A U.S. District Court judge has temporarily halted proceedings between the village of Forest Park and a Madison Street bar, Lantern Haus, pending the resolution of a scheduled hearing on Jan. 25 in front of the Illinois Liquor Control Commission (ILCC).
Judge Charles Norgle Sr. granted a stay of the case in November but ordered earlier this month that the parties must file a status report with the court following the ILCC hearing. That hearing relates to an appeal of a 20-day suspension of the bar’s liquor license that was handed down by Mayor Rory Hoskins, in his capacity as liquor commissioner, last summer.
Hoskins found that the bar violated a village nuisance ordinance because a fight near the bar included a man who was in an altercation at a pop-up event hosted by Lantern Haus earlier on the evening of June 25, according to the bar’s appeal.
Hoskins suspended the bar’s license on Aug. 18, but that suspension was lifted when Lantern Haus sued the village in federal court.
The lawsuit, filed by the bar’s owner, Patrick Jacknow, accuses the village and Hoskins of “continued harassment” and says the bar was treated differently from other bars on the same street, citing several alleged examples of incidents in recent years that did not result in the same punishment.
“[The village is] singling out Lantern Haus for negative treatment and unevenly applying the law without any rational basis to do so,” the lawsuit reads.
Regarding the incident on June 25, the lawsuit and appeal claim that Lantern Haus staff called Forest Park police to the scene when the first altercation occurred inside the bar’s pop-up event area and that police found the area was “calm” when they arrived. It was only after their arrival that a fight broke out in the street nearby, but not on the Lantern Haus premises, the lawsuit alleges.
