Providence police try to lower the boom on Club Diesel
By Beth Schwartzapfel
March 22, 2006
In the first of what promises to be a lengthy and sometimes contentious series of hearings, lawyers representing Club Diesel squared off at City Hall on March 15 against counterparts speaking for the Providence Police Department. Although the matter at hand is whether the Washington Street dance club is a “disorderly house,” the larger issue is really the future of nightlife in downtown Providence. The police are seeking the revocation of Diesel’s liquor and entertainment licenses, an outcome that would effectively put the venue, as well as Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel — which shares the same space in the Strand Building — out of business. The Providence Board of Licenses, which is slated to continue its hearings on the matter Friday, March 24, at 1 pm, could impose sanctions ranging from a fine to the license revocations. To prove that Club Diesel is a “disorderly house,” police must show that the establishment’s owners have allowed it “to annoy and disturb the persons inhabiting or residing in the neighborhood” or permitted laws to be broken in the neighborhood. As part of the department’s opening statement, senior assistant city solicitor Kevin McHugh recited a list of more than a dozen incidents in which police officers were called to Diesel, or the area around the club, to quell disturbances. McHugh called these incidents part of a larger pattern of disorderly conduct among Diesel’s patrons, and asserted that in the last three years there have been 332 calls to police and 174 calls to rescue from in or around the club. “This establishment has presented a drain on the police manpower,” said McHugh, noting that officers have been called downtown from their posts in other neighborhoods, “thereby leaving those neighborhoods with less protection than they normally would have.” Lawyers Edward Mulligan and Dennis McMahon, representing 79-81 Washington Street Corporation, which owns Diesel, countered that there are 26 other licensed establishments within a two-block radius of the club, the capacity of which collectively totals 3222. They distributed maps of the area, in which these other bars and clubs were marked with clusters of red dots. “All of these establishments . . . let out onto the street into this neighborhood at the same time,” said McMahon. “It is highly unlikely . . . that our patrons are the only ones that are unruly.” Also at issue are a series of statements taken by police from the victim of a January 6 downtown stabbing (which occurred in a parking lot owned by the Providence Journal) and his friends — that will prove, say Diesel’s lawyers, that the incident was unrelated to the club. McHugh says the statements cannot be released because they are part of an ongoing criminal investigation. But Michael Kent, one of the principals of 79-81 Washington Street Corporation, said in a subsequent phone interview, “They’re either going to give [the statements] to us, or we’re going to court to force them.” His own private investigator, Kent says, has interviewed the witnesses and found that the stabbing “had nothing to do with the facility.” Lupo’s, a downtown institution since the ’70s and one of the city’s top attractions, has operated at the Strand since 2003, when it moved from the nearby Peerless Building to accommodate one of Arnold “Buff” Chace’s downtown residential developments. Although Lupo’s has not been accused of any wrongdoing, shutting Club Diesel would force the closing of the live music venue. (Disclosure: Lupo’s and Kent’s venues are longtime Phoenix advertisers.) Kent, who owns other nightlife establishments, including the Complex and Art Bar, insists that the action against Diesel is part of a larger effort by the Police Department and the Cicilline administration to “hurt or eliminate the nightclub industry in the city.” Cicilline spokeswoman Karen Southern says, “The mayor has always said it’s important to strike the right balance, to have a thriving nightlife but also provide for the safety of the patrons of the city.” Police spokesman Gene Riccio declined comment. The quest for balance cited by Southern notwithstanding, it seems that the city is more interested in using a broad brush against nightlife than in enforcing the law against the relatively small number of patrons who commit crimes. The Board of Licenses’ hearings, taking place at 1 pm in room 112 at City Hall, are scheduled to continue Friday, March 24, Wednesday, March 29, Friday, March 31, and Monday, April 3.
