After 2 shootings in 2 months, alderman invites residents to co-sign letter calling for permanent closure of The Dime nightclub

Dear Commissioner Capifali & Commissioner Trotter:

My office, together with the residents, business owners, and community organizations whose signatures appear below, respectfully submit this formal complaint requesting that the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection and the Local Liquor Control Commissioner revoke the liquor license and Public Place of Amusement (“PPA”) license held by the Dime, 2263 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago, IL 60614. On July 21, 2026, Chicago Police Interim and Acting Superintendent Fred Waller ordered the Dime closed immediately under a Summary Closure Order, after determining it to be a “public safety threat” tied to the fatal shooting of Malik McCorkle, 30, two nights earlier. That closure was the result of years of advocacy by this office and this community related to a bar that sourced many incidents — but by law, it is temporary. As you know, it lasts up to six months, and it leaves the Dime’s consumption on premises – incidental activity, retail food establishment, and PPA licenses intact. We are asking the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection and the Local Liquor Control Commission to finish what the Summary Closure started.

I. Statement of Facts — A Documented Pattern of Public Safety Threats

The following timeline, drawn from police reports, CPD’s own incident data (via requests under the Freedom of Information Act), and complaints to my office, demonstrates that the violence at the Dime is not isolated — it is a persistent and escalating pattern directly tied to the establishment’s operation:

• July 29th, 2024: CPD confirmed a shots-fired incident on the 2200/2300 block of N. Lincoln Ave., the Dime’s block.
• November 25th, 2024: CPD confirmed a second shots-fired incident on the same block, four months later.
• December 10th, 2024 (RD# JH537203): CPD confirmed a third shots-fired incident on the same block within five months of the first — on its own, a pattern meeting the three-incidents-in-12-months threshold under MCC § 4-4-313, discussed below.
• July 6th, 2025, 2:21 a.m.: CPD confirmed a shots-fired incident on the 2200 block of N. Lincoln Ave. — the same block as the Dime — almost exactly one year before the shooting described below.
• July 26th, 2025: The Dime was closed following a Department of Buildings inspection citing multiple violations.
• August 1st, 2025 : The Dime was allowed to reopen after resolving the Department of Buildings violations.
• August 10th, 2025, 12:38 a.m.: CPD was dispatched to the Dime itself for a “Person with a Gun” call.
• November 9th, 2025 (RD# JJ482766): CPD was dispatched to the Dime itself for an armed robbery / vehicular hijacking.
• March 11th, 2026: A plan of operation was put in place following a CPD VICE investigation.
• May 10th, 2026, 2:18 a.m.: CPD was dispatched to the Dime itself for a second “Person with a Gun” call.
• June 7th, 2026: CPD was dispatched to the Dime itself for a battery in progress at 2:22 a.m. clearing the call at 2:57 a.m. At 3:47 a.m. — less than an hour later — CPD confirmed a person shot on the same block (RD# JK285004), critically wounding a 39-year-old woman. The altercation that led to the shooting began at the Dime and involved individuals who knew one another; while my office described the incident publicly at the time as isolated in that sense, its origin at the Dime places it within the same pattern this complaint documents.
• July 19th, 2026, 11:43 p.m.: A fight broke out inside the Dime during a party and spilled onto the sidewalk. Detectives’ review of surveillance footage confirms that those involved in the fight, including armed individuals, left the Dime together before two gunmen opened fire outside King of Cups, 2238 N. Lincoln Ave., killing Malik McCorkle, 30. As of this writing, no charges have been filed in connection with the shooting, and the investigation remains open; that does not affect the administrative public-safety-threat finding below, which rests on a different and lower evidentiary standard than a criminal charge and does not require a conviction, or even a criminal charge, to apply.
• July 21st, 2026: Citing this pattern, Chicago Police Interim and Acting Superintendent Fred Waller issued a Summary Closure Order against the Dime under MCC § 4-4-285 — the City’s own official finding that the Dime is a “public safety threat.
• Ongoing, over multiple years: Beyond the gun-related incidents above, CPD records show at least 13 additional battery or assault calls specifically tied to the Dime’s address since January 2024, plus recurring noise and disturbance complaints and three liquor-law violations for sales during prohibited hours — consistent with the litter and property damage residents and business owners on the 2200 block of Belden have reported to my office directly.

Taken together, this history establishes precisely what MCC § 4-4-313 is designed to address: a location where repeated illegal acts, tied directly to the operation of the establishment, present an ongoing and escalating danger to the public.

The Dime has publicly stated that “the incident did not occur inside The Dime or on its premises. ” That is legally beside the point. Both MCC § 4-4-285 and § 4-4-313 define the relevant premises to include adjacent property and the public way used by a licensee’s patrons — not merely the four walls of the bar. CPD’s own summary closure determination already establishes that this shooting, like the pattern before it, is directly connected to the Dime’s operation. The City should not let distance from the front door excuse a business from responsibility for violence its own patrons repeatedly bring to this block.

II. Legal Basis for Revocation

A Summary Closure under MCC § 4-4-285 is, by its own terms, not a suspension or revocation of a liquor license. Subsection (j) expressly provides that no summary closure order “shall be considered to be a suspension or revocation of a liquor license, ” and is not subject to the automatic stay that would otherwise apply under the Illinois Liquor Control Act. In other words, the Dime’s liquor and PPA licenses remain fully valid today, dormant only until the Dime negotiates a Nuisance Abatement Plan or waits out the closure period. Revocation requires this Department to act separately, under MCC Ch. 4-60 and § 4-4-313, which we ask you to do now.

1. MCC § 4-4-313 establishes a rebuttable presumption of nuisance where three or more separate incidents involving illegal acts — including the illegal discharge of a firearm — occur within any 12-month period on the licensed premises or on adjacent property, including the public way, with a nexus to the licensee’s patrons. CPD’s own records show that threshold was met independently in 2024 alone (three shots-fired incidents between July and December), and again in the twelve months preceding last Sunday’s shooting. We ask the Department to formally declare the Dime a public nuisance on this basis, as grounds for revocation.
2. MCC Ch. 4-60 authorizes revocation of a liquor license where the conduct of the licensed business is inimical to the peace, good order, health, safety, morals, or general welfare of the public — a standard squarely met by the pattern documented above, particularly given that the Dime’s own past closure and corrective plan failed to stop the violence.
3. Superintendent Waller’s Summary Closure Order is itself powerful evidence supporting revocation: it is the City’s own official determination, made independently of this complaint, that the Dime is a public safety threat.
4. We understand that a revoked license generally renders a premises ineligible for a new liquor license for one year absent specific City approval. We ask the Department to apply that protection here, given the Dime’s history of licenses and ownership structures transferring without addressing the underlying pattern of violence

We are filing a corresponding liquor license complaint form with this Department concurrently with this
letter.

III. The City Has Revoked Licenses in Cases Like This Before

The Chicago City Council enacted the summary closure ordinance in 2015 specifically to give the Superintendent the power to act quickly against establishments tied to violence. Chicago Police Department records reviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times show that at least 58 Chicago businesses — bars, liquor stores, and other establishments — have been summarily closed under this ordinance since 2015 as a result of shootings; a Sun-Times report on the Dime’s own closure this week noted the power has been used only about ten times a year citywide since 2015. That figure is about closures. The City also has a well-established track record of following closure with permanent license revocation, including these recent, directly comparable examples:

• Lyon’s Den Hookah Lounge (2123 W. Division St.) — after a bouncer was fatally shot outside the business in January 2023, the City secured a binding plan of corrective action in early 2024. When a second shooting wounded three people in July 2024 despite that plan, the City pursued full license revocation, completed in March 2025 — the same two-step path, interim closure followed by permanent revocation after a corrective plan failed, that this complaint asks the Department to complete for the Dime.
• Hush Chicago (311 W. Chicago Ave.) — closed by the Superintendent within days of a November 2022 shooting outside the club that killed one person and wounded three others, a single-fatality incident directly comparable in scale to the shooting at the Dime. The owner subsequently surrendered the location’s liquor license rather than contest revocation, permanently ending nightclub operations there.
• One Eleven Food and Liquor (111 N. Kedzie Ave.) — after years of violent incidents connected to the business, the City secured a nuisance abatement plan; when the business failed to comply, its license was revoked in 2019, an outcome upheld on appeal that permanently closed the business in 2020.
• Bottled Blonde (504 N. Wells St.) — license revoked in 2019 over chronic nuisance conditions; after exhausting appeals through the Illinois Appellate Court, the owners surrendered their licenses in 2022, permanently closing the business.

These precedents confirm both that the Department has the clear legal authority to act on the facts presented here, and that the City’s own established practice, once an interim closure or a corrective plan fails to stop the violence, is full and permanent license revocation — not a return to business as usual.

IV . Requested Action

1. A formal determination that the Dime constitutes a public nuisance under MCC § 4-4-313, and revocation of the Dime’s liquor license under MCC Ch. 4-60;
2. Revocation or suspension of the Dime’s Public Place of Amusement license on the same grounds; and
   Application of the standard one-year prohibition on reissuing a license at this address absent specific City approval, so the
3. Dime cannot simply reopen under a new owner or LLC without addressing this record.
4. In the alternative to filing a license revocation case at this time, at the very least, and I do mean “the very least”, consider this writing as my formal request that the Dime be subject to public meetings before you pursuant to 4-4-313(b) (1).

The 43rd Ward is home to thriving business corridors on Lincoln, Armitage, and Clark, where entrepreneurs continue to invest in filling storefronts. The pattern of violence at The Dime puts that progress, and the safety of our residents, at risk. As Alderman, I stand with the businesses and neighbors whose signatures appear below in calling for the permanent revocation of the Dime’s licenses. My office is prepared to provide any additional testimony, data, or information the Department needs, and has filed a corresponding liquor license complaint form with this Department concurrently with this letter.

In partnership,
[Signed]
Timmy Knudsen
Alderperson, 43rd Ward

Editor’s note: Knudsen’s office originally scheduled the Farmer’s Market signing opportunity for August 1. However, shortly after this story was published, the event was rescheduled for August 8 due to rain. This story has been updated to reflect the new date.