PROVIDENCE -- Club Sanctuary is closed, temporarily, less than a week after one of its patrons was shot to death in its crowded parking lot.
Yesterday, the city's Board of Licenses decided during an emergency hearing to shut down the Olneyville nightclub for 72 hours. That decision will hold at least until a hearing tomorrow afternoon, when the board will review whether the club's licenses should be revoked permanently.
The police called the nightclub a nuisance and a public safety hazard -- a place that attracts violence, noise and mayhem that spreads into the rest of the neighborhood. The slaying of 23-year-old Carlos Mendoza, a Colombian immigrant from Central Falls, was the final straw, the police said.
Mendoza was slain after a night of chaos and confusion at the nightclub. Fights had broken out inside Sanctuary after Puerto Rican rapper Tego Calderon left the stage at 1 a.m. Saturday, and bouncers pepper-sprayed the crowd and ordered everyone to leave. Hundreds of people milled outside in the jammed parking lot, which has one exit onto Hartford Avenue. A friend was giving Mendoza a ride home when someone smashed the vehicle's window and shot Mendoza in the head, killing him instantly.
There were no police on duty at the club that night, just police officers responding to an emergency call for a man with a gun in the parking lot. Officers were close enough to hear a staccato of gunshots -- but the killer disappeared into the panicking crowd.
The police want the nightclub closed permanently. Deputy Police Chief Andy Rosenzweig went further, urging the board to take a hard look at the licenses issued for all city nightclubs.
"I'm astonished by the condition in the city in relation to the clubs," Rosenzweig said. "The overcrowding in the clubs, the violence. . . . Until some preventives are taken to control the licenses, I'm afraid more lives will be lost."
House Majority Leader Gordon Fox, who serves on the license board, became defensive.
"You leveled quite an indictment," Fox said to Rosenzweig. The board handles the licenses, Fox argued, but doesn't the mayor's office, the Fire Deparment, and the building department also hold responsibility?
"I think the entire body of government bears some responsibility," Rosenzweig replied. "I don't mean to imply that the board has sole responsibility . . . but we cannot do sufficient law enforcement with the current conditions."
Rosenzweig, Maj. Paul Fitzgerald and Detective Lt. Terrence Crawley were the only witnesses allowed to speak during the emergency hearing. Neighborhood leaders and City Council members Luis Aponte, Josephine DiRuzzo, and John J. Igliozzi listened at the hearing, and asked to speak at tomorrow's hearing.
Mendoza was the sixth person slain this year after leaving a nightclub in the city. The license board has taken some action against two of those nightclubs, such as requiring police details. Last week, Fox led a vote to allow Breakpoint Cafe to reopen, with stipulations, seven months after a patron was killed leaving the club.
Fox raised the same question last week as he did yesterday: "If someone leaves a club and someone is lying in wait for them, how does a club prevent that?" he said. "That's the frustration I feel. What's to be done if someone's got a gun and they want to kill somebody?"
Rosenzweig later called that question a red herring. "It just seems pretty clear that there needs to be limits on the amount of clubs and the hours they operate," he said. "We want to encourage business, but sometimes there's a public safety issue."
Providence is a mecca for nightlife, with a proliferation of nightclubs downtown and in the outlying neighborhoods. The bars have a later closing time on weekends, shutting at 2 a.m., which draws out-of-state business. Some clubs also offer 18-plus nights on Thursdays, attracting a college-age crowd.
Sanctuary is owned by local club mogul Alex Tomasso, who owns several other bars and nightclubs in Providence. He opened Sanctuary two years ago as a venue for Spanish and international music, and his new nightclub, Jade, which officially opens tomorrow on North Main Street, will feature the same music.
Tomasso was at Jade's early opening last weekend when the slaying occurred. He did not attend yesterday's hearing. His lawyer, William Gosz of Providence, declined comment.
Sanctuary is required to hire police details on Sunday nights, but apparently hasn't been paying its bills. Sanctuary owes $19,911.40 for police details, according to a letter from City Controller Joseph Chiodo. Because of the money owed, the city will not provide any more detail services or process any licenses or permits for Sanctuary, he wrote to the nightclub.
Violence has caused the closure of other nightclubs in the city. Two years ago, the liquor control administrator revoked the license of Club Confetti, which admitted an under-21 crowd, after a patron was slain in the parking lot three years ago. The police and neighbors had complained of violence, noise, and nuisance problems at the club.
Two years ago, a state regulator upheld the liquor license revocation of Club Oz, a downtown nightclub that suffered from crime and alleged mismanagement.
