Goodbye To Johnny A's Sports Bar

Photos by John Hoff

Mourn. Mourn. Mourn.

OK, not really...

I was going through a big stack of newspapers at the University, catching up and then recycling. I've been trying so hard to go "paperless," but I keep backsliding.

In a copy of the Star Tribune I learned of the death of the North Side bar called Johnny A's Sports Bar. The bar had (according to the council) "repeatedly violated state liquor purchase law, didn't pay a citation or its license fee on time, and had numerous, severe and continuing instances of criminal and nuisance activity including drug dealing."

Here is a really interesting part of the article:

"Council Member Don Samuels, who is black, took issue with those who suggest that the action was motivated by the bar's black patronage, saying that everyone must be held accountable for following the law, regardless of race."

True, but I must ONCE AGAIN question the validity of shutting down North Side businesses because of behavior by customers. Like, OK, shut down the Wafana's Store, where do the criminals go? Shut down Johnny A's sports bar, where do the criminals go? If the owner of Johnny A's did something criminal, then why is he not charged with something? It wasn't the owner doing the criminal behavior, and yet he is the one punished.

And maybe people who live next to Wafana's breathe a sigh of relief...and it appears to be some kind of improvement...but is it? If the criminals are not in jail, then we are just moving the crime from place to place by shutting down businesses. In fact, the criminals will need a new hang out. So where will they go? Which bar will have to be shut down next?

Also, Johnny A's was a very geographically isolated business. There weren't a lot of folks nearby on that part of Broadway to be bothered. If you had to pick a "good place" for dealers to be, Johnny A's kind of made sense as a "least bad" scenario.

Try to tell me crimes aren't happening in the parking lot of the mega-huge liquor store at the corner of Broadway and Lyndale Avenue North, but who talks about shutting THAT place down?

Goodbye, Johnny A's! I never had the chance to know your gloomy interior, your weapon frisks at the door, your drink specials. (I wonder what kind of fun and creative names one has for drink specials at a notorious den of drug dealing? It would have been fun to find out)

How I would have enjoyed sitting at Johnny A's, drinking a tomato juice, then calling 911 from my car about blatant drug dealing in the john. Now I'll never had the chance!

(Sniff, sniff. A tear)