urbanSTL

As I’ve been specifically named in this conversation, allow me to retort:

I don’t have a single problem with Hip Hop nights at nightclubs. I’ve been to a few of these bars on these nights and had a fun time. I’ve got no problem with people of different socioeconomic backgrounds being near me, including where relevant people of different races. We live in a free society where people can go wherever they want, and I cannot and must not be against that in any way.

And most of all, this is an urban environment, in a major metropolitan area, where one will most definitely run into people different than themselves across social distinctions, including sexual identity, religion, political philosophies, nationality, even sports affiliations. Herein we have the issues of race in America, which as I’m tired now I don’t dare try to fully engage cogently, but I will say that in cities we will be meeting with people of immense diversities on a constant basis, and those who cannot tolerate such should leave. I do not seek to live in homogeneity, and constant engagement of most of what I consider the status quo of society is something which makes me thrive.

My problem is that I don’t want to live in an area surrounded by nightclubs, and especially ones with big parties. People ask why the Landing isn’t a residential area, and I’ll say that it’s because it’s a nightclub district. It’s the difference between living above a sushi bar like Wasabi or Mizu versus living above the Drunken Fish on Second Street. You don’t want to deal with the constant noise and pains in the ass that the revelers bring.

Hell, I’m tired of the Chesterfield Kids who come down to the bars here to get wasted in the pubs nearby. The difference is the venue itself, not the patronage. Tavern bars are by nature different than nightclubs, most noticeably in decibels. Further, taverns are focused on alcohol as the intoxicant, whereas nightclubs are where you find the fun drugs, especially with how a hallucinogenic buzz reacts better to flashing lights and pulsing beats and girls grinding against you. That’s what it was like when Velvet was here, lots of people flying on X and other stuff. Only now, with Wash Ave turning more into a residential district, Velvet and Galaxy are gone.

Areas with less residential density are still seeing clubs growing, and through them revitalizing their neighborhoods. Look at Midtown near Compton to Exo and The Loft, and you’ll see great clubs booming with clients, enjoying the noise without any residential complaints. Downtown West still has a good club scene with Pepper Lounge and Fifteen, and they’re not adjacent to residences and wouldn’t be doing as well as they are if they were. Attendees can be loud outside and not have to worry about waking up someone who lives above it or next door.

Go ahead and call me a NIMBY-ist if that’s what I am. That said, I don’t want to live above night clubs and have to deal with their attendees meandering around and making lots of noise when they leave. This goes for Rap, Hip Hop, Trance, House, Trip Hop, or the horrible mélange that is modern Pop music. I further don’t want to live above the Old Rock House when the BoDeans are playing, and I chose to not live above Cicero’s or other bars that host bands of most genres out there. Inasmuch, I don’t want to live next door to an airport, either.

Watching the G-Rides roll by is not a problem. Hell, I love car mods and have worked on them for years. However, when the decibels are so loud coming out of a car that you can’t have a conversation on a sidewalk half a block away, you don’t like it, whether it’s Three 6 Mafia or some crap country song. Personally, I have more of a problem with the choppers rolling on by, based strictly on the muffler noise.

We have a long way to go with race relations in America, but this is not a race-centric issue. Surely the target demographics at these nightclubs bring in black Saint Louisains to a neighborhood with a diverse but majority professional white population, and until we advance to a level where race is no longer an issue for people such delineation of peoples into subgroups will continue based at times on skin color. However, I do contend that the problems generally held about Lure’s Hip Hop Nights are not based on the crowd coming in being mostly black people. It’s the party that’s held at the venue which is at issue.

When talking about Lure, that place just sucks. I have no problem with the Hip Hop nights at either Sugar/Solace or the new Club Europe, and I personally haven’t heard complaints about them. Lure, however, is different, from their legacy of “interesting” ownership to the sheer number of traffic issues and wasted debauchery of its attendees when they leave. When I sat out there that one night I wrote of earlier, I was watching gang signs flashed. I’m smart enough to know them when I see them in StL.

Remember: Two Thursdays ago, some dude shot at a couple of cops outside of Lure near close.

I’ll say it again:
SOME DUDE SHOT AT COPS OUTSIDE OF LURE’S HIP HOP NIGHT.
THAT’S THE PROBLEM.

I think that demands questioning whether or not the party they host on Thursdays should be shut down. It’s scary having shots ring out a block from where you live, in whatever neighborhood you live, and it’s only smart to act in prevention. If the neighbors don’t care about such things, then they’re idiots.

Now Doug, you called me out, and I’ll call you out, with you shouting “racist” again in your disagreement while pulling in critiques of your own on multiple other peoples, yelling accusation amidst the “white businessman” in Downtown, Chesterfield, South Side Hoosiers, yuppies in the CWE, and Israelis. Point your highly enlightened finger back at yourself. And for what it’s worth, the only time I’ve ever heard someone say N along Wash Ave came aat clubs like Lure, hearing guys who happen to be African American yelling that back and forth. With everything else herein, I sure as hell don’t want to get personal, or further derail this thread. But I do enjoy good conversation, so I ask that any question you have please send to me with a PM.

As for my fashion critiques of the fat girls in the tight clothes: man, these girls were fat. I mean Orca fat. It doesn’t mean a damn to me if they were going to Hip Hop night, dinner at a restaurant, or church, you just don’t prance around dressed like a whore, and especially don’t do that when the clothes fit on a woman fifty pounds less heavy than you are. There were a lot of hot chicks in this line I saw, I even flirted with a few of them that night and got some quality back, but some of the other girls were just huge. One of these girls I remember, she has the full and protected right to wear what she wore, as part of her freedoms of self-expression, and just as much I have my right to say she looked like 250 pounds of chewed bubble gum smoking a cigarette and that, if I had my druthers, she’d have on more than a baby tee and a miniskirt. It has only to do with her body type, and my burnt eyes & nausea seeing her.

Back on topic: I say that if your patrons shoot at cops at your venue, then it’s only proper to have your bar come up for review. That is all.

"banning a type of club from one area while allowing it to exist freely in another"

Why shouldn't we do this? We've been doing this for a couple hundred years. What's next, will you lobby for the rendering guild? (that's horse and large animal processing) Maybe they should be allowed to set up anywhere they want?

RFT: Members of the Downtown St. Louis Residents Association hosted a meeting last Thursday night to discuss what can be done about disruptive behavior outside area nightclubs.
Source: http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyr ... laints.php

So last night I’m at a party in the County when I run into a friend of mine, a friend who’s well aware of Lure and its Hip Hop nights intimately as part of the work he does.

He describes the big players on the scene as so:

Being a venue still owned by the Tripiano family (run by one of the younger sons who’s noted as quite proud of his job), the club has a cover that now goes well into the double digits, especially on special party nights such as these to get in. VIP runs very high per person, and bottle service costs increase the amount of disposable income necessary to partake. People dropping a few hundred are normal. There’s a wand at the door, so it’s been seen often that some people take their time in their cars making sure they’re clean walking in. Meanwhile, he said that there are always a few good dopers slinging inside who each earn an easy $500 a night working the crowd. The setup is organized, well-maintained, and apparently is quite profitable for all involved. He also stated that there are marked increases in reported calls on Thursday nights peripheral to Lure specifically, including shootings out of and towards other moving cars/trucks away from the club but driven by said attendees, and he doesn’t think they’re going to be able to stay in business as-is for the reasonable future.

This does not describe the majority clientele, only a noted percentage of the regular attendees. However, when one sub-group defined by preoccupation (and not by racial identity) has such negative influence upon the venue and the area, it leaves the venue very open to outside judgment and punitive actions. It sucks that the party has to be brought down by such a small consistently-present group, but that’s what it looks to be very soon.


On a completely separate note: I remember sitting at the bar at HOTD and hanging out with a regular, there for the social scene and to meet friends amongst the bar staff as well as their great beer selection (restaurant industry loves the bar). For what it’s worth, my friend happens to be both black and gay, and I never saw nor heard of him being on the receiving end of any heat for either disposition. He’s a friend of the bar, and he’s been welcomed in happily by all involved. I consider accusations contrary to what I’ve witnessed to be nothing less than baseless hearsay if not totally made up.

I can't seem to recall any shootings at a Talib Qweli, Madlib, or J5 show. I wonder what Hip Hop they're listening to?

Doug has been so brain washed with political correctness that he's turned in to a zombie. I don't care if it's a hip hop club or African hair braiding, if the patrons are causing problems, and yes, even if they have black skin, they should be gone.

BTW, I knew this thread would end up here when I originally posted it.
I even debated whether to post or not but figured violence and public safety trump everything.

So this is a mob-run club for African American gangsters and fat welfare queens? Well, then we should shut it down! I had no idea it was that bad! Get them back to North St. Louis as quickly as possible!

If I am not into profiling based upon clothing style, type of car, body size, then yeah I guess I am a zombie. Though yes I do dislike Hoosiers, mostly for their influence over American politics (and because I grew up immersed in their ignorance for most of my life), I would not advocate banning them from anywhere for any reason. It still seems that some on this forum tend to believe that every African American youth who dresses a certain way must be "trash" or "dangerous." It's as if African Americans are not the same class as whites if they do not dress or act in the same manner, aka "wrapping down the street" as GoneCorporate said.

Yes, people shooting off guns is a definite problem, however simply closing down a club solves nothing. You might sleep better at night, or not be as afraid walking down the street, but the guns, drugs, and alcohol are still causing these problems. Would forum members of UrbanStl.com create such a huge issue about this if it didn't occur near where they lived? Would they advocate banning "wrapping down the street" and "G-Rides" on Natural Bridge Avenue?

^Have you even been to Lure?

Doug wrote:Yes, people shooting off guns is a definite problem, however simply closing down a club solves nothing. You might sleep better at night, or not be as afraid walking down the street, but the guns, drugs, and alcohol are still causing these problems.

But they won't be causing anymore problems in my neighborhood.

Doug wrote:Would forum members of UrbanStl.com create such a huge issue about this if it didn't occur near where they lived? Would they advocate banning "wrapping down the street" and "G-Rides" on Natural Bridge Avenue?

That would be up to the residents of Natural Bridge to do. Or not do. However they see fit.

Seeing the developing Washington Ave neighborhood has been interesting. Most neighborhoods and music venues/clubs don't get along. A neighborhood doesn't like long lines, loud music, and late nights...and music venues/clubs don't like paranoid, cop calling, nosy neighbors.

It's always been this way. It's interesting now because downtown has a neighborhood that it never had before. Seeing the Galaxy, Velvet, and the Creepy Crawl shut down/move was just the start. The neighborhood is developing into it's own and that's a good thing.

Maybe if more clubs/venues moved from downtown to midtown, everyone would be a lot happier. Artistic collaboration, plenty of room to grow, different music genres, different artistic genres, integrate into Grand Center, etc...

It's also worth pointing out that the bar across Tucker, next to the animal hospital, has a largely black clientèle (I believe the owner is black as well). Yet I haven't heard of any of the "racist" neighbors trying to shut it down. Kind of makes Doug's claims look all the more foolish.