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The Springfield News-Sun covers all important stories dealing with public safety. We requested public records from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, the Ohio Department of Commerce and the Ohio Secretary of State to look into the business records of Club Sahari.
Neighbors have voiced their concerns about a bar in the Park Layne Shopping Center they say is a safety threat, but its owner says she will address their concerns.
Club Sahari, 630 McAdams Drive in Park Layne, has generated more than 30 calls for service from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office in the past year, according to dispatch records requested by the Springfield News-Sun.
“This is enough,” said Kira Allabaugh, who lives on Bowser Drive, directly behind the bar. “We are tired of having our children afraid, tired of hearing the noise till 3 or 4 in the morning and tired of seeing illegal things we don’t want to see.”
The noise of loud music and voices of patrons who allegedly smoke and drink outside the back door of the establishment bothers residents who live in the neighborhood behind Club Sahari, Allabaugh said.
“I can’t let my kids outside after a certain hour because of the smell of marijuana drifting from the bar,” she said.
Sandra Harris owns the bar and said she did not know about neighbors’ complaints against her business until the News-Sun and WHIO Channel 7 contacted her.
Harris says she has patrons smoke outside the back door because other vendors in the shopping center have complained to property management about smokers in the front of the building. But she said she will move smokers back out front if their noise bothers the neighborhood behind the bar.
“I’m trying to appease everyone,” Harris said. “I went to the back as soon as I had complaints about being in the front. I’m willing to do what they want me to do because I wasn’t even aware of that problem.”
There are signs on the front and rear door that advise patrons to not take any drinks outdoors or risk being kicked out of the bar, Harris said.
Club Sahari is registered with the Ohio Department of Commerce under the company Sahari Enterprises, Inc. The company’s liquor license was last renewed in June of this year, a commerce department spokesman said.
The bar had one citation, issued in 2007 — distributing alcohol to a minor — under it’s current ownership, according to state records.
There is a process which could result in the bar being closed because of community concern, commerce department spokesman Matt Mullins said. If residents contact their township trustees, the officials can submit a request to the state that the bar’s liquor license be revoked when is up for renewal in June 2015, he said.
Club Sahari is one of the many bars in the county where deputies make frequent calls of service and checks, said Clark County Sheriff Gene Kelly. These calls take up many hours of sheriff’s deputies’ time, and with alcohol involved in many of the cases, there is always a safety threat, he said.
“The calls drain manpower, they take our resources away from other duties and every one of them is a potentially very violent, confrontational situation,” he said.
Citations at bars in the county range from domestic disputes to weapons calls, Kelly said, and deputies responding to calls such as a large fight or a fight with weapons are advised to call for a backup response. That leads to more manpower being spent on these incidents.
“Often the violence and the rowdiness from the taverns usually spills over into residential neighborhoods,” he said.
Some of the calls that include the bar as a location are not stemming from Club Sahari visitors, Harris said.
“We get blamed for a lot of things that aren’t us just because it happens in the parking lot or in the vicinity,” she said.
But Harris acknowledged that arguments or domestic disputes are “part of the business” of running a bar, and said she has called deputies to her bar when she knows it is needed.
“I will fix problems if I know about them and I know I can change them,” Harris said.
Neighbors who live near Sahari Club have discussed the problems they believe are issues caused by the bar, Allabaugh said.
“We just wish the bar was somewhere where you’re not going to impact people like this,” she said, “or do it responsibly and take into consideration your neighbors.”
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