WICKER PARK — New late-night bars could soon be outlawed in parts of Wicker Park and Logan Square.
Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) is backing a measure to ban the issuing of all additional late-hour tavern licenses in his ward. The moratorium would not impact the area’s existing late-night bars, which must obtain a special secondary license to stay open to 4 a.m. throughout the week and 5 a.m. on Saturday night into Sunday morning.
La Spata’s ordinance was passed by the City Council’s license committee on Wednesday and now needs final approval by the full Council, which next meets May 22.
The proposed ban comes after years of issues with rowdiness, public partying and in some cases, shootings and other crime near or directly related to late-night bars on commercial strips in Wicker Park and Logan Square. Late hour licenses are highly sought after by some tavern owners so they can stay open an extra two hours and pick up business from others bars after they close.
Wicker Park’s The Point, 1565 N. Milwaukee Ave., which holds a late hour license, has been at the center of the backlash to late-night bars in the neighborhood. In early 2022, the city temporarily shut down the business after one person was killed and several were wounded in two shootings outside the bar in less than four months.
Owner Joe Jun Lin has repeatedly said he and his employees were not at fault in either shooting. After an extended closure, The Point reopened last summer and has numerous shows booked this spring and summer, according to its website.
La Spata on Wednesday said the proposed moratorium is a way to codify how he already handles requests from businesses seeking late-night tavern licenses.
“There have been lots of folks who have asked me in the past to approve or even consider 4 a.m. licenses. And we’ve said no, off the bat. I’ve said, ‘Don’t even apply for it,” he said.
“I won’t say that there aren’t folks who do it well. But on a whole, I would say that the greatest opportunities for violence and bad behavior we’ve seen come from 4 a.m. bars, in part because people leave their other place at 3 a.m. And folks who are looking to drink after 3 a.m., it doesn’t always lead to the best intentions.”
The 1st Ward ban comes eight months after Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) pushed through a similar measure in his ward, which includes parts of River North and Old Town. Hopkins also at the time banned all new liquor licenses along a popular stretch of Wells Street.
“You’ve got people stumbling out of the bar at 5 a.m., and they’re intoxicated and they’re more intoxicated than they were at 3 a.m. … There’s more fights, there’s more disorderly conduct, more auto accidents when people are trying to drive in an impaired state,” Hopkins told Block Club at the time.
La Spata said he’s following suit to make sure any business seeking a late-night license doesn’t slip through the cracks in the future. There are currently eight businesses with late-hour licenses in the 1st Ward, according to the city’s data portal.
“The valuable thing about actually doing a moratorium is it can’t be subverted,” he said. “It’s not just a personal commitment, it’s something that hopefully outlasts my time in office. I think it is good policy.”
At Wednesday’s meeting, Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd), whose ward neighbors La Spata’s, said he wholeheartedly supported the measure — especially in light of La Spata’s predecessor, former Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno, greenlighting a late-night bar near Waguespack’s house almost a decade ago.
That bar is Remedy, 1910 N. Milwaukee Ave., which Waguespack said has had noise issues in the early morning hours.
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