News Roundup

Noise complaints could silence jazz at King Bolden’s

City Business
By Richard A. Webster Staff Writer
March 22, 2007

NEW ORLEANS — King Bolden’s is either the savior of jazz on Rampart Street or its executioner.

The 4-year-old club says a Monday ruling by the city to shut down for 30 days because it was playing music without a license could drive it into bankruptcy and serve as a warning to anyone wanting to open a music venue on Rampart.

King Bolden’s is appealing the suspension and says it will remain open during the appeals process.

Mario Madero and Ben Gersh, owners of King Bolden’s, say they are being targeted for closure by a small group of “vindictive” neighbors and French Quarter organizations dead-set on turning Rampart Street into a quiet, suburban thoroughfare.

“Don’t tell people all over the world that we need to save the jazz musicians of New Orleans and then turn around and shut down one of their jazz clubs,” said Ben Gersh.

At only 600 square feet, King Bolden’s ambiance is intimate. The club feels crowded if more than 50 people walk through its doors at one time. Acts that have performed there include Trombone Shorty, Kidd Jordan and James Andrews. On the weekends, DJs used to spin records until late into the night.

Madero sits with Gersh in the courtyard behind King Bolden’s in the 800 block of Rampart Street. He gestures to the neighboring building and says, “We reopened after the hurricane, we pay our bills, we’re making tax money for the city and they’re trying to shut us down? I thought I’d get a pat on the back for opening a business after the hurricane and employing jazz musicians but they just keep kicking us.”

‘Poster boy for bad neighbors’

The building next door to the club is the home of one-time mayoral candidate Leo Watermeier. He describes the club as a public nuisance that put the final nail in the coffin of any proposed Rampart Street entertainment district.

King Bolden’s is not only a jazz club, he says, but a late-night hotspot for loud techno music that rattles the structure of his home until the early morning.

“They’ve become the poster boy for bad neighbors by playing this music so loud,” Watermeier said. “(The French Quarter associations) now feel we can’t allow any new clubs on Rampart Street because of King Bolden’s. They’re more opposed to it than ever.”

Carol Greve, president of the French Quarter Citizens for the Preservation of Residential Quality, said her group wants art galleries along Rampart as opposed to jazz clubs. She also said she is not convinced that Rampart Street ever played a historic role in the rise of New Orleans music and so there is no reason to restore it as a musical corridor.

“Clubs that have been there for a long time and have not caused any kinds of problems we’re not opposed to those,” said Greve. “We’re not trying to get Donna’s closed. We’ve never received any complaints about those clubs. But King Bolden’s has been a nuisance. It reinforces the idea that if you have a music club that is a good neighbor that’s great, but management can change and all of a sudden it can become a bad neighbor.”

Caught in the middle of the bitter feud musicians who depended on the weekly gigs at King Bolden’s to pay their rent in the lean post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans market.

The owners of King Bolden’s pay out more than $26,000 a year out of their own pockets to jazz musicians – up to $75 in guaranteed money to each band member for every show.

“If we start closing the places where we can be creative and practice our art over stupid stuff it makes you want to leave,” said trombonist Jeff Albert, a King Bolden’s regular. “Before the place was King Bolden’s it was a gay strip bar/disco club. How can having a jazz band be a downgrade from a gay strip club/disco bar?”

No license

In December, the New Orleans Alcohol Beverage Outlet Control Board slapped King Bolden’s with a 30-day suspension for breaking an agreement to stop all of its live entertainment activity including jazz and DJs.

The trouble started in February of 2006 when Watermeier complained to the police about the noise coming from King Bolden’s late at night.

Nolan Lambert, a city attorney, became involved and in August cited the club for operating without the proper liquor and music licenses.

The only bars in the French Quarter that can obtain music licenses for live entertainment are those in the two entertainment districts on Bourbon and Frenchmen streets. Every other bar with live music is doing so illegally.

However, the city typically overlooks or doesn’t know about these transgressions unless a complaint is lodged by a resident forcing the city to investigate.

The two previous tenants of King Bolden’s offered live entertainment for more than 30 years. So Madero and Gersh assumed when they took over the lease that they had been grandfathered in. But since Rampart has never been zoned for music, there was nothing for King Bolden’s to be grandfathered into.

After Lambert cited the club, King Bolden’s signed a consent agreement in August that allowed them to remain open while they obtained the proper liquor license but prohibited them from having live music ever again, said City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields. Any violation of the agreement would result in a 60-day suspension of business.

Months after the agreement, Watermeier said he saw a King Bolden’s advertisement for live jazz in a local paper. He then alerted the city, which resulted in the 30-day suspension, reduced from 60.

Gersh said Watermeier never complained about the jazz bands. They thought the ban on live entertainment only covered the DJs.

“How’s a jazz club supposed to stay in business in post-Katrina New Orleans without live jazz?” Madero said.

King Bolden’s attorney Sarah Ney said she was irate.

“Ahead of our case the board fined a bar owner $2,000 for eight counts of underage drinking and they want to shut my clients’ bar for 30 days for putting an advertisement in a newspaper?”

Ney said if King Bolden’s is forced to serve the suspension continuously, it will result in the closure of the bar.

As for the liquor license issue, King Bolden’s recently applied for a new one. But when Watermeier saw the notice posted in their window, he lodged a complaint with the state.

Gersh and Madero now have to travel to Baton Rouge today to appeal their case before the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control.

Watermeier said he has no problem living next to a bar if they are responsible operators. He said the previous tenant of King Bolden’s, the Seventh Circle, a gay strip club, never had live music and never made any noise.

However, Michael Sheehan, former owner of the Seventh Circle, said he had DJs until 4 a.m. who blasted techno music so loud “you couldn’t hear yourself think.”

Watermeier never complained once in the two years they occupied the space and was a frequent customer, Sheehan said.

Sheehan now operates a similar club, the Ninth Circle, one block from King Bolden’s and Watermeier.

Jobs for musicians

Madero and Gersh said all they wanted to do was open a jazz club and give local musicians steady employment to help preserve a culture the city claims is vital to the rebirth of New Orleans.

Unfortunately, they said, Watermeier, French Quarter citizens associations and the city are doing everything to ensure that yet another music venue is forced out of business.

“Because of Leo Watermeier my clients are going to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law while there are 900 other bars out there operating without music licenses,” Ney said. “This is a business that chose to reopen after the storm and struggled to survive, and now the musicians, bartenders, everyone else will lose their jobs. I’ve been an attorney since 1992 and I’ve never had my heart ache so badly over a case or felt so frustrated.”

Watermeier said the blame lies on the shoulders of Madero and Gersh for being irresponsible club operators. Watermeier said he doesn’t lament the loss of another jazz club in New Orleans.

“I don’t think there’s a huge market for more jazz places,” he said. “Even Donna’s struggles. It’s mostly a tourist thing. Locals don’t go sit and listen to jazz bands.”

But all is not lost, Madero said. If King Bolden’s succeeds in obtaining a new liquor license but can no longer hire jazz musicians, they always have the option of turning the bar into a daiquiri shop complete with a sign outside for “Huge ass beers.”

“I’ll stand out on the street and hand them out for $5 a piece,” Madero said. “With all the traffic on Rampart, imagine how much business we’d get. They don’t want a jazz club. So maybe we’ll give them a daiquiri shop.”