It’s not often that businesses line up to take shots at one of their neighbors.
There’s usually a comradery among businesses. They work together to advertise and attract customers or to fight issues of mutual concern. Remember how Westside businesses rallied to take on the homeless issue in Colorado Springs last winter?
Neighboring businesses on South Tejon Street are rallying, too. Against one of their own. SoDo nightclub.
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The SoDo nightclub sits across the street from Southside Johnny's at South Tejon Street and East Moreno Avenue in this 2006 file photo by The Gazette's Kevin Kreck.
Owners of a couple bars, a coffee shop, bank, motel, computer technology business and law firm are fighting SoDo, an 18-and-older hip-hoppy dance club at the corner of Tejon and Moreno Avenue.
This isn’t a place where everybody knows your name. But they might know your bra size. Here’s a look at its web site.
SoDo is a more than just a dance joint, although check out the go-go dancer from a photo on its website.
Besides the barely dressed girls, there is loud music and DJs and body painting and loud music and booty shaking contests and loud music and, well, you get the picture.
A $10 cover charge gains entry to all the fun.
But neighbors say it’s not much fun for them after midnight most weekends.
They describe an ugly mix of alcohol-fueled, testosterone-charged men brawling regularly.
Young people urinate freely in the streets, alleys and parking lots around the club, witnesses say. Vomiting patrons are a common sight, they say.
Perhaps most troublesome, gunfire is regularly heard, neighbors say.
That’s why a dozen or so businesses lined up at Liquor and Beer Licensing Board on July 15 to oppose SoDo’s request to install a rooftop beer garden. Here’s a look at the neighborhood from FlashEarth.com.
Neighbors say SoDo’s is bad enough already. They can’t imagine how bad it would get if the club’s mayhem was raining down from the rooftop.
SoDo owner Tim Rose of Summit Commercial Group declined to talk to me about his club. Neighbors say he is similarly unresponsive to complaints they lodge about violence, trash, noise and the rest.
These are not prudish neighbors. They already tolerate an X-rated movie house and bookstore, New Eros, in the block. (In the age of streaming, high-definition Internet porn, it’s amazing anyone still needs a peep house. But that’s another column.)
And neighbors insist this isn’t about competition between bar owners. Johnny Nolan, owner of Southside Johnny’s, said he doesn’t compete for customers with SoDo’s 18-and-up dance crowd. It’s a much different demographic.
Although the neighbors convinced the liquor board to reject the rooftop beer garden, the fight is not over. SoDo has sued to overturn the decision claiming the board exceeded its jurisdiction, abused its discretion and acted in an aribtrary and capricious manner.
While we wait for the case to surface in court, how about a couple body shots! And shake that booty!
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