LOGAN SQUARE — Crime at the Logan Square nightclub VLive is steadily decreasing, but city officials say there is still room for improvement.
Those were the general findings of the club's third public nuisance meeting Tuesday morning at City Hall.
The nuisance ordinance provides a platform for community members to voice their complaints to the city Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, and can even lead to a business losing its liquor license or business license if conditions don't improve.
Things do seem to be improving at VLive, Shakespeare District Sgt. Joe Giambrone said, reporting that calls to police have dropped by half compared to last year. He also pointed out that the severity of the calls has decreased as well.
Just two of the 26 calls to police in January and February were for battery, he said. At one point, 30 percent of all the battery calls in the entire police beat were coming from VLive, police said.
That beat, 1431, extends from Western to California avenues between Logan Boulevard and Armitage Avenue.
But city attorney James Potter, who conducted the meeting, said problems still remain, particularly with the valet parking company VLive uses, Midwest Valet.
"Basically what's happening is the attendants are standing in the road telling people they're going to be towed out of legal parking spaces," Potter said. "That can't happen. You can't use public parking, you can't use street parking. So whatever you've got to do to change that system, it's got to change."
A voicemail left at Midwest Valet requesting comment was not immediately returned.
Nearby resident Sally Hamann said garbage has also continued to be an issue at the club, with bottles and cans littering the neighborhood after club events.
"I thought we had that under control, but it seemed like it slipped again," she said.
VLive attorney Dimitri Christopoulos asked that Hamann and other neighbors report when the garbage appears, so club employees can make sure they spend enough time cleaning up after shows.
Another neighbor, Dimitri Pavlotsky, has complained at each hearing of low-frequency noise from VLive's bass speakers keeping him up at night. He said the sound has forced him to sleep in the lower level of his house, instead of upstairs where his bedroom is.
Christopoulos assured him that a sound engineer would look at the problem, which seems to be coming from a rattling window at the club. He said it would be fixed as soon as weather allows.
Though there were some improvements, Potter said many of the problems had not yet been resolved and called for another meeting at 10 a.m. May 21.
"But all in all, this seems like a pretty positive development," he said. "It's pretty encouraging."
Rumors have also circulated in recent months that VLive was up for sale, but Christopoulos and VLive staff declined to comment on that.
