Historic Gay Nightclub Loses License Over Violence
alarm over reports of violence requiring police to respond to the LGBTQ club, which operates 24 hours a day.According to Birmingham Police Sgt.
Kenneth Knight, police have been called to The Quest Club 109 times in the past year, and 44 times in the past six months, including a double homicide in May, in which two local residents shot each other inside the club following an altercation.Other incidents included the shooting of a Birmingham police officer, a separate homicide in which two people were shot, and a physical altercation between a police officer and a patron.The city council questioned the club’s owner, Don Sparks, and its attorney, Richard Mauk, asking why the city should not take action to shut the club down due to the dangers to public safety that the club appears to pose.“I believe that you all are very unserious about this situation,” Council Member J.T.
Moore told Sparks at a council meeting on September 10. “Your establishment is a serious hazard. People take a risk every time they step inside it that they will possibly be killed.”Sparks asserted that lax gun laws were to blame for the violence inside the club. “You can buy a gun and carry it, but you can’t buy a pack of cigarettes,” he said.Mauk noted that the club generates more than $83,000 in sales tax revenue annually for the city — which was the first in Alabama to pass a pro-LGBTQ ordinance.
