Enough time-wasting, close Smokey Joe's now

For more than two years the city of Youngstown has been trying to shut down those taverns with a disproportionate share of the community's drug-dealing, violence, prostitution and under-age drinking. Of these, one of the most notorious is Smokey Joe's Lounge on Market Street, near which Sunday a man was killed and two women wounded. After months and months of unnecessary delays, the city's law director Robert Bush must decide that the safety of Youngstown's citizens will not be compromised by incompetence or inadequate focus. The sooner this South Side nuisance is history, the better for the community.
A court order that had temporarily closed the bar expired while the city's law department was engaged in futile legal maneuverings to disqualify one of the bar's attorneys, alleging conflict of interest. Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Robert Lisotto had ruled last December that Atty. Stephen Garea had a conflict of interest and would be disqualified. Smokey Joe's appealed Lisotto's ruling, and the 7th District Court of Appeals ruled last Friday that Lisotto abused his discretion.
Were it not for the court appeal, the bar would likely have been shut down as a public nuisance. We hope the city's law department will handle the rest of this case more expeditiously and more carefully than it did the appeal.
Judge's error: Although the city had asked the appeals court to expedite the hearing, the city missed the deadline for filing briefs and was therefore not permitted to present an oral argument before the judicial panel. Besides the judicial error, the appeals court found that the city had no standing to raise a conflict of interest on behalf of the opposing party.
In the decision written by 7th District Appeals Judge Cheryl Waite, the court cautioned that if one side were permitted to "initiate conflict of interest proceedings in which it has no direct stake, it would give [that side] a powerful tool with which to control the quality and selection of the opposing party's representation in any case."
To add insult to injury, the city will have to bear the costs of the appeal.
We hope that both the judge and the city's law department have learned from their mistakes and that this case -- which the appeals court sent back to Lisotto -- can proceed without further delay.
The crime emanating from and around the Valley's more notorious nightspots taxes the resources of local law enforcement and taxes the patience of those living or working in the vicinity.
Declaring such places public nuisances, and therefore subject to closure, is one of the few tools Youngstown has to stem the crime wave that laps around the doors of these unsavory hangouts.