After a recent fatal shooting at Zo’s Corna in Hattiesburg – and more than 50 disturbances at that site in the past five years – members of Hattiesburg City Council have declared the nightclub on Eastside Avenue a nuisance and will seek to shut it down until further notice.
That decision was made at the August 6 council meeting, where City Attorney Randy Pope said he will file suit for a temporary restraining order against the owners of the club. That measure would prevent the facility from reopening until a hearing could be held in court.
“(At that point), the judge will determine what should be done,” Pope said. “The council found that this was a public nuisance and asked that I file a suit to abate that – in other words, deal with it.
“The judge has discretion as to what he or she will do. (That could be) anything from shutting it down completely, to requiring robust security, cameras, all sorts of things that are always in those orders. So we’ll see what the judge does.”
Pope said there has been a pattern of illegal actions at the club for quite some time.
“In addition to the safety of the public, there’s the safety of the Hattiesburg police officers who have to respond to these various calls,” he said. “So we’re concerned about their safety as well.”The most recent incident at Zo’s Corna occurred on August 4, when police officers responded to a shooting at the club. Upon arriving, police discovered 31-year-old Markaz Moye of Hattiesburg suffering from an apparent gunshot wound.
Moye was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced deceased.
After investigating the incident, officers arrested 36-year-old Gary Christopher Rogers and charged him with one count of first degree murder and one count of tampering with physical evidence. He was booked into the Forrest County Correctional Facility.
“It’s not that the council waits until someone gets killed to do anything, but we have hoped that the business would police themselves – provide security and that kind of thing – but obviously that has not occurred,” Pope said. “So the council didn’t really have any choice; public safety is really the number one responsibility of local government.
“(The fatal shooting) is not the first incident that’s happened there, but it’s the worst. Certainly, when somebody loses their life, that is a terrible thing, and that’s what occurred.”
Council members took similar action late last year against the owners of the Mississippi Arts and Entertainment of Hattiesburg facility on Timothy Lane. That measure came after several calls during which officers from the Hattiesburg Police Department responded to fights, assaults, disorderly conduct, shootings, possession of drugs and weapons, burglaries and violations of city ordinances at the site, which was formerly known as Club Empire.
Shortly after the council’s decision “to permanently abate the nuisance” at the site, the club’s owners surrendered their privilege tax license and advised city officials the club would be going out of business. Eventually, a judge ordered that the owners would no longer be allowed to operate clubs of any kind within the Hattiesburg city limits.
Council members also have taken action against such clubs as the former Roper’s Rockin’ County on U.S. 49, the Top and Club Empire while it was still operating under that name.
