CANARYVILLE — Kelly’s Tavern is known by many neighborhood folks as a place for good times — a place to cut loose, watch a ballgame and catch up with friends.
But not everyone in the 4400 block of South Wallace looks at the bar with the same fondness.
“They massively overserve their patrons,” said Chris Martin, who has lived five doors down from the bar for the last 12 years. “If someone is cut off in this place, it is either because they have succumbed to an alcoholic coma or they pulled a gun or a knife."
Martin was one of about three dozen Canaryville residents that attended a community meeting hosted by Ald. Patrick D. Thompson at Taylor-Lauridsen Park to discuss a request from Kelly’s owner, Bill Babuskow, to change the zoning on his property from residential to commercial so he can renew a lapsed patio license.
The change would allow him to legally run a beer garden — something he had be doing for many years. Babuskow discovered the oversight after a police officer ticketed a patron for drinking on the patio, and the owner could not produce a patio license.
The Tuesday night meeting provided and opportunity for residents like Martin to share his concerns about the neighborhood watering hole.
“The worst excess of this bar is the policy they have of allowing their patrons to leave the bar with their drinks," said Martin, who argued that the city should not grant Babuskow’s request. "This practice has been the cause of wild melees on Wallace with patrons streaming up and down the street screaming as drunks brawl in the road.”
John Clemens, a Kelly's bartender, said the tavern staff does what they can to prevent trouble. But there's no telling what a patron might do with a packaged six-pack outside the bar.
“I’ll clean up the bottles that are out there," Clemens said. "We do try.”
Martin’s wife, Monica, had another grievance: Noise from summer concerts on the bar’s patio.
“The music is too loud. I can’t open my windows in the summer time,” she said. “I just want you to be more neighborly.”
Others stood up and supported Babuskow.
The Rev. Thomas Griffin, a longtime clergy member at St. Gabriel Catholic Church, said Babuskow has given more to the church than most people in the neighborhood.
“He would never say this about himself. He’s bashful about this,” Griffin said. “My No. 1 person is Billy Babs.”
The audience, filled with Kelly’s patrons and supporters, clapped and cheered.
Babuskow is now running a Queen of Hearts raffle with a jackpot nearing $200,000. A fourth of that money will go to St. Gabriel.
“If you want to help keep the school and church open, nobody is doing more about that right now than Billy Babs,” Griffin said.
Babuskow’s attorney, Paul A. Kolpak, said Babuskow should not be punished for an oversight.
“He paid for his liquor license. He forgot his outdoor patio license,” Kolpak said. “That’s it.”
To get a beer garden license, the patio must be zoned as commercial. In the 1980s, the city changed the zoning on the tavern property to residential to give the 11th Ward control over what businesses opened shop in the neighborhood.
If the city goes forward and zones the property as commercial to allow Babuskow to get his patio license, Ald. Thompson said he will likely change the zoning back again in the future.
“We want to make sure we have control,” Thompson said.
The zoning change for Kelly's could take three to four months, Thompson said. If it happens, residents will get a notification in the mail.
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