U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (who was born in ESL) has urged East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks Jr. in recent months to focus on public safety and end nightclub and liquor sales at a “reasonable hour” as a deterrent to violence.
Last year, Durbin asked the FBI and ATF to make crime reduction a priority in East St. Louis by providing resources to focus on crime reduction. They complied.
Durbin also recently announced that $400,000 in federal money would be used to purchase security cameras, lighting and fencing in ESL housing projects.
Parks, in a February 28 written response to Durbin and “All Media,” said he “vehemently disagrees” with Durbin’s “continued request for the City to shut down sales of liquor” at an earlier hour, adamantly stating that “WE WON’T DO IT!”
Then, to justify his refusal, Parks went on to inform Durbin that ESL is “on pace to collect almost $140,000 in regular liquor license fees” in 2012.
Senator Durbin eloquently addressed this in his written response to Parks: “Mayor Parks says he cannot afford to lose $140,000 in fees these clubs pay to the city each year. I have a question for Mayor Parks: Eight people were shot down at the clubs in the last six months and your city leads the nation in murder and violent crime. Is $140,000 in fees worth that?”
But that was before last weekend, when two men were shot outside of Club Flava and one man killed outside of Club 103, both in East St. Louis. Sen. Durbin immediately responded, stating, “This weekend’s tragic and fatal violence at East St. Louis late nightclubs should give Mayor Parks all the evidence he needs to step up and do the right thing.”
In the meantime, Mayor Parks has ordered that all clubs except the Casino Queen must stop selling booze at 1 a.m. until further notice, adding, “This has nothing to do with Sen. Durbin’s request.”
And, following a subsequent hearing, the City’s liquor board hit Club 103 with a $1,000 fine and a 30-day suspension. Parks stated that the punishment was the maximum penalty allowed under Illinois law, but wished the board could have doubled the penalty. Club Flava’s punishment was still pending at press time.
That’s quite a reversal from Parks’ previous rhetoric and, to his credit, is a step in the right direction.
This is the same tap dance that Mayor Parks does every time that violence or deaths occur on the East Boogie nightclub scene. The club owners usually receive some miniscule fines and some “tough-sounding” rhetoric from Parks, but at the end of the day it has been business as usual.
Mayor Parks should go a step further by making the 1 a.m. cutoff of liquor sales a permanent measure instead of a temporary fix to a major problem.
I only hope that if I were to cruise by Club 103 and Club Flava, 30 days from now (wearing my trusty bullet-proof vest, of course), that they won’t be open and selling liquor until the wee hours of the night.
If you like my column, then you will love my radio show on WGNU-920am every Sunday from 4-5 pm. Please tune-in and call-in. I’d love to hear from my St. Louis American readers. Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com.
