Columbus, Ohio: Court Order Shuts Down Aurora Nightlife Bar After Shootings on East 5th Avenue

A court order has shut down Aurora Nightlife, a bar at 1025 East 5th Avenue on the Near East Side of Columbus, after a run of shootings at the address over the past two weekends, one of them involving a 16-year-old.

City Attorney Zach Klein announced the shutdown on Friday, October 30. His office said the bar has been evicted from the premises and the property boarded up until further notice, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

An agreement reached on Wednesday

Klein said his Property Action Team reached an agreement with the Franklin County Municipal Court on Wednesday, October 28, to shut down the club. The team is the unit in the city attorney's office that investigates problem properties and takes their owners to court.

The release from Klein's office pointed to court documents that describe a history of liquor code violations at the bar and after-hours liquor sales. The documents also describe numerous police runs to the address, including reports of shots fired, vehicle break-ins, assaults and shootings.

The most recent reports came over the past two weekends. One of the shootings involved a 16-year-old, according to the release. The reports reviewed for this story did not say whether the teenager was hurt, and they did not name the bar's owners.

What the order does

Under the court order, the property owners evicted Aurora Nightlife from the premises. The building is boarded up until further notice, and the bar's liquor permit has been placed in safekeeping, Klein's office said. The release set no date for a review or a reopening.

Part of a longer run of bar shutdowns

The Aurora order is the latest in a series of nuisance cases from Klein's office. In August, Franklin County Environmental Court Judge Stephanie Mingo signed an order to board up Czars Restaurant and Lounge at 6857 Flags Center Drive in northeast Columbus. The city attorney's office said Columbus police had taken more than 30 reports at that bar in 12 months, and a shooting on August 1 left one person injured and several vehicles damaged, the Dispatch reported.

On October 9, Klein's Property Action Team sued the owners of another east side bar over an invalid liquor permit and a history of violent crime, according to the city attorney's release list.

For the Near East Side block around 1025 East 5th Avenue, the change is immediate: a bar tied in court records to two weekends of gunfire is closed, its doors boarded, with no reopening date announced.