Crackdown on SR club

<p>With long lines often forming outside, Seven Ultralounge seems like the kind of lively nightspot Santa Rosa officials have in mind when they talk about a 24-hour downtown.</p><p>But police have responded to at least 520 calls in or outside the Seventh Street nightclub since it opened in January 2006.</p><p>Santa Rosa police say Seven's owners haven't done enough to crack down on assaults, drunken brawls and other disturbances inside and around the nightclub.</p><p>As a result, the city is trying to revoke its land-use permit, meaning continued operation would require Planning Commission approval of a conditional use permit.</p><p>An independent hearing officer is scheduled to take comments from neighboring businesses and downtown residents Wednesday at City Hall. The city's lawyers have prepared a 3-inch-thick complaint, including photos of bloodied patrons and police reports stemming from fights in which customers were injured at or outside the club.</p><p>Seven's owners say they have instituted changes to discourage disorderliness, better screen clientele and draw a "nicer crowd." They say they shouldn't be blamed for problems in spots outside the club, including a city parking garage across the street.</p><p>Club's made changes</p><p>"It's not scary the way they've billed it," said owner Nabi Baitsaeed, who with his partners invested $2 million to open a Las Vegas-style club in Santa Rosa. "I don't see why we can't work with the city."</p><p>He cited changes including a new manager, new security, a stricter dress code, pouring smaller mixed drinks and shots and re-evaluating Seven's lineup of hip-hop and other music.</p><p>"We'll do whatever is in our power to satisfy the city and make the problems go away," said Baitsaeed, a Santa Rosa resident. "We are not here to cause problems."</p><p>The club, which is open nightly and features such themes as hip-hop, alternative lifestyle and salsa nights, began operations under a permit originally obtained by its predecessor at the same site, the Latin club Planeta Furia.</p><p>If the hearing officer sides with the city, Seven's owners could be required to obtain a conditional use permit from the Planning Commission, updating parameters under which it could keep operating. Failing to comply could mean losing the permit.</p><p>Seven and dance clubs like it are welcome in Santa Rosa "as long as they maintain control over their clients inside and outside the facility," Mayor Bob Blanchard said Monday.</p><p>Control depends largely on managers, bartenders, wait staff and security guards who set a tone that subdues violence, Blanchard added.</p><p>"You can have a fun, edgy, urban nightclub and still not have a high, inordinate number of aggressive assaults," he said.</p><p>The city's complaint relies on an alcohol sales law adopted by the City Council on Feb. 14, 2006, about a month after Seven opened. The city has used the law just once before, with a nightclub at the now-defunct Los Robles Lodge at Coddingtown, Assistant City Attorney Mike Casey said.</p><p>Police and city officials said they took the step with Seven because the club's owners haven't taken enough action to curb problems.</p><p>Police Sgt. Andy Romero, who supervises downtown enforcement, wasn't impressed by the recent changes Baitsaeed described.</p><p>"It's like closing the barn door after the horse is gone," he said. "We have a history at the club . . . It's a problem that's been escalating."</p><p>Fights, shooting death</p><p>Many of the offenses listed in police records involve Seven patrons fighting each other or belligerent, intoxicated customers resisting bouncers' and police officers' efforts to subdue them.</p><p>The records also tell of rival gang members in an altercation in a bar restroom, a stolen car and a woman who cut a man when she brandished a knife on Seven's dance floor.</p><p>The most extreme case was the Dec. 3, 2006, shooting death of Matthew Toste, 32, of Santa Rosa in the Seventh Street parking garage.</p><p>In an incident Sept. 15, a 32-year-old Willits man reported being beaten in the garage by two bouncers dressed in black security shirts, according to a police report. The man's attorney said he suffers from lingering memory loss from kicks and punches to the face and torso in addition to a broken nose, five chipped teeth and a black eye documented in police reports. Videotape from a surveillance camera in the garage shows the man in what appears to be a defensive posture.</p><p>The tensions began when the man's wristband was removed by a security guard as he left the club. The man, whose name wasn't made public in the city's complaint, tried to re-enter, but bouncers barred him because he didn't have a wristband, according to his statement to police.</p><p>With no cell phone to alert his companions, the Seven patron "exchanged words" with the bouncers, then returned to his car in the parking garage to wait for his friends, said his lawyer, Diana Passadori.</p><p>Inside the garage "he was attacked by these guys without provocation," she said. "He never laid a hand on them."</p><p>Kenneth D. Hubbell, 29, and John Allen Graham, 39, have pleaded not guilty to felony assault charges in the case, court records show.</p><p>Although Hubbell had been a bouncer at Seven, neither he nor Graham was hired to provide security that night at the club, Baitsaeed said Monday.</p><p>"They came as customers, not as employees," he said.</p><p>Attorneys for Hubbell and Graham prevailed Monday in seeking a delay for the co-defendants' preliminary hearing.</p><p>Paul Everett Carreras, the attorney for Hubbell, said he wants to review surveillance video related to the incident.</p><p>Carreras said he does not necessarily agree with prosecutors' view of the case: "Mr. Hubbell's persona is that of a calm, low-key, easygoing man . . . A lot of times in fights, people who are perceived as victims are not the victim."</p><p>Graham's lawyer, George Boisseau, reiterated that Graham was not working for Seven that night. Otherwise, he declined to comment.</p><p>"I don't feel comfortable talking about a pending criminal case," Boisseau said Monday.</p><p>Who's responsible?</p><p>Baitsaeed said police and city officials are unfairly assigning responsibility to Seven for late-night disturbances in the garage, which also is used by patrons of other bars and restaurants.</p><p>"Those people who were involved in that (Toste) shooting had nothing to do with club Seven," he said. "The rest of them are the same thing."</p><p>The club's permit calls for Seven to ensure the garage is inspected when the establishment closes each night so patrons don't loiter there.</p><p>"It's not incumbent upon the Police Department to baby-sit businesses," Romero said. "It's presumed when owners have a business, they need to know what's going on."</p><p>Baitsaeed insisted his security staff fulfills those obligations, as they head to the Seventh Street garage nightly at 1:45 a.m., just before the club's 2 a.m. closing.</p><p>"They make sure there is no speeding," and that "everyone gets in their car and everybody leaves," he said. "They don't come back until everybody leaves."</p><p>Late-night disturbances</p><p>Despite Seven's popularity, some observers said the controversy has undermined city leaders' efforts to promote downtown as a place to live.</p><p>In a Sept. 4 letter to police, real estate broker Gordon Walker described disruptions to residents of live/work townhomes on B Street and Mendocino Avenue during late-summer Friday and Saturday nights.</p><p>"They have been disturbed . . . by loud music, obscenities and disruptive noises in the Seventh Street garage and Club 7, which are adjacent to our projects," Walker wrote.</p><p>Phyllis Winterhawk and her husband live in a remodeled Victorian house near the town-homes. She hears reverberations from Seven's sound system but said they don't bother her. "I chose to live downtown, so I like the commotion and the noise," she said. "I may not like it at 2:30 in the morning, particularly, but I'm so used to it now that I wake and doze again."</p><p>But the disruptions annoy her husband, a light sleeper who often is awakened by their barking dog, the sounds of bottles and cans being tossed over the parking garage's railings, and tires screeching.</p><p>Occasionally, Robert Winterhawk sees bar patrons urinating over the railing or squatting between cars.</p><p>"I think it's the bar's responsibility to get those people out of the darn parking garage. Get them moving out of there, instead of loitering," he said. "It's gotten out of hand."</p><p>News Researcher Michele Van Hoeck contributed to this report. You can reach Staff Writer Katy Hillenmeyer at 521-5274 or katy.hillenmeyer@pressdemocrat.com.</p>