The Vicksburg Board of Zoning Appeals unanimously denied a request by Louis Spencer, owner of Anderson’s Cafe, to allow for an administrative review to reopen the neighborhood nightclub at 807 First North St.

Spencer, also one of three surviving members of the popular 1950s band, The Red Tops, said he will file an appeal with the city clerk to have the issue brought before the Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

“We’d just like the opportunity to correct any conditions that are unpleasant to our neighbors so we can continue in operation,” Spencer told the board. “We have had 60-plus years of continuous operation and we have been the owners for 30-plus years. We’re good neighbors, we’re good citizens and I can’t see any reason why it can’t continue.”

A city ordinance says any commercial business that is not located in a commercially zoned area cannot reopen if it is closed for more than 60 days. Zoning Administrator Dalton McCarty said the club existed long before the city’s zoning maps were drawn up in 1971 and the area was zoned for residential use only. Anderson’s continued to operate as a nonconforming use “grandfathered” in, and Spencer said he had been told by city officials it always could. Anderson’s dates to 1940.

McCarty said the city received a letter dated Feb. 23, 2009, from former proprietor Charles Clark stating the club had been closed since Aug. 17, 2008, but that the alcohol license and permit was being maintained. Spencer said he had not received any letters from the city about his property and Clark never notified him of the closing.

“This is all a misunderstanding,” Spencer said.

Charles Marshall, who lives across the street from Anderson’s Cafe, conceded the club has a long history in Vicksburg and said it used to be a family-friendly business when he was a child. However, the 67-year-old said he’s seen Anderson’s Cafe go from a place you could take your children for lunch to a place where drug dealing is constant and gunfire frequent.

“It’s not what goes on inside that place, it’s what goes on outside — and you can’t control that. I have drug transactions going down in my driveway constantly. I saw a man picked up in a body bag a couple of years ago,” Marshall told the board. “If you reopen this place we’re going to have a public nuisance. I beg of you, don’t let it open again. Tear it down.” 

Anderson’s Cafe has come under scrutiny by city officials several times in recent history, and was the last of just a handful of neighborhood bars in the city to close following a change in the local beer sales ordinance last year. The ordinance required the club to close at 10 p.m. Monday through Sunday and not reopen until 1 p.m. Sunday. It also made brown-bagging — or carrying in beer or alcohol into the club — illegal.

The 2008 ordinance was a reversal of a 2004 ordinance change that allowed neighborhood clubs to extend hours until 2 a.m. Police have since said the later closing time brought with it an increase in complaints by neighbors and unwanted crime. Since 2008, the zoning board now has denied at least three requests from owners of neighborhood clubs in the city.

Board members in attendance were Tim Fagerburg, Tommie Rawlings, Fred Katzenmeyer, Mark Corum and Warren Jones.

Also Tuesday, the board:

• Approved a special exception to Covenant Health & Rehab of Vicksburg to construct a new administrative building at 2850 Porters Chapel Road.

• Approved a special exception to Mount Carmel M.B. Church, 2629 Alma St., to complete an expansion. The church had originally been given a six-month special exception on June 5, 2007, which expired on Dec. 5, 2007. It now has 12 months to get the expansion under way.

• Approved a special exception to Truly Ministries Inc. to operate after-school tutorial classes, youth and teen development programs, family enrichment classes, fatherhood initiative workshops, pre- and post-marital guidance and an educational summer program at 3402 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 7.

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Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com