The City of Winston-Salem is trying to prove it’s doing something by working to declare the Red Rooster a public nuisance. That’s a little late for Officer Howard Plouff.
It turns out that Red Rooster owner Mark Jacobs has had problems in the past:
This is not the first time that Jacobs has battled with the N.C. ABC Commission and local-government officials.
A 20-year-old man was shot to death and another was shot and injured in August 1999 on the dance floor of the Club F/X in Charlotte, which Jacobs owned at the time. Jacobs closed F/X not long after the shooting.
In 1995, a woman was shot and killed inside a club in Charlotte he co-owned, called Sugar Shack. Jacobs later closed that bar, as well.
Jacobs said that those incidents prompted him to get out of operating hip-hops clubs and switch to country-and-western, which is the theme of Red Rooster.
So then why did Jacobs throw a hip-hop party at the Red Rooster? No news accounts that I’ve read have come right out and said that’s what it was, but it’s a logical assumption considering the fact that the party was heavily advertised at Winston-Salem State University and the lead suspect is a WSSU student.
Based on his past history, it looks as though Jacobs won’t be operating the Red Rooster much longer, whether the city shuts it down or not. Funny, people don’t want to hang out in a place where blood’s been spilled.
