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Will Go Go's past haunt Hotel California liquor license process?
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Rucci
By ROBERT CONNELLY
YOUNGSTOWN
Attorneys and witnesses will reconvene downtown today as the liquor permit hearing for Hotel California in Austintown continues.
Day two of the hearing is set for 9 a.m. in the basement of the Mahoning County Courthouse, 120 Market St.
James Bally, an attorney with the Ohio Department of Commerce Division of Liquor Control, is presiding.
Assistant county prosecutors Dawn Durkin and Gina Bricker, representing Austintown Township and Mahoning County, focused Thursday on businessman Sebastian Rucci’s past with the Go Go Girls Cabaret and his relationship with Atty. James Vitullo, whose business, Vitullo Investments LLC, is on the liquor license for Hotel California.
Hotel California is at 1051 N. Canfield-Niles Road, previous site of the troubled cabaret.
Attorneys David Raber and Jeff Kurz, representing Vitullo, focused on Rucci’s winning all of his Go Go cases on appeal, except for one pending in Mahoning County Area Court in Austintown, where Rucci was found guilty early this year of illegal sales and keeper of place/beer or liquor sold illegally and was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
Both the Austintown Township trustees and Mahoning County commissioners filed objections to the liquor license sought by Vitullo Investments LLC, which led to the ongoing hearing.
Vitullo’s attorneys argued that Hotel California had an occupancy permit, issued through Mahoning County, for an open house that was stopped earlier this week for not having one. Austintown Trustee Jim Davis explained that fire department officials said the county permit was not applicable anymore due to new construction at the hotel and redesigning of rooms.
Another point of contention was the changing of the addresses. Durkin and Bricker explained that under Hotel California’s previous life, Economy Inn and Suites with the Go Go Girls Cabaret, the cabaret was 5455 Clarkins Drive and the hotel was 1051 N. Canfield-Niles Road. Now Club Cali, where the Funny Farm comedy club has relocated to and where the Go Go was, is listed at 1051 N. Canfield-Niles and Hotel California is listed at 5455 Clarkins. The addresses were flipped, prosecutors pointed out.
Davis said of Rucci and Vitullo: “I would object continually to one of those two operating an establishment.”
Raber and Kurz focused on the relationship between Rucci and Vitullo being that of a landlord and a tenant. Rucci owns Hotel California, but the liquor license is for Club Cali, the attached entertainment area. Vitullo has been Rucci’s lawyer in the past.
Austintown detective Lt. Jeff Solic, also the commander of the Mahoning Valley Drug Task Force, was called as a witness by Durkin and Bricker. He was involved with the initial charges against the Go Go and ran the investigation from January to May 2009.
Kurz and Raber focused on informants that Solic utilized to purchase drugs at the Go Go and surrounding businesses, but Solic denied using the informants named by Kurz and Raber. The attorneys then played snippets of audio from informants.
Kurz and Raber were arguing that Solic was telling his informants to buy drugs only at the Go Go. Solic countered that the targets of the investigation were employees of the Go Go.
“Your facts are all jumbled up,” Solic told Kurz. “The targets of the investigation were selling drugs from the cabaret. Our informants went to the cabaret to purchase drugs from those people. Since they work there and were selling drugs out of there, and those were the complaints, that’s the venue.”
Durkin and Bricker also focused on the many different names that have appeared on liquor applications related to the Go Go and now to Hotel California, arguing that they were fronts for Rucci all along and none of those permits was approved.
More witnesses are set to be called today. Other witnesses called by Durkin and Bricker on Thursday included Mahoning County Commissioner David Ditzler, an Austintown trustee during the time that the Go Go was open; Austintown Police Chief Robert Gavalier; and an agent with the Ohio Department of Public Safety.