Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 4/4/2023
SPRINGFIELD — The city suspended a Springfield club’s operations in response to a shooting that occurred in late December 2023, but it could reopen as early as this month.
The License Commission suspended the liquor license for The Hookah Factory, located in the Five Town Plaza at 296 Cooley St., for 32 days during a pre-hearing conference on Feb. 22. At a subsequent entertainment violation hearing on March 13, the club’s owner and the city agreed to a 60-day entertainment license suspension.
The club was the scene of an alleged altercation between two individuals that resulted in an exchange of gunfire around 1:50 a.m. on Dec. 23, 2022. According to Springfield Police Department spokesperson Ryan Walsh, one person was privately transported to Baystate Medical Center with a gunshot wound. Walsh added the investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made or arrest warrants submitted as of press time.
“A serious infraction. Someone, of course, could have gotten killed,” Springfield Licensing Director Alesia Days said during the Feb. 22 meeting. On March 13, she told club owner Assad Awan the arrangement brokered by his attorney, Daniel Kelly, worked out “very well for you, I would say, considering what transpired there.”
As a result of the incident and subsequent police investigation, The Hookah Factory’s ownership faced counts of failure to call police, failure to identify oneself in a licensed premises, hindering a police investigation, and three violations of the establishment’s approved security plan — failure to wand patrons prior to entrance, failure to provide cooperative assistance during an investigation and failure to notify police of an act of violence.
Per statute, the maximum suspension for a first offense is five days. The Hookah Factory’s license suspension was officially issued as separate suspensions for each of the six counts, from Thursday to Sunday. The liquor license suspension is set to end on April 16. The entertainment suspension runs until May 12. The License Commission also required an updated security plan, which was presented at the entertainment hearing.
In the wake of the incident, Kelly said during the March 13 hearing, club ownership was working on rebranding and would turn its focus to food service.
On Feb. 22, Days provided the commission details of the incident based on her review of the club’s video surveillance footage. Days described how a patron looked to have been removed by what appeared to be security before walking to a black Maserati in the parking lot, removing a handgun and returning to the establishment’s front entrance and firing said handgun. Days noted that there was an individual inside the establishment with a gun who fired their weapon toward the exterior.
“There’s an individual within the bar with a handgun that is out — it’s not even concealed — and that person is actually in the establishment,” Days said. “That person walks to the front door and … the person on the outside shoots in, the shooter on the inside shoots out. So he’s standing at the door of this establishment with a gun and he shoots out. I don’t want to belabor the point, but I think it’s important to note that this individual had a gun inside the establishment that wat not concealed — it was out in the very open while in this club.”
Information provided during the commission meeting did not specify if either of these individuals were the one transported to the hospital. Information from the report provided to the commission by the Police Department’s Firearms Investigations Unit and read into the record by Springfield attorney Maurice Powe noted the victim was uncooperative, providing only his name and telling officers he did not know how he sustained graze wounds to his groin and hip. That individual was brought to the hospital in a black Maserati.
These allegations were not disputed by Awan or Kelly.
“The video shows what it shows. It was a very serious event and we have no quarrel with how extremely serious it is and how lucky they were that the injuries, if any, were kept to a minimum,” Kelly said.
Commissioner Peter Sygnator noted the close proximity of the club to Casa Vallerta Mexican Restaurant. “Just imagine if that bullet would have hit an innocent patron from that Mexican restaurant when it was fired out the door. That would have been an incredible tragedy,” he said. The restaurant’s current listed hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday, the day on which the incident occurred.
A large part of the commission’s discussion and concern focused on Awan’s alleged response to the incident and cooperation with the ensuing police investigation.
Police received one call from a resident living nearby reporting screaming and five shots fired, according to the narrative read into the record. The Five Town Plaza is abutted by a residential neighborhood on the opposite side of Cooley Street. The record did not indicate any call for police assistance from The Hookah Factory.
Powe also read that responding officers were initially told by those in the area that they heard shots but did not know from where they originated. Officers then located two shell casings in the vicinity of the entrance of The Hookah Factory and made contact with Awan and a second person who identified himself as the manager but refused to give his name.
Officers alleged Awan was “hesitant” to provide the establishment’s licenses when requested before eventually providing paperwork. According to the report, Awan initially told officers the person who could provide them with footage from the security system would be on-site within an hour but later said he was unable to reach that person and offered to have his attorney send police the footage. One officer in their report described Awan’s behavior as “evasive.”
Awan provided footage from cameras facing the immediate interior of the entrance and immediate exterior and parking lot on Jan. 4. Detectives requested footage from additional cameras and access to the DVD recording device but Awan had not complied as of Jan. 11.
Commissioner John Ramirez expressed concern with what he described as a lack of cooperation with law enforcement after a serious incident.
“This wasn’t like a fight, this was handguns involved,” he said. “My problem that I have is the lack of cooperation. I see this is trying to cover situations up [so] the police are unable to identify other people involved … If the establishment is not going to cooperate with the law enforcement people in our city, I don’t think they should be open in our city.”
Kelly pushed back on the notion that Awan was intentionally attempting to delay or hinder the Police Department’s investigation, stating his client was “shooken up” after the incident. He added the delay in providing footage to police was related to the availability of the person who could access that footage.
Days also took issue with club’s current security plan, which she opined used loose terminology such as “first sign of trouble from patrons,” again noting security footage that illustrated the presence of a patron with a weapon exposed before the incident occurred.
“Clearly them having a gun that is visible is, honestly, as I’ve shared with Attorney Kelly, is frightening,” she said. “What kind of establishment allows someone to sit and be present in their establishment with a gun in their hand, not even put away?”
Commission Chair Rosa Espinosa noted that an individual was able to enter the establishment with gun in spite of the presence of metal detecting wands employed by security personnel on-site.
Kelly declined to give an explanation and agreed it was a violation and his client was prepared to accept the penalties. He noted that in addition to metal detecting wands, ownership has ordered a walk-through metal detector.
The updated security plan required by the commission must include information on the number of security cameras and the video system’s retention period. The plan must also attest that the club would relinquish all video footage as requested by police.