The first thing the Lakeview neighbors hear is the boom boxes in the cars lined up and down Broadway. Then a noisy line forms outside the front door, and the party begins. From the nightclub come the sounds of shooting guns, shattering glass, and young men fighting. At four in the morning, the partygoers stumble home drunk.
Still, the dispute has incited residents to make the first test of a new state law that gives them the upper hand in the age-old struggle with noisy taverns.
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Orr, who operates several nightclubs and restaurants in Chicago, bought it in the spring of ’89 and rechristened it the Phoenix. For a few years before that, it was a disco called Club Paradise.
“I had big plans for bringing back the Phoenix,” says Orr. “Call me nostalgic–I have a thing about old clubs. I know how to run a club. Pull up the seats, pour the drinks, let them dance–entertain them! I would love for everyone in the neighborhood to come to my club.”
Last September some of the residents, Orr, and 44th Ward Alderman Bernard Hansen got together to talk about the problems.
A second meeting was scheduled for May 21, this one at a church in Lakeview. Orr brought his lawyer, Barry Holt, and they sat at a table before more than 100 angry residents who had come to air their complaints.
“Whatever you have done,” one resident said to rousing cheers, “has not been enough.”
