MEMPHIS, TN (abc24.com) - One man was killed and two wounded in the latest incident at Club Crave just off famed Beale Street in downtown Memphis.
It happened in the early morning hours of Christmas Eve, 2012.
Just like six years ago for his birthday party, rapper Yo Gotti was there. This time he was hosting a Christmas party.
It used to be the Plush Club, but no matter what it’s called, Club Crave is a magnet for violence.
So, who is to blame? Opinions vary.
“No, it’s not the owner at all, just the crowd,” said James, the janitor at Club Crave as he labored to clean up in the later morning after the shootings. “You know they just sometimes get bad folks in here.”
But, unhappy Beale Street business owners say otherwise.
“These people that run this club,” John Shivers told abc24.com, “they know what they’re getting themselves into. There has to be some sort of criminal negligence against these club owners.”
Shivers is the marketing director for the Beale Street Merchants Association.
“Unfortunately that seems to not be an unusual occurrence,” said Jon Bradley, a manager at Wet Willie’s on Beale Street.
Continued violence at Club Crave is perplexing, if for no other reason than this: “We opened a police station footstep away from this business,” Shivers said, “trying to deter anything from happening on that end of the street; and it just keeps on happening.”
“Yes, it’s unsettling,” Bradley said. “Yes, it’s a bad sign.”
“They’re not part of Beale,” stated Julien Salley, General Manager at the Hard Rock Café in Memphis.
If those on Beale Street have their way, Club Crave never will become an official part of the entertainment district.
“It seems like every time they are open, we always have issues with them,” Shivers noted. “I would love to see the city be proactive instead of reactive to incidents like this and actually get them shut down.”
The murder victim from the Christmas Eve shooting was later identified by police as 24-year-old Randy Williams.
