DALEY CENTER — The former Green Dolphin nightclub remains closed following an October shooting, but club owners are attempting to fight the city shutdown in court.
The Green Dolphin nightclub, 2200 N. Ashland Ave., changed its name to Rio Chicago after two murders in 2015, but the name change did not stem the violence surrounding the club.
On Tuesday, a representative for the club appeared before Cook County Judge Franklin Valderrama in the Daley Center to contest the temporary closing of the venue, which the city handed down following the Oct. 23 shooting of a 29-year-old bouncer.
The case was continued to January 10, and Valderrama denied the club's request to stay open.
After the Oct. 23 shooting, the city used a summary closure ordinance to force Rio Chicago to close from Oct. 26 to April 26. The ordinance allows for an immediate shut down of a business deemed to be a public safety threat and allows a reopening when the business owner "takes reasonable steps to protect its employees, patrons and members of the pubic from future harm," the city says.
The closure was approved on Nov. 4, according to a spokesman from the city's law department.
"The commissioner of BACP [Business Affairs and Consumer Protection] determined that a public safety threat occurred and a license order was issued that the premises remain closed" for six months, a city official wrote in a letter to Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd).
The latest gunshot victim at the club was a bouncer, according to police sources, who said that prior to the incident, the shooter was inside the club waving a gun.
In March of 2015, Deonta Jackson, 35, and Elijah Moore, 41, were both killed when a fight inside the former Green Dolphin club spilled into the street. After the slaying, Waguespack slammed Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office for not shutting the club down sooner. Since 2006, the alderman said at the time, the club had been fined or cited more than a dozen times for violations and fights had become commonplace.
Waguespack said the temporary shut down is good, but not enough:
"I'm glad to see it closed for six months, but I would rather see them closed permanently because they have proven to the city and neighborhood that they don't know how to run a business that is free of violence and sapping police and city resources," Waguespack said. "I hope that the City Law Department and [Dept. of Business Affairs and Consumer Prorection] are aggressive in their work to obtain full closure."
Rio Chicago owner Sam Menetti did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Read the closure letter sent to Waguespack:
