The Birmingham City Council has revoked the business license of Club Euphoria, an Ensley nightclub deemed a “nuisance” by the surrounding neighborhood.
The council originally considered shutting the club down in June after repeated instances of gun violence inside and outside the club, including the June 13 killing of 21-year-old Euphoria patron Lykeria Briana Taylor. The council was split on revocation then, settling on a 13-week delay to give owners time to tighten up their safety plan.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Monica Hatcher, an attorney representing club owner Morris Bradley, told councilors that the club had “beefed up security” since June, including patrols around the surrounding neighborhoods to prevent club visitors from parking off-site.
But numerous residents argued that Bradley hadn’t done enough to address problems of parking and loud noise.
“I have multiple documented occasions where the loud noise and the nuisance was such that neighbors were calling me at all hours of the night,” said Costella Adams Terrell, president of the Rising-West Princeton neighborhood association. “Even I have called and let the 9-1-1 operator hear the noise from standing in my living room … As far as the neighborhood is concerned, we are fed up … They are so disrespectful to everybody in this neighborhood. They will park in your driveway, they will park in your yard. I’ve had to go out and ask them to get out of my driveway and my yard because they just park on my grass.”
Two associate ministers from Grace and Mercy House Ministries, a church near the club, said they had found vomit and excrement from Club Euphoria patrons “on the side if not the front of the church.”
“We just want to say it’s repugnant, what’s going on, the disgracefulness,” Veronica Mitchell, one of the church’s associate ministers, told the council. “These people have events while our church service is going on, and when we dismiss, there are parents that literally have to put hands over their children’s eyes so that they will not see these naked women getting out of their vehicles going to the club … As far as the church is concerned, we want them gone.”
Representatives from the city’s zoning department also claimed that the club had erected an “accessory structure” in its parking lot and had illegally connected it to power.
District 8 Councilor Steven Hoyt, whose district includes the club, said it was “unfortunate” that the neighborhood, largely populated by senior citizens, was having to deal with the club’s nuisance.
“What I don’t want to happen is for one of these residents to get killed by some of these patrons who are just going to take over their yard,” he said.
The council voted 7-2 in favor of revocation, with only District 1 Councilor Clinton Woods and District 9 Councilor John Hilliard in opposition.
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