Joliet club pleads guilty to liquor violations

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Updated: March 17, 2012 10:20AM

JOLIET — The owners of Mojoes pleaded guilty Wednesday to liquor commission charges stemming from a New Year’s Eve fight but said they have stepped up security at the club in downtown Joliet.

Mojoes also will focus on concerts and avoid events that have led to trouble in the past, part-owner Chris Triebes said.

Triebes said Mojoes has hired off-duty Joliet police for security at four recent events at the club, and, “I feel like it’s made an improvement already.”

Mayor Thomas Giarrante, also the city’s liquor commissioner, said he still is considering what penalties to impose on the club. Giarrante shut down Mojoes for seven days after the New Year’s Eve fight and another week after an incident Jan. 15.

“At most of their entertainment venues, they haven’t had problems,” Giarrante said. “It’s just when they have certain types of entertainment.”

At Wednesday’s hearing, Giarrante said he asked Mojoes’ owners to hire off-duty police as security, although he noted that he cannot order them to do so.

But Triebes said Mojoes plans to use off-duty police for all events except small, low-key ones.

He also said the club will stop hosting parties with deejays, the type of events that ended with the two fights in January. Although Triebes, added, he was perplexed as to why those types of parties led to problems.

“The (deejays) personally were great guys that we worked with,” he said.

But Triebes said that Mojoes’ strength always has been concerts and that the club will focus on those events.

Mojoes opened early in 2011 as an all-ages club that would bring concerts teens could attend at the same time that adults would be able to drink alcohol in a separate section of the club. It was the first all-ages club licensed in Joliet, and the city set up rules aimed at ensuring minors would not have access to alcohol.

While the major concern at the time was whether all-ages events would lead to trouble, those have not been the problem.

Triebes said Mojoes has had several hundred people for all-ages concerts without disturbances. But the Jan. 15 event that led to two people being stabbed at the club actually was a family and friends party. The New Year’s Eve party was open to the public but was not an all-ages event.

However, minors were inside the club on New Year’s Eve.

Mojoes pleaded guilty to charges that the club had admitted minors on New Year’s Eve and sold them alcohol, reversing a not-guilty plea from a previous hearing this month.

The owners previously had pleaded guilty to a charge that the club had allowed in customers whose conduct led to a breach of the peace.

The owners contested one charge that the club obstructed Joliet police investigating the New Year’s Eve incident. The city dropped that charge Wednesday.

Mojoes still has charges pending from the Jan. 15 incident.

“In the future, if they have problems,” Giarrante said, “it’s going to be very severe.”