South Bend Common Council votes to allow purchase of Irish pub with multiple shootings
SOUTH BEND — Kelly's Pub will shut down this month after the South Bend Common Council voted Monday to authorize the purchase of the bar that's been the site of multiple recent shootings.
Leaders in South Bend's Department of Community Investment moved to buy the Irish pub at 1150 E. Mishawaka Ave. to eliminate a late-night gathering place that's posed a public safety risk in a growing business district. Over the next few years, after demolishing the building, the city plans to improve walkability near the South Bend Farmers Market and remove a large cloverleaf interchange near where Eddy Street crosses the St. Joseph River.
The council's vote allowed the South Bend Board of Public Works to vote to buy the site for $275,000 Tuesday morning. The bar will close on March 26. Demolition is expected to occur later this year.
Only one councilor, At-Large member Oliver Davis Jr., voted "regretfully" against the purchase.
He criticized what he called the department's piecemeal approach to eliminating nuisance properties, wanting to set purchase criteria that would apply to any bar in any neighborhood across the city.
"Are we going to start buying all the bars in town?" Davis Jr. asked rhetorically. "Are we going to start buying all the nuisances in town?"
Davis also criticized the speed of the transaction. The sale became public knowledge on Thursday when the South Bend city clerk's office posted the council's meeting agenda.
Caleb Bauer, executive director of the Department of Community Investment, argued it would be improbable to standardize a process for such decisions. But several councilors, including Karen White and Sherry Bolden-Simpson, said they wanted to meet with him to ensure residents in other areas had similar chances to rid their neighborhoods of dangerous nuisances.
Multiple shootings, willing seller
Bauer said a confluence of factors led the city to buy the site. Two shootings in December 2023 and January of this year left neighbors on high alert after a year in which police were called to the bar more than 60 times. A mass shooting outside of the bar in 2019 killed a 27-year-old Niles man.
When city officials met with neighbors and the pub's longtime owner, Don Kelly, earlier this year, they learned Kelly wanted to sell the place. And by buying the site, Bauer said, the city can conveniently make infrastructure improvements to Mishawaka Avenue.
Jill La Fountain, who raised her children in a home on nearby Longfellow Avenue, was one of five longtime homeowners to speak in favor of the city's purchase on Monday. La Fountain has lived there with her husband for more than 30 years, but the early hours of one June morning in 2019 stand out.
"It was pretty alarming to be woken in the middle of the night by gunfire," La Fountain said, referring to a mass shooting around 1:30 a.m. that killed one man and injured about 10 others.
Bauer told The Tribune the city isn't opposed to another bar opening at the site, but because Kelly will sell the three-way liquor license associated with the property, some other type of business is likely to open. In any case, a future purchase agreement with the city would ensure a buyer plans to seriously monitor safety issues, Bauer said.
"I think this is the opportune time, with different things happening all at once, to acquire Kelly's Pub," said Sharon McBride, the Common Council's 3rd District representative, "for us to plan for future developments and enhancements of the 3rd District."
Email South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @jordantsmith09
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend buys Kelly's Pub after multiple shootings
