A 39-year-old woman remained in critical condition Monday after she was shot outside a bar in Lincoln Park over the weekend, and the alderman who represents the neighborhood is now pushing city officials to tighten the rules on the strip of nightlife businesses where it happened.
Chicago police responded to multiple calls of shots fired just before 3 a.m. Sunday in the 600 block of West Belden Avenue, with callers reporting people running from the area. Officers searched but found no victims, but the woman showed up at Northwestern Memorial Hospital about 45 minutes later with gunshot wounds to her chest and thigh and was rushed into surgery.
Officers went back to the area around Lincoln and Belden avenues, where they found shell casings at the entrance of an alley just east of Lincoln. A blood trail led toward the nearby bar district, officers at the scene said.
Ald. Timmy Knudsen, who represents the 43rd Ward, emailed constituents Sunday morning saying the woman had been shot outside a bar on the 600 block of West Belden. By Monday, he said he had spoken with police and been told the shooting “was an isolated incident stemming from an altercation between a group of individuals after leaving a nearby bar on Lincoln Avenue and moving onto Belden Avenue.”
Knudsen said concerns about the Lincoln Avenue bar corridor are not new to his office.
“For several years, my office has been in contact with the City’s Business Affairs and Consumer Protection Department and CPD related to this corridor, specifically to advocate for stricter rules on nightlife,” he said. “On this stretch, there are a few businesses about which we consistently receive noise, cleanliness and safety complaints. Adjacent businesses and residents have called for a reevaluation of what is permitted along this corridor, and they have been partners in this ongoing advocacy.”
He said he is “urging city departments to allow us to set new rules on this stretch of businesses to ensure that nothing like this happens again.”
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call Area Three detectives at 312-744-8261.
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