To the Providence City Solicitor and Members of the Providence Board of Licenses:

We, the undersigned residents and supporters of Providence’s North End, are asking our City to finally hear us.

For more than three decades, families in this neighborhood have lived with the consequences of a troubled nightclub operation. Parents have worried about what their children might encounter outside their homes. Residents have been awakened by noise, fighting and police activity. Neighbors have attended meetings, filed complaints, called the police and pleaded with their government to protect the place they call home.

The name on the building has changed—from Club Confetti, to Pearl, to Mezzo—but the fear, disruption and heartbreak experienced by this neighborhood have continued.

During the Club Confetti years, residents repeatedly reported fighting, underage drinking, noise, traffic and violence. In 2000, after years of disorder, the Board of Licenses denied the renewal of Club Confetti’s licenses. Later that year, a 28-year-old patron was fatally shot after leaving the club.

Pearl later opened under a restrictive agreement intended to prevent the same problems from returning. But the concerns continued. The business eventually became Mezzo Lounge, and our neighborhood was again subjected to disturbances, underage-alcohol violations, large fights, stabbings, gunfire and repeated police responses in the surrounding area.

The City has tried warnings. It has tried fines. It has tried age restrictions, additional security, police details and temporary closures. Each time, the establishment was given another chance. Each time, North End residents were expected to go home and hope that things would somehow be different.

They have not been different.

Most recently, an altercation involving people who had reportedly sought admission to Mezzo ended with the fatal stabbing of 18-year-old Marvins Antoine. Another young man was injured. A family must now live with an empty chair at its table, a future that will never be realized and a grief that no government decision can undo.

No family should have to experience that loss. No neighborhood should be told to accept it as another entry in a decades-long record.

The people of the North End have done everything asked of them. They have spoken up. They have documented what was happening. They have shown up. The failure is not theirs. The failure has been the repeated decision to place the continued operation of this establishment above the peace, safety and dignity of the surrounding neighborhood.

We are asking the City to end that failure now.

We demand that the Board of Licenses revoke Mezzo Lounge’s liquor license and that the establishment be closed permanently.

No fine will be adequate. No additional condition will be adequate. No temporary closure will be adequate. No promise of better security or improved management will be adequate.

After decades of warnings, violations, violence and second chances, no solution that allows Mezzo Lounge to retain its liquor license and reopen its doors can be considered an acceptable solution.

The North End is not a testing ground for whether this establishment can finally get it right. Our families should not have to wait for another violent incident, another police response or another empty chair at another family’s table.

The name has changed. The cycle has not.

It is time to revoke Mezzo Lounge’s liquor license and close the establishment for good.