WICKER PARK — New late-night bars will no longer be able to open in the 1st Ward.
City Council approved an ordinance Wednesday backed by Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) that bans any new late-hour tavern licenses in his ward, which includes parts of Logan Square, Wicker Park and West Town.
The moratorium would not impact the area’s eight existing late-night bars, which must obtain a special secondary license to stay open until 4 a.m. during the week and until 5 a.m. Sundays. The measure was approved unanimously by the Council’s license committee earlier this month.
The 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.
That includes Wicker Park’s The Point, 1565 N. Milwaukee Ave., which the city temporarily shut down in early 2022 after one person was killed and several were wounded in two separate shootings outside the bar.
The bar’s 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.
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.
La Spata said this month the ordinance is a way to limit future bad behavior and to codify his longstanding de facto policy not to allow any new late-night bar licenses in his ward.
“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.,” he said. “And folks who are looking to drink after 3 a.m., it doesn’t always lead to the best intentions.”
The 1st Ward moratorium 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 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 in September.
With this newest restriction, seven Downtown and North Side wards have a moratorium on new late-night liquor licenses, according to La Spata’s ordinance. The 19th Ward, which includes Beverly and Mount Greenwood, also has a similar ban.
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