Wednesday, February 23, 2000
Police oppose teen club
Problems cited in West Chester
BY ROBERT ANGLEN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It's not the music. It's the assaults, vandalism and gang activity that has the Cincinnati Police Department attempting to block a proposed teen dance club in Price Hill.
“We're not saying kids don't need somewhere to go,” Sgt. Michael Fern, neighborhood unit commander, said Tuesday. “We don't want to send them to a bloodbath.”
Citing dozens of neighborhood objections and a litany of problems at a West Chester teen dance club owned by the same people who plan one at the vacant Covedale Cinemas on Glenway Avenue, Sgt. Fern said the police would “oppose it all the way.”
A majority of Cincinnati City Council members agree and said Tuesday they will side with residents, who have complained about the club's potential impact on homes and business.
Based on what he knows about the West Chester club, Sgt. Fern said they should be concerned.
“It's not just one isolated incident,” he said. “It spins off into neighborhood jurisdictions.”
The West Chester club, formerly called Zavos and now operating as Club Wiz, has been the source of numerous calls and complaints.
Sgt. Fern said there have been cases of vandalism, assaults and gang activity. Police tracked an incident of gang violence in Forest Park to Zavos, he said.
The club is owned by Cincinnati-based GMZ Enterprises, which filed an application with the city treasurer's office in December. Last week, the city denied a permit based on building and fire-inspection reports.
GMZ President Gary Zavisin did not return calls Tuesday. But in a letter to the city on the same day the permit was denied, his partner, Diane Zavisin, protested “the treatment we have received and the delay tactics that are still being employed by the city offices.”
Ms. Zavisin said the city has created new requirements to keep them from opening the club and they wanted a chance to address fire and building-code problems. She said they have tried to follow the correct process, but city officials “are manufacturing ways for this process to bounce around indefinitely” without giving a chance to appeal.
She described the Price Hill club as a teen-ager-only membership that would be open Friday and Saturday nights from 8 p.m. until curfew. There is a dress code and security measures would include a mandatory coat and purse check.
“We are planning on providing a supervised, membership environment-community-friendly outlet to give your teens a place to go,” Ms. Zavisin said in another letter, to the Price Hill Civic Club.
Sgt. Fern said the Zavisins' West Chester club is a problem because owners aren't concerned with what happens outside, and security inside is put in the hands of teen-age bouncers who respond to trouble with violence.
He said another Glenway Avenue teen club, Prouds Corner, was shut by the police in 1993 after problems of violence and vandalism became intolerable. He expects this will be no different.
“It's not the operations of the club so much as the accompanying problems that go with it.”
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