Liquor license transfer stalled

Erin Neff

Thursday, Dec. 21, 2000 | 11:01 a.m.

An eleventh-hour confidential police report has temporarily stopped the transfer of a liquor license from political consultant Sig Rogich to businessmen who want to open a topless club.

The report, made available late Tuesday night to City Council members, touched off a firestorm of back-door wrangling leading up to Wednesday's meeting, where the license matter was first delayed and then held all together.

But before the council voted to hold the license transfer for 30 days, Mayor Oscar Goodman issued a strict warning that anyone who releases any part of the confidential Metro report faces misdemeanor criminal charges.

"To disseminate information in the confidential book is a misdemeanor," Goodman said, holding up the three-ring binder supplied to each council member with background on a variety of licenses and work card applicants.

City Hall sources said the police report isn't really a huge problem for Houston brothers Ali and Hassan Davari. In fact, one source told the Sun, the brothers' records are clean.

The problem with the report, a source said, is that the Davaris' clubs in Houston have had trouble with the law and were the sites of multiple arrests. A source familiar with the report said a club manager, and not the Davaris, was a prime reason for the trouble.

But another City Hall insider said that when the report became available late Tuesday, City Councilman Michael McDonald hoped to release parts of it to sink Rogich's attempts to transfer the license.

McDonald abstained on the matter Wednesday when the council was asked by the Davaris' attorney, Steve Stein, to hold the item. McDonald could not be reached after the meeting.

"The reason that this is being held in abeyance is because we didn't get the report until late last night," City Councilman Gary Reese said.

The licensing matter has been an albatross around Rogich's neck since April, when the he first asked the council to issue a liquor license for his former office building.

The city's ethics board ruled McDonald worked behind the scenes to scuttle that license by asking city surveyors to conduct field measurements that would place the building too close to uses that would prohibit a license, such as schools and churches.

Just two days before the council's April vote, a New Age church run by the sister of Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo opened just 219 feet away from the Rogich building.

Many believe Rizzolo, who is a close friend of McDonald, got help from the councilman for his sister to open the church, because he did not want another topless club in town with which to compete.

McDonald has vehemently denied any connection to the church.

But in July, when the Davaris first applied for the license, city planners turned them down because of the church. After media scrutiny linked the church to Rizzolo and McDonald, the church moved.

But nothing was routine about Wednesday's license application.

First the council trailed the item until its afternoon zoning meeting, and then abeyed it outright.

"I only got it this morning," Stein said of the police report as the Davaris left City Hall. "We asked for this to be held so we could review the report at leisure."

Since the report is confidential, only a few people in City Hall know about the concerns raised by Metro and Jim DiFiore, the city's business licensing manager.

In 1996 the Houston Chronicle reported about problems in Ali Davari's clubs in an article about adult businesses that are allowed to keep their city licenses, despite legal trouble.

"In less than two years Centerfolds topless bar has seen 74 arrests for public lewdness, prostitution and alcohol violations, yet still it has its city license," the article states.

Houston initiated license revocation hearings against Ali Davari's Centerfolds club the previous year.

The council is expected to vote on the matter Jan. 17.