BRADENTON — Bradenton Police Chief Michael Radzilowski is not giving up his fight to see a nightclub in the city closed down again, even after Gov. Charlie Crist’s office declined to investigate the state’s decision to reinstate the owner’s liquor license.
The chief said because Crist has denied his request for an investigation into the handling of Club RJ’s liquor license by the Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation’s alcohol enforcement division, he wants the state attorney general’s office to conduct an independent investigation.
Radzilowski sent a scathing letter to Crist in May saying he wanted an investigation done into why the Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation’s alcohol enforcement division reinstated Club RJs liquor license just months after the agency coupled with Bradenton police to have the nightclub shut down.
Police have long maintained that the club, in the 700 block of Ninth Avenue West, has been a haven for illegal activity, including drug dealing and gun violence. In February, armed with an emergency revocation of Club RJs liquor license, the state and police raided the club, shutting it down.
Weeks later business and regulations officials that partnered with police to revoke the license, re-instated it after the club’s owner agreed to several measures to clean up problems at the club, including hiring armed security and hanging signs banning drugs from the premises.
The re-opening of the club enraged Radzilowksi and he accused the director of the state’s Division of Alcohol Beverages & Tobacco, Debi Pender, of having an interest in the club. In the May letter to Crist, Radzilowski said the actions of business and regulation put the safety of Bradenton’s citizens in danger.
Crist responded to Razilowski’s request for an investigation by instead having the head of business and regulation, Secretary Charles W. Drago, write him a letter responding to the chief’s accusations.
“Speculated that the actions of Director Pender were ‘suspicious’ and possibly due to her having some ‘connection’ to the club’s owner was without any basis,” Drago wrote the chief.
Drago went on to say the club’s liquor license was re-instated because police failed to prove the owner had specific knowledge of drug activity at the club, or that the owner had anything to do with violence that occurred outside the establishment.
Radzilowski did not take kindly to Drago’s letter and penned another letter to Crist Friday asking for the attorney general to step in.
The chief wrote Drago’s claims can be refuted by an investigation and said alcohol enforcement agents within Drago’s agency came to him claiming an injustice has been done.
“It was the secretary’s own employees who came to me asking for assistance in the injustice of this case,” the chief wrote Crist. “Without a formal investigation, the secretary’s letter to me seems to be attacking our request for justice.”
A spokesman for Crist’s office, Sterling Ivey, confirmed that the governor declined to open an investigation, but Ivey said his office will review the chief’s second request when it arrives.
Email Story
Printer Friendly 
Quick Job Search
@Nyx.replyAnswerText@