Northeast strip bar Gerry’s Silver Slipper is now the first business in Kansas City to have its liquor license on probation.
The bar located at 4704 Independence Ave. has seen a run of violence in the past year that has led to this probation. During the most recent, on Oct. 25, a Silver Slipper security guard escorted a patron to his car, where the man drew a weapon and initiated a gunfight with the guard as he drove away. No one was injured. In February, two men were killed outside the bar, and in January, a stabbing occurred outside, as well. After the two incidents this past winter, the Slipper lost its license for 66 days.
A new city ordinance allows Regulated Industries to now give a business probationary status on selling liquor. For a six-month period beginning this past Wednesday, the Slipper may sell alcohol, but if another violent act — such as a shooting, stabbing, armed robbery or other situation in which a person could get hurt — occurs there, then Regulated Industries can revoke the license, and the business would be responsible for getting consent from neighbors in order to get it back.
“We are very concerned with the number of acts of violence that have occurred there,” Regulated Industries Manager Gary Majors said.
Majors said the bar received probation as opposed to a license revocation because his department’s investigation found that the business had done everything correctly during the Oct. 25 incident — checking for weapons on the customer before entering and scanning and recording his driver’s license — and the guard acted appropriately.
Other than the fact that the incident may not have occurred were the bar not at that location in the first place, there was nothing the bar management could have done to prevent the incident, Majors said.
If an act of violence occurs during the six months of probation, Regulated Industries is not required to conduct the scenario in which neighbors would provide consent. If there were a heinous enough crime or were the bar to be clearly at fault, then the Liquor Board could simply revoke the license without other considerations.
If the situation were to come down to neighborhood consent, however, Majors said he has heard from several people in the area who would not give their consent.
Indian Mound Neighborhood President Scott Wagner is one of those people.
“I’m frankly surprised they would go this route [of probation],” Wagner said. “People around that business know something [violent] will happen again, and now unfortunately we’re in a position where we have to wait for something to happen, and that’s not a good position to be in.”
Wagner said he could understand the agreement from the standpoint of the bar having done all it could to prevent the Oct. 25 incident, but he added all this probationary period is doing is prolonging what he sees as the inevitable closure of the club.
“I hate to say that about anybody’s business, but that’s just the reality,” he said.
Silver Slipper owner Steve Wille did not return phone calls by press deadline. |
