BATON ROUGE, La. – Some local business owners and employees are fighting to reopen a nightclub in a part of Baton Rouge.
This comes after the area has apparently had some problems with crime in the past.
Club Dreams on Dallas Drive has been vacant for years, and people who work nearby want to keep it that way.
“We remember the increase in crime, we remember our properties being burglarised, we remember so much about it and we just think that terror will still plague our neighbourhood if the club were to come back,” said Tiffany Anthony, who works at Uplifted.
There are a lot of new businesses and mom and pop shops on Beaumont Drive, just one street over from Club Dreams. These employees say their memories of when the club was open aren’t good.
“You’d come in the next morning and there would be drug paraphernalia around your shop. Even though I’m half a mile away from the actual location, condoms, beer cans, you name it,” said Barry Lusco, owner of The Seafood Source of Louisiana.
A businessman who rents the building appeared for a second time at last week’s Metro Council planning meeting.
I’m just saying, why don’t they understand me, because I’m not the owner of this building, I’m just renting the place. I’m a new guy, I’m a new promoter, I’m coming with new things, and nobody let me speak,’ said Kevin Monje, who wants to reopen a club in the former ‘Club Dreams’ building.
He has once again appealed for the zoning to be changed so that he can reopen as a nightclub.
“So I understand them, you know, but at the moment they don’t understand me. I’m trying to do the right thing, I’m coming to town to do business,” Monje said.
The businessman said he’d already invested up to $100,000 in renovations to open the club.
However, he had not received the proper zoning permit to allow such a business to open.
“That’s the heartbreaking part of it, that you spent the money before you made sure you had our vote,” Metro Councillor Chauna Banks told Monje.
“I don’t think so, because you know how the city works. Because they sent me to spend the money first,” Monje replied.
“What? Okay, you may not think so, but right now you are standing there with a $100,000 investment and no approval,” replied Councillor Banks.
Some members of the Metro Council even suggested that Monje first turn the place into a restaurant or something else to gain the trust of his neighbours.
But the people who work nearby are still sceptical.
“We just want to do our business here, we just want to move Baton Rouge forward, not backward. We’re just afraid of the terror that’s going to come with this club reopening,” says Anthony.
The Metro Council will take up the issue again in mid-November.
