After wine bar gets OK, North Riverside neighbors vent
People from the 2500 block of Hainsworth Avenue turned out at the March 20 meeting of the North Riverside Village Board, decrying the approval two months before of a liquor license for a wine bar to be situated at 7700 26th Road.
Village trustees voted 4-2 to approve the liquor license for Ava’s Café, whose operator describes the concept as a pet-friendly wine bar. Trustees Marybelle Mandel and H. Bob Demopoulos voted towards granting the liquor license for a tavern at that place, stating it was much too close to residential houses on Hainsworth Avenue.
“I appreciate this idea,” reported Demopoulos prior to voting on March 6. “It’s modern-day, it is hip, it is all-inclusive. I just never like the locale.”
Mandel prior to casting her no vote in the license predicted the wine bar would make parking issues for nearby householders and criticized the actuality that the wine bar will also accommodate online video gambling terminals, concluding that its main reason was a gaming institution.
There is a smaller chain of standalone movie gambling parlors running under the Ava’s Café title in the Chicago suburbs, but it doesn’t seem to be linked to the North Riverside undertaking.
Irrespective, neighboring home owners blasted village officials March 20 for approving a liquor license at a place exactly where a bar has by no means operated without informing them of the software.
“I didn’t hear about it right until the meeting on [March 6],” explained Hainsworth resident Sue Meadows. “We really should have been notified.”
Meadows also explained a bar would produce parking challenges for citizens and questioned whether village officers experienced accomplished their thanks diligence, pointing to Cornerstone Montessori College just a few of doorways to the west. The village code needs bars to be at the very least 100 ft from educational institutions.
Rick Anderson, a further resident, also criticized the village for not looping house owners in on the prospect of a bar at the conclude of their block.
“I seriously am disgusted by the point that this was a vote with no any communication for the neighbors,” Anderson mentioned. “The neighbors have to have to know what was going to transpire right here. … This is not any other typical enterprise, this is a bar.”
Maureen Rush, who used for the liquor license and is the business proprietor, advised the Landmark in a cell phone interview that her establishment was not connected to the other Ava’s Café enterprises and that her wine bar is named following her pet, who died lately.
The assets is owned by a company known as MRE Portfolio Just one LLC , which obtained the previous dry cleaners on the northwest corner of 26th Avenue and Hainsworth Avenue previous June for $250,000.
The supervisor of MRE Portfolio 1 is detailed in Illinois Secretary of State documents as Harbor Smith Enterprise Providers, a Delaware company. Nonetheless, a person named Jeff Rehberger is stated as a speak to for the assets operator on an Illinois Condition Fireplace Marshal permit software very last October to take out a heating oil tank on the residence.
Jeff Rehberger is also the name of the chief govt officer of Blessed Lincoln Gaming LLC, which is a accredited movie gambling equipment operator in Illinois. A message left at the phone quantity listed for Rehberger on the tank-removal allow application was not returned.
The two taverns and video gambling parlors are authorized by right in that unique zoning district. In December 2020, the village board voted unanimously to permit those takes advantage of in a vote to amend the zoning code at that time.
The village board granted Ava’s Café a late-evening Course A-1 liquor license, which permits the sale of beer, wine and spirits from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. day-to-day. The annual fee for these a license is $3,653.
A entire liquor license for standalone gambling parlors, defined in the village code as a area wherever profits from the sale foodstuff/beverages account for no a lot more than 49{dd3cf16dc48cbccde1cb5083e00e749fe70e501950bc2e0dea1feff25a82382f} of yearly gross revenue, fees $15,000 on a yearly basis.
Equally Rush and Mayor Joseph Mengoni stated Ava’s Café was a business enterprise where by foods and drink would account for the bulk of its once-a-year profits.
Mengoni defined to upset inhabitants on March 13 that the village would open itself up to a discrimination lawsuit if it refused to grant a liquor license to a business that’s permitted at 8700 26th St. and exists in other places in sites in the vicinity of residential districts.
Plans for Ava’s Café submitted with the village clearly show that there will be a bar seating eight people today and a few two-top rated tables in the principal location. A different gaming area will be situated alongside the west front of the small business.
Powering the setting up, designs present an outdoor beer back garden with additional seating. Hurry reported that outdoor area will be the “pet-friendly” facet of the small business.
“We’re incorporating the outside spot to be a incredibly enjoyable, calming environment,” Rush instructed the Landmark.
The beer yard was a certain dilemma for Meadows, who observed it was just throughout the alley from her residence.
“[It’s] suitable in our yard, pretty much ideal where we sleep there is likely to be a beer backyard garden for a wine bar,” Meadows claimed.
