BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MIDDLETOWN -- Armed with a court order, police on Tuesday afternoon bashed into and boarded up the B&R Cafe, a neighborhood bar that has been a magnet for activities ranging from fights and drug trafficking to gunplay, littering and public urination.
"Every night it was open, there would be crowds of 50 to 75 people out front, fighting and raising Cain," Middletown Police Maj. Greg Schwarber said. "This place has just been a headache."
Police have answered more than 300 complaints at the tavern in the past two years. Using a state nuisance law, Middletown officials and a representative with the Ohio attorney general's office obtained a temporary restraining order Tuesday morning from Judge Anthony Valen of Butler County Common Pleas Court.
The order allowed police to shut down the bar and remove liquor and other items, which may eventually be returned to the owners, Billie and Everline Cox of Germantown, Ohio. The city shut off electricity in the two-story building, which has been cited for many building code violations.
At an Oct. 30 hearing, Judge Valen will decide whether to issue a permanent injunction that would close the bar for a year.
Tuesday's raid was the culmination of a one-year police investigation and numerous complaints by residents in the vicinity of Garfield and Baltimore streets and Jacoby Avenue.
Because the owners were not at the bar when police arrived Tuesday, an officer used a metal battering ram to break open the door.
Although the bar was open only two to three hours per night, four to six days per week, police were called to the bar 345 times from July 3, 1996, to Aug. 3, 1998, according to a court petition filed by the city and the state.
"That's a tremendous number of calls for that period of time," Maj. Schwarber said. "The whole neighborhood has been in an uproar because of this place."
People milling outside the bar often threw bottles and rocks at police cruisers responding to calls, he said.
"It's really brought down the neighborhood," said Police Officer Jimmy Cunningham, who has been the primary investigator in this case.
Co-owner Billie Cox appeared at the scene Tuesday afternoon as police were removing items from his bar. He said he didn't think his bar was any worse than most bars in Middletown.
"We've had a little trouble, like the average bar," he said. "But I didn't think it was that bad. We can only control what goes on in the bar. We can't control what goes on out in the street."
Eric Bolin, 23, of Jacoby Avenue said, "A month or two ago, there were 50 people out there with baseball bats, busting windshields. It's good the bar's being closed. It's going to help the community."
