[atlantaprog] The scoop on Echo closing: wrong liquor license

From Creative Loafing
 
NEWS & VIEWS | THE WEEKLY SCALAWAG 01.13.05
 

 
   
 
 The Echo Lounge first lost its liquor license in July. 
(Michael Wall) 

 ________________________________
 
 

Last call for the Echo Lounge 
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2005-01-13/news_scalawag.html
 

BY MICHAEL WALL 

Janet Ridgeway opened the Echo Lounge in East Atlanta on Oct. 31, 1998
-- but it wasn't until Jan. 8 that she finally took the club's stage.

 

Shortly before the genre-bending band Kingsized started its encore of
Elvis covers in commemoration of the King's birthday, Ridgeway grabbed
the mic and told the sold-out crowd they were watching an even more
monumental rock event: the Echo Lounge's last live performance.

The crowd responded with loud boos, even though Ridgeway announced
that drinks for the rest of the night would be free.

In fact, it was the right to sell alcohol that has caused problems for
Ridgeway and the Echo Lounge. In July, the Echo was raided by Atlanta
police officers who discovered Ridgeway had been serving booze under a
restaurant liquor license for six years -- even though the club has
never been a full-service restaurant.

The club's liquor license was immediately revoked, and concerts
scheduled for the days after the July raid were either canceled or
hastily shifted to other venues.

Nine days later, at a city of Atlanta License Review Board meeting,
Ridgeway was called to the carpet for having the wrong kind of liquor
license. At that meeting, she began the application process for
obtaining a nightclub liquor license rather than a restaurant one. "I
should have done it a couple of years earlier," Ridgeway says. "I just
didn't think it was that big a deal."

But as she navigated the complex layers of red tape to get the club's
license back, Ridgeway encountered obstacles that she says proved
insurmountable.

"I don't want to go through this another year," she says. "They just
seemed so determined to shut me down."

"They" are the seven members of the city's License Review Board, the
committee that, over the past 10 months, has revoked the liquor
licenses for the gay nightclubs Backstreet and Metro, as well as
Buckhead hotspots Chaos and Fluid. All but Fluid had been scenes of
violent crime or drug busts.

Attempts to reach License Review Board Chairman Barney Simms were
unsuccessful. Still, the board's behavior is hardly surprising given
Ridgeway's liquor license snafu.

Meanwhile, Ridgeway says she'll likely sell her 15-year lease on the
building that used to house the Echo Lounge.

So it is that Atlanta begins 2005 by losing one of its last remaining
mid-sized rock venues, a stage that saw the likes of popular
indie-rock acts such as the White Stripes, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
and Drive-By Truckers. The Masquerade is also scheduled to close later
this year, and last year saw the closing of the Cotton Club and the 9
Lives Saloon.

"What a shame," says 99X DJ and music director Jay Harren, when told
about the Echo Lounge closing. "There are other venues out there, but
the Echo Lounge was sought out by bands of a certain caliber that
won't want to play other venues where you don't have the East Atlanta
vibe."

However, three new live music venues -- two smaller than the 450-seat
Echo and one larger -- could be opening in East Atlanta in the coming
year.

After four years of effort, the 680-seat, 70-year-old Madison Theater
on Flat Shoals Avenue may finally be restored as a blues and jazz club
to be named -- oddly enough -- "Wiggles," according to Scott Jeffries,
who works for DuBose Companies, the firm hired to manage the property.
A piano bar called Black Note is planned for the space across the
street from the Madison that used to be occupied by Panacea Salon. And
construction has begun on the Graveyard Tavern, just a couple of doors
down from the Gravity Pub on Glenwood Avenue.
 

01.13.05



































 
  
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Jenny Daley 
Director of Development 
School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering 
Georgia Institute of Technology 
Ford ES&T Building, Office 1372 
311 Ferst Drive 
Atlanta, GA  30332-0100 
phone: 404-894-0987 
fax: 404-385-0185 
jenny.daley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
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