A Forest Park bar has had its liquor license temporarily suspended after a major street fight happened on July 25 that emanated from the establishment.
Lantern Haus, 7414 Madison St., will be closed over the weekend after getting a notice of emergency closure on July 27 from Mayor Rory Hoskins, who is also the village’s liquor control commissioner.
A liquor hearing is scheduled for Monday, Aug. 2 at 2 p.m., at village hall, 517 Desplaines Ave.
Hoskins issued the notice after a major fight on July 25 resulted in eight people being charged with aggravated battery. The incident happened just before 9 p.m., according to the police report.
Forest Park police officers said in the report that they were dispatched to Lantern Haus for a disturbance involving up to 50 people. When police arrived, the crowd of patrons dispersed into smaller groups of between 10 and 15, with many people still yelling “and being belligerent as they dispersed,” police said.
One witness told police that there was a “pop up” party on the upper level of Lantern Haus. The person said an argument broke out and someone threw a glass.
Outside of the establishment, police said they stopped a vehicle allegedly containing a man whose face was visibly bleeding and hands were swollen.
Police said the injured man told them he had gotten jumped by a group of men after an argument inside of the party, but he refused medical treatment and declined to provide officers with additional details about the incident. He also declined to press charges.
In his notice of emergency closure, Hoskins said the owners of Lantern Haus failed to adequately “supervise and control its patrons” while they were inside the premises and once they left, failed to “employ sufficient” security and employees for the event, failed to “prevent patrons from causing harm, disruption and concern for safety of the general public as well as neighboring business” and failed to “notify local law enforcement of the fight.”
On the day of the fight, Patrick Jacknow, the owner of Lantern Haus, posted to Facebook his own account of events, which disputes the information in the mayor’s emergency notice.
Jacknow said the fight happened during a “pop up shop event” his establishment was hosting on its second floor, where vendors were selling merchandise and advertising their businesses at booths.
“An argument broke out upstairs which was deescalated there, parties were separated and dispersed through the front in a staggered manner,” Jacknow said on Facebook. “Unfortunately because this was not the type of event I felt needed more than one security personnel, I had only one man in that position.
“While the parties left and we immediately shut down the event, my manager Julienne noted that some people from the party made their way out back and were not leaving, so he called for police assistance in getting them to disperse. During this time one of the people from the front made their way to Hannah [Avenue] as he was leaving, and several of the patrons from the rear spotted him and jumped him by [Forest Park National Bank].”
Jacknow apologized to the police department “for having to handle this,” to businesses on Madison Street, “patrons and families.”
This is at least the second time that Lantern Haus has been ordered to temporarily close. In July 2020, Mayor Hoskins ordered the bar closed after receiving photos showing crowds of “over a dozen people, not socially distanced and not all wearing masks,” who were waiting to get into Lantern Haus, according to previous Forest Park Review reporting.
The bar reopened after being closed for less than a week and Jacknow paid $450 in fines “related to two incidents of the bar service liquor after hours,” Forest Park Review reported at the time. “Multiple violations related to social-distancing requirements were dropped.”
