A Damascus Road nightclub where three people were shot last month despite police presence will continue to serve alcohol.
Inspectors found the Level 9 nightclub riddled with plastic baggies containing drug residues and patrons “rolling marijuana blunts/cigarettes throughout the business,” according to a letter from Richmond County Sheriff’s Office Inv. Jose Ortiz.
The early Tuesday, March 21 shooting saw a 22-year-old female shot in the back and a 30-year-old female shot in the leg. A third victim, a 32-year-old male, was shot in the back and drove himself to the hospital.
The shootings are unsolved. The “victims were shot by unknown persons who began shooting for an unknown reason,” Ortiz said. Having a deputy working special duty at the club “has not deterred these types of incidents from occurring inside the bar,” he said.
Meanwhile, police found the owner “casually sitting at a table that was covered in marijuana residue,” the letter said.
Other incidents at the club include the January stabbing of two, five simple battery cases, a kidnapping, and cocaine trafficking that went on from 2020-2023, he said.
Level 9 was the scene of the Sept. 26, 2021 homicide of Corey Lamont Thomas, 37, of Martinez. Ortiz said he was killed in connection to a “drug transaction.”
Former club co-owner Eurl Kittles was killed in a June 2022 homicide at the Captain D’s on Wrightsboro Road, where he worked as a contractor.
Former Georgia Southern football National Championship player Voncellies Allen has owned the club since 2013 and also owns the 3054 Damascus Road land and building.
“It’s all about how you write stuff, of course,” Allen said of the police reports.
The shooter got in last month after a bouncer at the back door went to check bathrooms, he said.
“While he goes to the bathrooms, somebody else opened the door for him and let him come in with a gun,” Allen said.
While he normally has “two” armed personnel at the club, guns are generally commonplace.
“For the most part, that’s the problem with guns in the area and people not afraid to shoot,” he said.
The club has video of the shooting, he said. “There’s no arrest, but I’m here on trial,” Allen said.
The centrally-located club sits two-tenths of a mile from the entrance to Augusta Municipal Golf Course, a half-mile from Augusta Aquatics Center and seven-tenths of a mile from University Village, a student-oriented apartment complex.
Commissioner Wayne Guilfoyle recommended putting the club’s alcohol license on probation for six months.
“Normally with most businesses that come before this body, we suspend it,” Guilfoyle said. “If an incident happens within that six months, we’re done.”
General Counsel Wayne Brown advised against recommending action for a future infraction.
“It would not be appropriate for this committee to recommend to the full commission future disciplinary action when nothing has been heard,” Brown said.
The Public Services committee approved putting Level 9 on probation for six moths. Unless the commission pulls the agenda item next week and changes it, it’s expected to pass.
Motion for audit gets no second
Commissioner Catherine Smith McKnight’s revised push for Augusta to resume use of an internal auditor died for lack of support from three of the commission’s four Finance Committee members.
“We’ve heard these conversations time and again about what this means, what it doesn’t mean, what we need, what we don’t,” Finance Committee Chairman Jordan Johnson said.
Undeterred, McKnight called Finance Director Donna Williams forward to answer questions. “Mrs. Williams, I tried to save you,” Johnson said.
McKnight asked Williams if the city engaged in routine internal or operational audits. “We have,” Williams said, but “not consistently.”
“Other counties do this, and I’ve looked into it, and I’d like to see Richmond County piggyback off of what the other counties have done,” McKnight said.
Columbia County has an audit committee that is one of its commission’s six standing committees.
Over the last few years, the committee has authorized and reviewed audits of county kayak rentals, senior centers, public transit, Columbia County Clerk of Courts, a streetlight fund, lodging and occupational taxes and alcohol licensing, according to meeting minutes. Due for audits include the library system, parks and recreation and recycling.
Columbia has used the accounting firm – Serotta, Maddocks, Evans – that Augusta had in the same role until recent years. The firm performed the 2020 audit of credit card spending that led to Augusta updating its policy to reflect state law. In 2017, the city Pension and Audit committee, stating a “best practice” to hire one every five years, entered an agreement with SME.
Guilfoyle said the commission two weeks earlier approved spending $100,000 for an external company to review operations at Augusta Recreation and Parks.
Guilfoyle was the committee member to support McKnight’s motion, which read:
“To hire a local third-party accounting firm, separate and independent from the external auditors who perform financial statement audits on an annual basis, to perform regularly scheduled internal financial and operational audits on all city departments. Every city department is audited a minimum of once every four years.”
Fire department OK’d to spend surplus on vehicles
Faring better was Augusta Fire Department, which a committee authorized to spend $2.3 million in surplus funds on equipment. The funds go toward replacement of two fire trucks destroyed this year in crashes and a third that burned.
The unaudited surplus amount is not expected to change, Williams said.
The department’s fund balance currently stands around $8.2 million, and it will use the funds to buy a new aerial truck, repair two pumper trucks, repair a reserve aerial truck, purchase “light vehicles” and, with $145,000 from real estate proceeds, buy an air truck, Fire Chief Antonio Burden said.
The Public Safety committee approved the spending by a 3-1 vote with Commissioner Alvin Mason voting no.
In other action after the commission’s called legal session Tuesday, the commission approved annual salary increases of $25,000 each for Richmond County Marshal Ramone Lamkin and Richmond County Coroner Mark Bowen. The elected pair currently make around $90,000 annually.
