. “They thought some shady red light district kind of business was going in there, but, one, we’re not zoned for that, and, two, it’s a sports bar.”
Kos said he visited the Knockouts in Parma Heights last week with his wife and 5-year-old son so that he could be familiar with the establishment and decide whether it would be good for Avon Lake.
“I expected to see lava lamps and stripper poles, but it’s not that at all,” he said. “There were families and little children. Sure, there were girls in tank tops, but that was it.”
But Councilman Michael Stanek, at large, said he contacted a detective for the Parma Heights Police Department who said complaints about Knockouts have been on the rise since they stopped having an off-duty officer providing security there.
“She said she would not take her mother or her father there because she’d be embarrassed to have them there,” Stanek said.
Kos said if Knockouts does purchase the bar, which could happen as early as mid-July, he plans to have a meeting with the owners and police chief to inform them that they are on a very short leash because of all the problems that location has brought the community.
If the new owners do not comply, Council would have an opportunity to review the bar’s liquor license twice over the next seven months, once in September during the state’s annual review and again six months later when the liquor license would have to be transferred from Kraddock’s name to the new owners’.
“I’m going to let them know in fine detail about the problems we’ve had and what we expect of them,” he said. “I’ll let them know very specifically what will be tolerated and what will not.”
Kos said he also plans to have a meeting with residents and Knockouts’ owners if they do buy the bar so that residents will have a chance to speak their mind.
Contact Adam Wright at 329-7129 or awright@chroniclet.com.
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Really? You expect stripper poles, so you grab the wife and kids to go find out? Really? Did I read that right?
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I never cared for Hooters, but maybe that is what the city is really looking for?
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When Diamond Club was transforming Elyria’s Mountain Jack, city officials were told it wasn’t going to be a mens club and the area wasn’t zoned for it.
Remember Avon Lake, the judge said as long as they wear pasties they weren’t considered an adult club.
What a joke.
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he can no longer control the clientele who frequent his bar. Calling them “thugs,” LOL!!! What a joke. Hey Jack how about starting within. Keep the drugs out of your kitchen (and your little buddy Eric) and that would be your first step to cleaning it up!!!
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Well looks like Matt is a regular and doesn’t like being called a thug.
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This place has been a problem dating back to the last owner. The bar owner & property owner (Drug Mart) do not live in Avon Lake and could care less what problems it causes to the homeowners in the surrounding area. Changes need to be made thru zoning to ensure that a bar does not go in there. They should move to the area know as the “Avon Lake Flats” in Arts town with the rest of the bars.
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Just hire Dalton as your Cooler and you’re all good…
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I LOVE that movie!
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Yeah! Best line (from B. Wesley’s tuff-guy henchman to Dalton):
“I used to &%$# guys like you in prison!”
Was that supposed to sound tough? ‘Cuz that’s not how I took it!
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This bar also has a location in Niles, OH near Youngstown. I was on a business trip, and am female and had to go there for a business dinner. I had never heard of it before, but when I walked in, I called it Hooters Jr. soley because of what the waitress wore, just a red and black tank and they wear black shorts. NOT stripper short. As I female, I didn’t find it overly sexual or anything, and I think its just the unknown as well as the factor of who owns it that is freaking everyone out. I see girls walking down the street or at the mall wearing less to be honest!
I honestly saw families in there, and the food was actually excellent! They have pierogies that will knock your socks off. So, I walked in with one opinion and out with another. It was the food that was the focus, and the fact it was a sports “bar” seemed secondary. So, I think its just the factor of the “unknown” has everyone upset, and as a former bartender myself a few years back, can appreciate the concern about the location and what has been going on, but this may be a step up and good thing from what is there and who owns it now, considering. It also seems that the city is being proactive about it. Really, at least when I was there, it was a nice place and didn’t really seem like a “bar” - at least no more than a BW3 does. Just my two cents from someone who has been to one. I will take my family there if/when it opens to eat.
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as long as they hire chicks with sweet ta ta’s.i have no problem..oh yeh..no fatties either
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wow, for jack not wanting “thugs” in his bar, he sure is friendly with them. check out some of the pictures.
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewAlbums&friendID=27456745
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