1 dead, 2 wounded in shootout outside Chicago Southwest Side bar
CHICAGO (CBS) — A grand opening of a bar ends in a deadly shootout between a security guard and two armed men Friday night on the city's Southwest Side. The bar was to be doing business illegally.
City inspectors were inside the bar when gunshots rang out. The alderman in the ward said the business shouldn't have been open.
Police lights flood the 7000 block of West Archer Avenue in Garfield Ridge Friday just before 8 p.m. An argument quickly turned into a fight outside of the bar when a security guard with a concealed carry license was approached by two men, one of them armed.
An exchange of gunfire left a 27-year-old man dead and a 31-year-old man wounded. He was last listed in fair condition.
The security guard, a 28-year-old man, was also shot and taken to the hospital in critical condition.
Ald. Marty Quinn (13th) said he knew things weren't right when Garfield Ridge neighborhood watch members flagged the change in the bar's ownership on Wednesday.
"The sign just popped up, sort of under the disguise of night. They flagged it for me as sort of suspicious," he said.
Quinn said he has a moratorium on all liquor licenses in his ward.
"So anytime that businesses open up with liquor and they don't come through my office, I immediately dispatch the authorities, and so the Chicago Police Department and the BACP were notified immediately."
On their opening night, he said inspectors from city business affairs and consumer protection were inside the bar during the shooting but were not hurt.
"My next step in collaboration with the community is to change the zoning on this bar to residential, to give the community a front-row seat as to what's going to happen next. I'm not going to tolerate this in my ward. No, absolutely not," Quinn said.
It is not clear if the owners plan to reopen the business Saturday night. Ald. Quinn said he plans to get signatures on a petition to change the bar's zoning at a community meeting this Tuesday.
No one is in custody in connection to the shooting.
Chicago police said they are investigating.
