A Berwyn bar with a years-long history of complaints from both Berwyn and Oak Park residents was ordered closed on June 9, pending the continuation of a liquor license suspension/revocation hearing next week.
According to an 11-page complaint (see complaint report at the end of this story) , the joint business and liquor license hearings related to Mike’s Place, 6319 W. Roosevelt Rd., seek “to revoke the … liquor license and business license” of the bar for a litany of violations.
Mike’s Place has a history of loud, rowdy behavior and fights between departing customers late at night. That chaos has regularly spilled into neighborhoods across Roosevelt Road in Oak Park. For years residents of the 1150 blocks of Cuyler and Highland Avenues and elsewhere in south Oak Park have complained of ongoing noise, disrespectful bar patrons parking on their streets, public urination and lawns littered with beer bottles and food waste in the morning. There have also been guns discharged on Oak Park streets.
Berwyn authorities have suspended liquor and business licenses at Mike’s Place twice since May 2021, once for two weeks for “noise disturbances, violent street fights, parking problems” and other violations. In March 2023 the bar was closed for four days due to “nude/semi-nude dancers” who allegedly solicited prostitution.
Oak Park police have towed scores of cars in the past year, after the writing of parking violation tickets proved ineffective. But disruptive and violent incidents have continued to occur. Three Berwyn residents present at the June 9 hearing said they were concerned with the disruptive behavior of Mike’s Place patrons and owner Michael Lapinard’s failure to effectively address the problems. The only notice of the hearing was on an Oak Park group’s Facebook page. No other citizens, including from Oak Park, were present June 9.
Robert Lovero, Berwyn’s mayor and liquor commissioner, granted a continuation requested by attorney Robert Ford on behalf of Lapinard. Lovero scheduled the next hearing for Wednesday, June 17 at 1:30 p.m., and said the bar must remain shuttered until then.
In a brief huddle in the public seating area within earshot of a reporter, Lovero told Ford that any time period that the bar was closed pending the next hearing date would be taken off the length of any suspension that might ultimately be imposed.
The latest complaint seeking suspension or revocation lists a total of 29 separate Berwyn police incident reports since January 2025 — 15 within the first five months of 2026 — detailing a variety of offenses committed inside and outside the bar. Besides disturbing the peace and the bar repeatedly having no registered manager on duty, the incident reports include numerous batteries to individuals, a false fire alarm, large unruly crowds and mob action, aggravated battery, resisting police, and two incidents involving handguns.
Stacy Hendricks has lived in Oak Park near Mike’s Place for 11 years. She said there has always been a problem at 6319 Roosevelt, whatever the name and whoever the owner of the bar was at the time. “This isn’t a new thing by any means,” she said. The problems, she said, have been “Continuous, continuous. It’s just been a battle for all of us, it really has.”
“We’ve had shootings in front of our house, we’ve had riots in front of our house,” Hendricks said. “To be honest, we’ve hit brick walls everywhere we’ve gone to fight this.”
Last month, at the urging of Village Trustee James Taglia, Hendricks attended a meeting in Berwyn and played the audio of a shooting near Oak Park Friendship school on Roosevelt Road in December 2025 that resulted in a window being shot out. No one was ever charged in the incident.
“It was rapid fire,” Hendricks said. “Like 60 shots.” She said she didn’t feel her presentation had had any effect, but in light of the recent hearing, she said, “Now, I’m wondering.”
“I’m very hesitant, but I’m somewhat optimistic as well,” she said. She can’t be at the June 17 hearing, but expects several neighbors to be present, and hopes others show up.
Taglia, who characterized Lovero as “an old style, no-nonsense, take-charge mayor,” said Oak Park officials “already have a close relationship” with Berwyn officials.
“But with the volume of complaints from Oak Park residents and the persistent issues we’ve had with Mike’s Place, we want it to be even closer,” he said. Village President Vicki Scaman and Chief of Police Shatonya Johnson, Taglia said, “recognize the benefit of working hand-in-hand with our colleagues in Berwyn on a common problem and will continue to do so.”
The problems seem to be increasing in frequency. In the latest incident cited by Berwyn officials, on May 23, which was captured on Oak Park police body cameras, Oak Park officers observed an argument turn into a “violent fight between two female Mike’s Place patrons” outside the bar at 1:30 a.m.
Berwyn police say a man named Kevin Buford “falsely identified himself as the owner” and did not tell police that the fight was between customers of the bar. In fact, officials say, Buford directed police a block away to Roosevelt and Highland Avenue, despite the bar’s security guards being captured on Oak Park police body cams “actively involved in the disturbance as it starts in front of the establishment.”
Just before closing time on March 28, 10 Mike’s Place security guards required assistance from numerous Oak Park and Berwyn officers to disperse a large crowd. A similar incident had occurred the week before.
Three weeks later on April 19, police dispatch issued a call for all on duty police officers from Berwyn and Oak Park to respond to 75 people outside the bar at 2 a.m. blocking traffic on Roosevelt Road and refusing police orders to disperse.
The potentially lethal behavior of some Mike’s Place patrons is reflected in a January 18, 2026 incident in which police were called to the bar after a 911 caller said a woman threatened “I will shoot this place up” and said she had a gun.
The woman, a Stateville Prison corrections officer who lives in far south suburban Dolton, was arrested. She had punched the bar’s door man, and later allegedly displayed a handgun when the bouncer followed her to her car to take down the license plate. Police recovered a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun from the cup holder on her center console.
After denying brandishing a gun, the woman then acknowledged she “put the pistol on her right hip but never displayed the firearm at the bouncer.”
She was charged with battery, but no weapons violation, although police say her FOID card was revoked on Jan. 20.