NPU-F Defers Controversial Change of Ownership Vote

The Neighborhood Planning Unit-F (NPU-F), which includes Virginia Highland, Morningside-Lenox Park, Piedmont Heights and Lindridge Martin Manor, met Monday to vote on a controversial change of ownership of a Cheshire Bridge night club.

Kamal’s P21 is requesting a change of ownership and liquor license review. A city ordinance requires that the business must present itself in front of the NPU-F before a recommendation may be made by the city’s License Review Board on Sept. 6. The ultimate decision will lie with the mayor’s office.

While a family emergency kept the applicant, Kamal Balogun, from appearing before the NPU-F, according to Dianne Olansky, those in attendance still pressed the issue.

Previous incidents at the adult entertainment establishment include fights and murders according to police.

NPU-F Chair Jane Rawlings expressed the board's concerns in an e-mail before the meeting.

"The communities of NPU-F grow weary of the continued violence occurring in and around the clubs on Cheshire Bridge/Piedmont Roads," she said. "The revocation of both liquor licenses and business licenses held by establishments with a violent history is a reasonable and justified approach by our city, as I see it, and a long overdue course of action that should be taken for the protection of our neighborhoods."

Olansky said the business is creating a circus of the neighborhood, along with many others in the area.

“It sits in the corner of four neighborhood and actually calls for concern,” she said.

Yuki Takahara, owner of Nakato Japanese Restaurant next door to the club, attended the meeting to voice her concerns.

“It hurts our entire area because it brings in the drugs and the homelessness and the prostitution,” she said, adding that she feels unsafe closing up her business on her own at night.

Sgt. Paul Finch, enforcement officer for the Cheshire Bridge area, said the business is in compliance with their liquor license, dancers and that the business itself is in compliance with the law.

“If criminal activities occur outside, these are the individuals committing the crimes and not the business,” he said.

Finch said a loophole in the way the alcohol laws are written in the county may not make business owners accountable for illegal activity in their business unless it can be proven that they “should have known” the illegal activity was happening.

Without the applicant in attendance, the vote for the change of ownership application will be deferred until next month’s meeting on Sept. 19.

“I think it’s a weak excuse and it’s an excuse we will be hearing for a long time,” Olansky said.

Meetings are held the third Monday of the month at the Hillside Facility, 1301 Monroe Drive NE. Find out more at the NPU-F website.