Wes Spearman and Chuck Gilbert are experienced restaurant managers who say they’re trying to breathe badly needed night life into St. Paul’s storied Grand Avenue, which has suffered in recent years from retail and restaurant vacancies.

Pointing to dozens of police calls in a matter of months, some nearby residents and business owners have painted Billy’s on Grand as a magnet for trouble.

The two men, in turn, say they have a Black late-night clientele that gets wrongly scapegoated for any and all crime on the avenue, even carjackings that have taken place down the road and an incident involving a suspicious loiterer outside a nearby hair salon. A fatal shooting outside Billy’s occurred eight months before they took over the establishment.

“Some of the neighbors are proactively working with us,” said Gilbert, the restaurant’s general manager and a veteran of Minneapolis entertainment venues such as Seven Steakhouse and Sushi and the Escape Ultra Lounge. “Others think we’re the worst thing. Anything on Grand Avenue involving a person of color gets associated with us.”

“The bottom line,” said Spearman, a managing partner, “is it’s a Black crowd, and that’s new to the neighborhood.”

POLICE CALLS

Bob Karls, a condo owner on Grand Avenue, begs to differ. From mid-June 2021 through mid-April of this year, the St. Paul Police Department documented more than 100 police calls to Billy’s at 857 Grand Ave., from reported fights and assaults to 911 hang-up calls and tripped alarms. That tally doesn’t include proactive police visits, but it does include traffic violations such as parking in a no parking zone.

Karls photographed the hole in his neighbor’s wall after a shootout in the street sent a bullet flying through the man’s kitchen window on June 18, spraying his neighbor’s legs with glass. On March 5, a man was shot at Victoria Street and Grand.

“The managers have said there are perceptions of Billy’s in the neighborhood, and they’re fighting perceptions,” said Karls, who has lived on the avenue with his family since 2003. “I take exception to that. A bullet through a window is not a perception. Police calls are not perception.”

Michelle Plombon, who has lived across the street from Billy’s for 20 years, disagrees.

“They’ve been good neighbors,” said Plombon, who has met with Billy’s new management several times and calls any uptick in street crime part of a national problem. “They can’t be blamed for what happens outside their business. If Billy’s is successful, our whole neighborhood is successful. There are businesses that have gone away, and there’s empty buildings. We need to support the local businesses.”

KEY HEARINGS IN AUGUST

The restaurant and bar dates back more than 35 years, and Gilbert and Spearman feel they’ve inherited hard feelings and excess scrutiny. After less than 1½ years in operation under the new management, Billy’s on Grand could be facing a revocation of its liquor license following multiple run-ins with St. Paul police and the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections.

The two, who manage the restaurant on behalf of Randall Johnson and the RJMP Group, are scheduled to appear before a state administrative law judge on Aug. 15 and 16 to fight a $1,000 fine imposed by DSI.

That penalty is based on the accusation that on March 5, police documented patrons leaving the restaurant patio with beverage cups; and on March 13 and March 18, two ingress and egress security cameras were inoperable and security video was not available upon demand. In addition, police documented 31 “quality of life” calls in a year’s time.

As that legal appeal hearing was being scheduled, police investigated a call for disorderly conduct shortly before 1 a.m. on May 21 but reported being barred from entering the establishment. Based on that incident and the restaurant’s previous history, DSI is now recommending full revocation of Billy’s liquor, patio and entertainment licenses.

Spearman, who said he fired the security guard in question, said he’s worked in restaurants for 20 years, including 10 years at the Hunan Garden Chinese restaurant in downtown St. Paul. He said he’d be hard-pressed to recall an altercation between patrons resulting in penalties from City Hall.

“There were fights,” he recalled of his time at the Chinese restaurant and bar, “but no adverse actions.”

Gilbert said his credentials as a bar, restaurant and night club manager in Minneapolis go back almost 30 years, and include popular, high-profile destinations such as Seven Steakhouse and Sushi, Escape Ultra Lounge, Bella Notte and the Sunset Beach Night Club.

INCIDENTS DRAW CITY HALL IRE

Among the incidents at Billy’s that have drawn the ire of City Hall under both new and prior management:

• A fatal shooting outside the bar in September 2020 was among the final straws for Billy’s short-lived previous management, which included Johnson, the chief executive officer, and managing partner Matt Pendergast. Citing crime and COVID-19, the RJMP Group shuttered Billy’s in October 2020. It took eight months before Gilbert and Spearman, the new managers, relaunched Billy’s in May 2021 under a management agreement that effectively borrows the RJMP Group’s liquor license. Given neighborhood complaints, City Hall has yet to award them a liquor license of their own.

• On Feb. 1, the Department of Safety and Inspections imposed a $500 fine after the restaurant tallied some 78 police calls within a year. Those incidents included a large party that got out of hand on Oct. 30 and another altercation on Nov. 12. St. Paul police reported being called to a bar fight during a Halloween party at Billy’s, but by the time they arrived, the fight was over. Officers reported seeing patrons leaving the patio and entering the alley with plastic cups in their hands, as well as a man and woman engaged in a lewd act on the patio. Spearman said the woman was just sitting on the man’s lap. On March 2, the city council added eight new conditions to the bar’s liquor license, including regularly-scheduled outdoor security sweeps and a requirement that no new patrons be allowed in a half-hour before close.

• On March 5, a man was shot at Victoria and Grand and entered the hallway of the mall adjoining Billy’s. Gilbert and Spearman said there was no evidence linking the shooting to the restaurant. After reviewing security footage, the police noted patrons leaving the premises with cups without being stopped by security.

• In mid-March, police arrived on a Sunday afternoon to request camera footage. The owners said two of their 26 cameras were offline, and those cameras were directed at adjoining properties, including the neighboring mall. “A police officer came here and requested video at 3 p.m. on a Sunday and workers couldn’t provide it right away, which is an unrealistic expectation,” Spearman said. “Mind you, they’ve requested multiple videos before and after that, and we’ve always provided it. Those cameras being down were not intentional,” Spearman added. “We got them fixed, but let’s be clear. They’re not my responsibility. I don’t rent that space.”

• On May 21, multiple officers arrived on a report of people arguing outside Billy’s. By the time they arrived, patrons were dispersing. An incident report shows officers found restaurant security removing loud groups of people, but “security not only refused to answer questions about the nature of the screaming, they locked the door to the licensed premises on the officers,” reads the DSI notice, dated June 17.

In regard to the May 21 incident, Spearman said: “They ask the security guard for a statement and he says, ‘Man, I ain’t got nothing else to say to you,’ and closes and locks the door.” Spearman said he fired the security guard and the manager on duty the next day. The incident forms the basis of DSI requesting full revocation of liquor, patio and entertainment licenses.

The two managers say other restaurants and bars have been involved in far more serious situations and received more leniency. They’ve pointed to the October 2021 mass shooting at the Seventh Street Truck Park eatery that killed one and injured 15, and a shooting at Plum’s Bar last March that hit a 19-year-old patron in the leg. Both establishments remain open.

Spearman and Gilbert said police used to assist previous owners at 2 a.m. closings, and their presence in the area helped disperse crowds. The two men said police no longer offer such assistance, even though Billy’s now closes an hour earlier. They said they’ve been told police staffing is tight and the department can’t spare the extra hands.

“It has been several years since SPPD off-duty employment has been allowed at 857 Grand Ave.,” said St. Paul police Sgt. David McCabe, a spokesman for the department, in an email. “That off-duty employment pre-dates our recent tracking of off-duty employment, which is no longer allowed for St. Paul police officers. … Currently the St. Paul Police offers contracted overtime for local businesses, however no request for that service has been made by the owners of 857 Grand. Additionally, any request would have to be approved and agreed upon by the department.”

The Summit Hill Association has passed a resolution asking for Billy’s to close even earlier, at midnight.

“They’ve been unresponsive to our requests to close at midnight,” Karls said. “They don’t serve food that late, so their profit is selling alcohol.”

Last fall, when Billy’s management filed for their own liquor license with a 2 a.m. closing, residents in the area wrote 10 letters of objection.

“There has been so much trouble at this place that adding these services and staying open til 2 am is just fodder for the trouble,” wrote Lincoln Avenue residents Richard and Val Cohn. “I can still hear gunshots and screaming that took place there not all that long ago.”

Kevin Johnson, a resident of Avon Street, wrote that his family was happy “when Billy’s finally re-opened under new management and have been largely impressed with the operation of the business.” Nevertheless, he said, “the block is zoned mixed business and residential for a reason. Not only do we shop and dine here. We live here. … (Maintaining) the current hours are reasonable.”

EFFORTS TO CLEAR THE AIR

On July 15, with the intent of clearing the air, Gilbert and Spearman met with St. Paul City Council member Rebecca Noecker, a St. Paul police commander and about a dozen concerned residents and business owners.

In attendance was Julia Livingstone, a stay-at-home mother who lives across the alley from Billy’s. She had her windows open the day a man was fatally shot outside the restaurant, and said she tried to convince her then 5-year-old daughter that the screams were in response to firecrackers.

Livingstone, who has a background in community organizing, noted that incident took place two years ago, when Billy’s was operated by previous management. Since then, she’s seen some changes for the better, and a general openness to work with the community.

More recently, “there was a period where there were bikers that seemed to be meeting there quite regularly, and they were gunning their motors, revving their engines,” Livingstone said. “Billy’s was notified through a flier that these bikers were going to end their ride at Billy’s. Chuck immediately reached out to me and said, ‘I just got this flier, what do you think I should do? I’d like to use you as a sounding board.’ ”

She encouraged Gilbert to reach out to St. Paul police Cmdr. Joshua Lego, which he did. “They sent a couple squad cars,” Livingstone said. “There were absolutely no problems. We didn’t even know there were motorcycles in the neighborhood.”

Little more than a month ago, Accala Sullivan, a manager with the Juut hair salon in the adjoining mall, alerted management at Billy’s that there was a suspicious man loitering in the mall and looking through windows, staring into the breakroom and making her employees feel uncomfortable.

“We have been at this location for quite a few decades and we’ve got a great relationship with them next door,” said Sullivan.

Authorities assumed instead the bar was the source of the problem, Gilbert said.

“She called the police and the police came to Billy’s,” Gilbert said. “They didn’t go to Juut. That’s problematic. … We said, ‘Why are you coming to our office?’ Anything that can be, they tag it to Billy’s.”

Mara H. Gottfried contributed to this report.

Related Articles

• Local News | Soucheray: Will any of St. Paul’s plans actually reduce violent crime?

• Local News | New owners, restaurants foresee better times ahead for Plaza del Sol

• Local News | Ramsey County medical assistant charged with aiding inmate

• Local News | University Avenue barber organizes Saturday cleanup in St. Paul

• Local News | Securian Financial hosts 2,200 employees at downtown St. Paul’s Mears Park ‘Together Again’ get-together