43
A Youngstown commission rejects a request to reopen a South Avenue bar after neighbors complain
YOUNGSTOWN
After hearing objections from neighbors of a former bar on South Avenue, the Youngstown Planning Commission recommended the rejection of reopening the former Coconut Grove.
The request Tuesday to reopen the bar came from David Manigault, a cousin of Omarosa Manigault, an assistant to President Donald Trump and former reality-television personality.
The final decision on permitting the Coconut Grove to reopen rests with city council.
“I’ve got to fight it,” David Manigault said after the commission voted 5-1 to reject a waiver to allow the bar to reopen. “They’re unfairly targeting me.”
Manigault has operated the business as a restaurant for the past few years, though he said he recently closed it to get it ready to reopen as a bar.
The South Side establishment hasn’t served alcohol in about five years, said Bill D’Avignon, city Community Development Agency director. After two years without a liquor license, a business needs city approval to reopen a bar if it is located within 500 feet of other businesses that serve alcohol, he said. There are two other businesses in that radius that serve alcohol, city officials say.
Manigault is in the process of getting a liquor license from the state, but without permission from city council, he couldn’t reopen the Coconut Grove.
Manigault, who’s managed other taverns, said he wants to make the bar open to only those at least 35 years old because a younger adult crowd is “too wild.”
James Locker, secretary of the South Avenue Business Association and owner of Celebrity Studio, said his organization objected to the reopening of the Coconut Grove because there already are too many bars on South Avenue.
The Rev. Al Yanno of the Metro Assembly of God, a church on South Avenue, sent the commission a letter also urging rejection of the waiver for the same reason.
Robert Gray of nearby Detroit Avenue turned in a petition with the signatures of 26 neighbors objecting to Manigault’s request.
“Since the Coconut Grove has closed [as a bar], the neighborhood has quieted down,” he said. “We feel this waiver would be bad for the neighborhood.”
Under prior ownership, a 22-year-old man was slain in the bar’s parking lot in October 2011. Two men were shot in the bar’s parking lot in December 2008.