Lawsuit seeks to close Austintown bar

March 31, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains is seeking an injunction to close and padlock an Austintown bar where he said underage alcohol violations and criminal activities abound.

Gains and Kenneth J. Cardinal, an assistant county prosecutor, filed a civil-nuisance complaint late this week in common pleas court, seeking to shut down Shotz Bar & Grille Inc. at 3713 Oakwood Ave.

The suit seeks a court order to shut down the bar for a year and sell off the bar’s alcohol stock, equipment and furniture allegedly used to maintain the nuisance.

“Shotz is a place upon which lewdness [lawless, bad and vicious] behavior is conducted, permitted, continues or exists on a daily basis during operating hours, and constitutes a nuisance,” the lawsuit says.

The bar “substantially interferes with public decency, sobriety, peace and good order of the citizens of Austintown,” Gains and Cardinal added.

Between December 2011 and Feb. 25, 2012, state liquor agents issued 17 citations to multiple bar patrons for liquor-law violations on Shotz’s grounds, the complaint says.

Between May 2011 and March 10, 2012, Austintown police conducted 31 investigations on Shotz’s grounds related to sale of alcohol to minors, open-alcohol containers, drug offenses, assaults, thefts, vandalism, and hit-and-run crashes, the suit says.

During that same period, the Austintown Fire Department responded to four injury calls and three overcrowding calls at Shotz, the suit says. Shotz also opened a patio without obtaining the required building permit, the suit adds.

“Shotz’s reputation in the Austintown community is very bad. Shotz has a reputation of allowing underage minors to drink, patrons to get drunk, fight, possess illegal drugs and [commit] weapons violations,” the complaint says.

A telephone number listed for the bar was disconnected, and Christopher E. McFall, who is listed as president of the business, could not be reached to comment.

The case is assigned to Judge Maureen A. Sweeney. No hearing dates have been set.