COLUMBUS – The City of Columbus says Stooge’s is not a place known for slapstick comedy so it’s shutting down the South East Side club, scene of dozens of police runs.
The club, located at 2932 Noe-Bixby Road, and most recently the scene of a triple shooting over the Labor Day weekend, was boarded up Thursday afternoon after City Attorney Richard Pfeiffer, Jr. secured an emergency restraining order from the Franklin County Environmental Court against the business he described as “a magnet for criminal behavior that substantially interferes with the public decency, sobriety, peace, and good order” of the city.
The club has been the scene of shootings, robberies, assaults on women, fights with pool sticks, fights involving as many as 20 people at a time, drug dealing, and underage alcohol sales since 2015, Pfeiffer says. A man was found dead in the parking lot of the premises in 2016.
Police responded to 28 runs to the club in 2016 – 10 in April and May – and have been there eight times already in 2017, Pfeiffer said.
A follow-up hearing for a preliminary and permanent injunction against the owners of Stooges is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on September 18.
If the property is ultimately declared to be a statutorily defined public nuisance, state law grants the court authority to order the premises shut down for up to one year.