Historic Gay Nightclub Loses License Over Violence
Police have responded to violent incidents at the club on 109 separate occasions over the past year, including once for a double homicide.
The city council in Birmingham, Alabama, voted to yank all business licenses for The Quest Club over public safety concerns stemming from allegations of increased violence.
City council members expressed alarm over reports of violence requiring police to respond to the LGBTQ club, which operates 24 hours a day.
According to Birmingham Police Sgt. Kenneth Knight, police have been called to The Quest Club 109 times in the past year, and 44 times in the past six months, including a double homicide in May, in which two local residents shot each other inside the club following an altercation.
Other incidents included the shooting of a Birmingham police officer, a separate homicide in which two people were shot, and a physical altercation between a police officer and a patron.
The city council questioned the club’s owner, Don Sparks, and its attorney, Richard Mauk, asking why the city should not take action to shut the club down due to the dangers to public safety that the club appears to pose.
“I believe that you all are very unserious about this situation,” Council Member J.T. Moore told Sparks at a council meeting on September 10. “Your establishment is a serious hazard. People take a risk every time they step inside it that they will possibly be killed.”
Sparks asserted that lax gun laws were to blame for the violence inside the club.
“You can buy a gun and carry it, but you can’t buy a pack of cigarettes,” he said.
Mauk noted that the club generates more than $83,000 in sales tax revenue annually for the city — which was the first in Alabama to pass a pro-LGBTQ ordinance. But Moore took offense at that statement, retorting, “What is the cost of a life? Y’all do not deserve to be open.”
Mauk and other attorneys for the club also defended the business, noting that Sparks had spent approximately $5,000 to double the number of cameras on the property from 11 to 22.
But Knight noted that two Birmingham police officers stopped by the club to check security on the day of the hearing and found that there was no one screening for guns at the door — another safety measure that the club had previously agreed to institute.
“The safety of patrons is not being taken seriously,” he asserted.
“There was a breakdown this morning,” Mauk responded.
Moore added that he visited the club on August 16 and saw no security screenings taking place.
Mauk attempted to argue that the bar, which has operated since 1982, serves as a gathering place for the LGBTQ community and is a rare safe space for members of the community to be themselves.
City council members were unmoved by his statements.
“I know how important The Quest has been in the past,” Council Member Valerie Abbott. “[But] It’s not going to be important in the future if it becomes so dangerous that people don’t go.”
Moore acknowledged the historic significance of the bar but asserted it was no longer safe.
“You should be a good steward in making sure you protect that legacy,” Moore said to Sparks. “It is a shame that a place like this is going to have to go away because you all were negligent in being able to create the safety that people need.”
The council ultimately decided to pull the club’s business and liquor licenses.
Following the hearing, attorneys for the club said they would be going to court to ask for a temporary restraining order that would allow them to keep the bar open in the hope of getting a circuit court to overturn the council’s decision.
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