Apr. 8, 2025 4p
Update: The committee deferred the matter for 2 weeks at which time a newly-constituted Public Safety and License committee will take up the matter.
(WGTD)---A Racine city council committee will take a second look Wednesday night at a proposal to re-open an uptown bar and restaurant that has a past history of problems.
Aprill Wright signed a lease for space at 1518 Washington Ave. that she says would be run far different than the last business there that generated numerous parking and liquor law complaints and public safety issues.
Within two years after “The Fifteen Eighteen” opened, the city council’s Public Safety and Licensing Committee pulled its license because of those problems.
Wright’s application to start fresh was recently denied by the committee in part because Wright omitted—unintentionally, she says—a misdemeanor conviction in Milwaukee for carrying a concealed weapon.
At last week’s city council meeting, Kristina Campbell, chair of the Uptown Business Improvement District and owner of the Branch banquet hall, lost her composure in asking the council to support the denial, saying another problematic bar in the area would be detrimental to the struggling neighborhood. "I spent the past seven years trying to grow my business in Uptown. But the reality is most of my time has been spent trying to improve Uptown," she said tearfully. "I'm tired of doing it."
Wright, meanwhile, said she shouldn’t be judged by the location’s past problems. "I deserve an opportunity to show what I'm able to bring," she said. "If something happens of course I'm going to have to come back before the council. But to say I don't deserve an opportunity is not fair."
Wright, as well as Keith Fair, a former alder, suggested that racism was a factor in the debate. Wright is Black, as is the building’s owner.
Instead of accepting the committee’s recommendation to deny Wright’s application, the council sent the matter back to committee for further review.
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