At-Large Councilman Jon Grimm, fourth from left, talked about police calls involving the Locker Room bar during a Marietta City Council Fire and Police Committee meeting Monday evening while Clerk of Council Michele Newbanks, left, Council President Susan Vessels, second from left, Marietta City Law Director Paul Bertram, center, and At-Large Councilman Harley Noland, right, listen. Grimm requested a resolution be introduced at the next council meeting to object to the renewal of the Locker Room’s liquor license.

A Marietta City Council member has requested a resolution be introduced at the next council meeting to object to the renewal of the liquor license of the Locker Room Sports Club, also known as the Locker Room Bar, in February.

During a Police and Fire Committee meeting Monday night, At-Large Councilman and Committee Chair Jon Grimm told council members that he requested the city law director create a resolution objecting to the renewal of the Locker Room’s liquor license and that it will be introduced at the next city council meeting Thursday.

Grimm also said he will be requesting to suspend the rules and dispense with the second and third readings of the ordinance so council will make a decision on the resolution Thursday. If the resolution passes, it must be turned in to the Ohio Liquor Control Commission electronically by midnight Thursday, according to City Law Director Paul Bertram.

Grimm announced he would be seeking the resolution during an Oct. 14 Planning, Zoning Annexation and Housing and Police and Fire Committees joint meeting, due to possible serving of alcohol to underage people at the Locker Room and other issues related to the bar including a Sept. 28 shooting across the street from the bar that involved four people with four guns and at least 38 shots being fired that led to a woman being shot in the face.

Grimm’s efforts to introduce a resolution opposing the renewal of the Locker Room’s liquor license were also spurred by the mother of the shooting victim asking for the bar’s liquor license not to be renewed during an Oct. 3 council meeting and stating that the shooters were patrons of the bar before the shooting. A concerned citizen also had a letter from him read at the Oct. 3 meeting asking council to look into the Locker Room and stating it contributed to the shooting and stating the bar has become more violent.

Marietta Police Captain Aaron Nedeff previously told The Times that at least one of the shooting suspects was at the Locker Room before the shooting, and it was possible two were.

During Monday’s meeting Grimm shared some information he received from the Marietta Police Department about calls received regarding the Locker Room and other bars in Marietta and violations related to the liquor licenses of the Locker Room and other Marietta bars that have been handled by the Ohio Liquor Control Commission.

The Locker Room had six violations from 2020-2024, with none of the violations being active right now, according to information provided to council by Grimm.

“There were serious violations from (the Department of Public Safety) and some tax issues,” the information provided by Grimm said.

Gator’s Easy Wind Pub had two violations, with one of them being an active tax violation from 2024; Double L Inc. had four violations, with active violations related to taxes and underage sale in 2024; and the Marietta Brewing Co., The Galley, Wilky’s Sports Bar, 740 Social, Over the Moon Pizza and Pub, Austyn’s, Riverfront Bar and Grill and the Norwood Restaurant and Tavern and Beer Garden having zero violations from 2020-2024, according to Grimm’s information.

Grimm gave some information about police calls related to the Locker Room. He did not provide a breakdown of types of calls, just the number of calls per year. He said for 2020 the Marietta police received a total of 19 calls, for 2021 it was 23 calls, 2022 it was 20 calls, 2023 it was 22 calls and 2024 up until when he had asked for the information, has been 13 calls. Grimm previously shared that he had requested the information in October.

For other Marietta bars Grimm provided information about the types of calls received. He went over some of the types of calls, defining “assistance” as a call for someone who is in trouble, like someone was hurt out front not in relation to the establishment. He defined “violent” as a fight or unruly drunk and similar type incidents. He defined “other” as all other types of calls.

From 2020 to 2024, the calls to the Marietta Police for various Marietta bars, according to information provided by Grimm to council, were as follows: Austyn’s, zero; Lafayette Hotel, two calls for assistance, one call for violent, eight calls for other; Marietta Brewing Co., two calls for other; Norwood Tavern, one call for assistance, three calls for violent, eight calls for other; Over the Moon Pizza and Pub, three calls for other; The Galley/Adelphia, four calls for violent, four calls for other; Wilky’s Sports Bar, one call for violent, one call for other; Double L, six calls for assistance, 16 calls for violent, one call for underage drinking where the establishment reported the customer, one call for illicit drugs that turned out to not be so, 20 calls for other; Harmar Tavern, four calls for assistance, two calls for violent, 21 calls for other; and Town House, five calls for assistance, six calls for violent, 26 calls for other.

Grimm also asked Bertram to share some information on incidents related to the Locker Room since Grimm requested the information about police calls.

Grimm brought up an incident at the Locker Room that is being investigated by the Ohio Department of Public Safety from 2021. He said it involved a drug incident where “basically there was a tile with cocaine that was on a DJ stand that was I guess open to the public.”

A report of analysis of the substance on the tile from the Department of Public Safety that Grimm provided council a copy of, stated a black tile with white residue tested positive for the presence of methamphetamine.

Bertam shared information about two cases being handled by the Marietta Municipal Court that he has worked on that are related to the Locker Room. He said one case was recently completed and the individual who was charged with underage drinking entered a please on Dec. 24.

“I told (Councilman Grimm), when he came to court he looked like a baby. And to go into a bar and look as young as he looked and then be served and he basically said he wasn’t carded, he wasn’t anything, he just went ahead and he was served. He got so drunk that there was a telephone call from his friends because he started fights,” Bertram said.

Bertram said there have been “numerous” other cases since September of underage drinking at the Locker Room. He said a lot of the cases were from when Ohio Department of Liquor Control officers would come down to the bar and discovered the incidents.

“I did a cross reference in the computer of all the cases in (2023, 2024) and the name Locker Room comes up 54 times in the cross referencing,” he said, adding some of them were for incidents not associated with the actual Locker Room Bar, but about 50 of them that were from the Locker Room Bar.

Locker Room owner James Eastwood, who came in partway through the meeting, spoke to council members about the incidents and claims against his bar.

Eastwood said when he first saw the draft resolution he didn’t know if he could say it was filled with inaccuracies but at his first glance of it “I kind of was just rolling my eyes at it.”

Claims the four people involved in the September shooting were served in his bar are not true, according to Eastwood.

“You can say it, but it was not true,” he said. “I was there. I was DJing.”

He said one of the people arrested for the shooting was already previously barred from the Locker Room.

“To think that we’re not proactive with things is crazy,” Eastwod said. “This entire thing feels like a witch hunt.”

He said the idea of council objecting to the renewal of the liquor license and that they served people in the bar that were involved in the shooting was brought up by two people, and he can understand that the parents of the shooting victim are upset but the other person is someone who is and has been barred from the Locker Room.

“He’s not allowed inside … this entire thing for months and months and months has stemmed from someone who’s barred, making a statement about me having a bad place,” Eastwood said. “That girl unfortunately got shot and that’s sad to hear but the (resolution) that I saw was being proposed (has) many inaccuracies. Many inaccuracies have been spoken. Mr. Grimm, you’ve stated numerous times that there were 42 underage (drinking) violations against the law, that’s not true. There was one in 2018.”

Grimm told Eastwood he wanted to clarify that he didn’t say all four shooters were drinking at the bar, but when the arrests were made two of the shooters had underage marks on them from the bar. Eastwood countered that the bar uses numbers or Xs to mark underage patrons and people can do that to themselves or get those marks anywhere.

Eastwood told council members no one in his establishment had control over the September shooting, just like council would have no control over someone getting shot “in the parking lot right now.”

The next city council meeting is 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Room 10 of the Marietta Armory.

Michelle Dillon can be reached at mdillon@newsandsentinel.com