Birmingham city shuts down Mike's Crossroads

Birmingham strip club Mike's Crossroads was shut down by the city council Tuesday after a unanimous vote to pull the club's business and liquor licenses.

One council member called the club a "venue of violence." The club's owner says his business is the victim of bad timing and a bad location, but a grieving mom disagrees.

"I want it closed," Juanita Carter.

Carter told city councilors Tuesday that the murder of her 19-year-old son Richard in the Mike's Crossroads parking lot in July should be enough proof, along with another murder there a couple of years ago, that the business should be closed.

"I'm hoping that for this place, my son would be the last underage 19-year-old that goes in that place," Carter said after the vote.

The owners of Mike's Crossroads say most of the more than 130 police reports filed about incidents at the business in the last four years are things that happened while the club was closed or were outside of its control, including Richard Carter's death.

"Their argument is one death is too much, and they're correct," said Mike's Crossroads attorney John Vickers. "But how do we control people running down the street shooting at each other and if he drops dead in front of us, how do we control that?"

"It didn't say he was shot running across the street, he was shot in the head in a car," Carter said. "I have a police incident report and a death certificate that says that, and with God on my side that's all the proof I need."

Council members didn't buy Vicker's argument either.

"If Mike's Crossroads wasn't there, and activities that were going on there weren't going on, then nothing would be going on outside, either," Councilor Valerie Abbott.

"That's what I would be afraid of if I went, I wouldn't know if I could make it out unharmed," Councilor Steven Hoyt said. "This is a public safety and it's out of whack."

The attorneys for Mike's Crossroads have filed a request for an injunction in Jefferson Circuit Court, hoping a judge will order them to be allowed to stay open while they appeal this decision today.

Early Tuesday evening, Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Scott Vowell denied that injunction, so Mike's Crossroads will remain closed.

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