Story from last year . Cuz children’s eateries are a great place to start fights
i] Chuck E. Cheese's will close its troubled Oak Lawn location on or before Dec. 1, according to an agreement reached with village officials.
The deal, approved Tuesday night by the board of trustees, provides a timeline for the company's departure from the village, which has been in the works since last December following a shooting incident involving a patron who had just left the eatery.
The children's restaurant, located at 4031 95th St., announced its intention to leave town rather than face possible license revocation following the shooting, but has remained open as it finalizes its transition out of town.
Mayor Sandra Bury said the village's decision to allow Chuck E. Cheese's ample time to plan and carry out its exit strategy instead of taking a more hard line approach would benefit taxpayers in the long run.
"Following [a hard line approach] would almost certainly lead to litigation," she said. "And if that would be the case, they would have the right to stay open potentially for years while this went through the courts.
"This is probably the most efficient way, once the decision was made that they were leaving, this was the best way to facilitate that for them."
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inRead invented by Teads In addition to setting a drop dead departure date for Chuck E. Cheese's, the agreement contains a number of other provisions that protect the village if additional incidents were to occur at the restaurant in the intervening months.
Embattled Chuck E. Cheese's announces intention to close Oak Lawn restaurant For one, Oak Lawn retains its right to initiate license revocation proceedings in the event of future violent episodes at the restaurant, Bury said.
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SPONSORED CONTENT BY Menards It's also gotten Chuck E. Cheese's to agree not to seek a renewal of its business license, which is set to expire on April 30.
Rather than sign a standard one-year renewal with the company, the village will extend its current license in 60-day increments starting on April 30 as a way to monitor the progress of Chuck E. Cheese's transition out of town and ensure it adheres to license requirements. The agreement stipulates that Chuck E. Cheese's must notify the village on a monthly basis starting in July about the progress of its move.
Bury said she's hopeful there won't be any more violent incidents at the restaurant before it closes, and commended Chuck E. Cheese's for working with the village to create a safer and more controlled environment inside the restaurant for patrons and employees.
To that end, the company has agreed not to reduce any of the security measures it currently has in place, including the multiple off-duty police officers it employs inside the restaurant, for as long as it stays in business.
Man says he was shot in Evergreen Park after leaving Chuck E. Cheese's in Oak Lawn Chuck E. Cheese's also will close two hours earlier on Friday and Saturday nights — 8 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. — starting July 22, per the terms of the agreement.
Bury said that while some trustees wanted the restaurant's hours of operation cut immediately, doing so would force the cancellation of multiple birthday parties that had already been booked. She called the delayed reduction in weekend hours a compromise, but not an unreasonable one.
"I think there's a lot of wisdom in the reduced hours," she said.
A spokeswoman for CEC Entertainment, Chuck E. Cheese's parent company, declined comment on its exit agreement with Oak Lawn and its future plans in the area.
Village officials have alluded to the possibility that Chuck E. Cheese's extended transition out of town is due to its efforts to first establish a new location nearby, but the company has thus far declined to confirm any such plan.
Evergreen Park mayor James Sexton, whose community was one rumored landing spot for Chuck E. Cheese's, said Wednesday that he hadn't heard from the company and didn't believe the new Evergreen Plaza or anywhere else in town could accommodate the restaurant.
"We don't have a location besides the Plaza that would fit their needs," he said, adding that he didn't expect to hear from Chuck E. Cheese's about relocating to the Plaza because, "The Plaza is spoken for."
If Chuck E. Cheese's does end up relocating elsewhere in the Southland, it remains to be seen whether its baggage will follow.
Despite the company's numerous attempts to improve security at the Oak Lawn location over the years, the restaurant has long maintained a reputation for attracting a "pretty volatile mix," officials said.
Since 2011, Oak Lawn police have responded to more than 300 calls and made more than two dozen arrests at the restaurant, mostly for battery and disorderly conduct, according to village data.
Last December, a motorist was shot near the Oak Lawn-Evergreen Park border shortly after reportedly leaving Chuck E. Cheese's.
The victim, a Chicago resident, told police he had just left the Oak Lawn Chuck E. Cheese's and was driving east on 95th Street near Springfield Avenue in Evergreen Park when a person in a black Jeep-like vehicle also traveling east fired shots at him, police said.
The wounded motorist, who was able to drive himself to nearby Advocate Christ Medical Center, was treated for injuries to his lip and lower back, and released, police said. The car's three passengers, two of whom were juveniles, were not injured, Evergreen Park Police Capt. Peter Donovan said.
When the Oak Lawn Chuck E. Cheese's does eventually close — Bury believes the restaurant will shutter before the Dec. 1 deadline, likely over the summer — the village and property owner Kimco Realty will have some decisions to make about the shopping center's future.
A study commissioned and approved by the village in 2014 identified the Oak Lawn Shopping Center as a potential "gateway development" into Oak Lawn's bustling 95th Street Corridor, and singled it out as one of two spots along the stretch that were ripe for redevelopment.
"It is on everybody's radar as an opportunity," said Bury, adding that she's encountered many residents with questions about the shopping center's future while out campaign for re-election.
While informal conversations about the shopping center — which the 2014 study envisioned as either institutional use, i.e. medical or educational facilities, or as a large format retail center — are taking place, no formal meetings or discussions about its future have occurred, she said.
"I think it's prudent to have discussions about it, but more than that, at this point, no," Bury said.
Kimco, the shopping center's owner, declined comment on future redevelopment of the site.
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