YPD officers spit on at club

January 3, 2019 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Officers on the police department’s midnight turn rang in the new year Tuesday morning at what they say is an all-too-familiar place.

Officers were spit on early Tuesday while trying to disperse a large crowd after responding to a call of gunfire at a Club BBU, 21 W. Hylda Ave., reports said.

Officers were spit on by men who were upstairs in the club.

The owner, Damon Irby, denied that he was serving liquor and that he was charging a cover to get inside, which several people in the crowd claimed. Officers went upstairs and found more than 200 people, along with bottles of alcohol. Several people who were leaving fired shots in the air, reports said. There was also a heavy odor of marijuana, according to reports.

No liquor permit was in the building, and boxes with cash inside and cash registers filled with cash were found, reports said. Irby was issued a citation for restrictions on sale of beer and liquor.

Irby pleaded not guilty Wednesday at his arraignment in municipal court. He is due back in court Feb. 11 for a pretrial hearing.

Vindicator files show considerable police activity at the club, including a February 2017 raid by the vice squad and Community Police Unit after complaints about the bar.

Irby said Wednesday he will fight the citation. He said he has a liquor permit for the downstairs portion of the club, but the upstairs is a private club and alcohol is allowed to be served there.

He also disputed police who said they were dispatched to the club about 50 times in 2018. He said there is another nightclub next to his and that police were called several times for traffic control or parking issues, not for problems at the bar.

Police Chief Robin Lees said he will be following up on what happened at the club, and he wants to speak to the ward councilwoman, Anita Davis, D-6th, to see what options they can come up with to decrease the number of police calls there.

After Wednesday night’s Youngstown City Council meeting, Davis told The Vindicator that Club BBU is a “nuisance location.”

She called for “a very strong, more visible police presence and enforcement” at the location, and if the situation doesn’t improve, the club “needs to be put out of business.

“People who live on that street need to live in sanity. If it’s going to continue, [the club] needs to be put out of business.”