[B]URLINGTON — City officials denied a liquor license to the owner of a controversial former nightclub in South Burlington, scuttling his plans to open a new club downtown on College Street.
Michael Couture was represented before the three-member Local Control Subcommittee Tuesday by attorney Jordan Handy. The lawyer was unable to convince city councilors that Couture had learned lessons from his fraught relationship with South Burlington police and would avoid similar pitfalls in Burlington.
Couture operated the Venue nightclub on Market Street in South Burlington from 2013 until the company lost its liquor license earlier this year after a litany of issues including fights, a stabbing, overcrowding and liquor control violations.
“What we’re trying to do is learn from our mistakes at the Venue, take those mistakes and make sure we don’t have those same issues,” said Handy, who is not a financial partner in the nascent nightclub.
Handy said after the meeting that his involvement doesn’t go beyond representing Couture — despite being related to the Handy family which owns the former Burlington Free Press building at 191 College Street where Couture hoped to open 802 Club & Lounge.
The new club would cater to a different audience than Venue had, Handy said, seeking to bring in national music acts and provide an avenue for greater exposure to local musicians, similar to Nectar’s on Main Street.
“No more foam parties, no Chippendales, no hip hop raves or anything like that,” Handy said, in an attempt to reassure councilors who asked if 802 Club & Lounge would host similar events to those at Venue.
“It’s going to be 80s and 90s music, modern music, sometimes high energy dance, but mostly, like I said, local music and 80s, 90s and modern bands — bands basically,” Handy said.
Burlington Police Lt. Paul Glynn, district commander for the downtown area, spoke against granting a liquor license for 802 Club & Lounge.
Glynn said he had called South Burlington Police Chief Trevor Whipple earlier Tuesday to ask about his experience with Venue and “got an earful” in response.
Whipple reported issues at Venue with customers being over-served, the club being overcrowded, bouncers not engaging, a “general inability to control the crowd,” and officers being denied access to the club, he said.
Glynn was among the officers who responded to the stabbing at Venue, which he said resulted from an altercation inside the club and spilled out onto the street. A raucous crowd surrounded the ambulance that responded and were rocking it side-to-side.
The lieutenant said, however, that his primary concern with the new license would be handling an additional 375 people — the club’s proposed capacity — pouring onto Church Street at 2 a.m. after last call. Burlington Police are already stretched thin to manage the roughly 2,000 people that empty onto downtown streets when bars close currently, he said.
“We de-police the rest of the city for bar close as it is,” he told the subcommittee members.
A downtown property owner, one of her retail tenants and a residential tenant in the area all questioned whether the nightclub would fit with the character of the College Street block where it’s proposed. The woman who lived in an apartment there said noise is already a problem, and she would likely move if the new club opened.
That was enough for City Councilor Max Tracy, P-Ward 2, who declined to second a motion to table the license pending further review, telling Handy and Couture he didn’t want to waste their time — the license was not one he would support.
Instead, Tracy moved to deny the license and was joined by City Councilor Tom Ayers, D-Ward 7. City Councilor Adam Roof, I-Ward 8, who appeared inclined to table the discussion, voted against the motion to deny.
