Warren Smith, who lives part-time on a house abutting the back of Bar One, said he has called police on the bar for parking issues and a security light that he said blinds people going down his stairs at night. The noise didn’t bug him. He said he has written emails to Thomas but never got a response.
Thomas said he believes he was the only lounge-type establishment in Grant Park catering to blacks in the neighborhood. At the same time, he rarely if ever saw the white neighbors come by, which he resented. “If they had, they’d see how beautiful it was,” he said. “They don’t like the music. They don’t like the culture. They don’t like us…. I could tell you 1,000 people walked through every week. Not even one percent was white. That tells you the times we live in.”
Restaurants down the street such as Six Feet Under and Tin Lizzy’s are more diverse.
Thomas, who previously owned said he lives on Glenwood Ave. and his wife’s modeling agency is nearby. “We pay taxes in this neighborhood,” he said. “We’d like to see the neighborhood do better.”
But Lauren Rocereta, president of the Grant Park Neighborhood Association, described Thomas differently than how he described himself.
“Peter Thomas was not forthcoming and was not a good neighbor,” she wrote me in an email. “A business with loud music and a boisterous clientele is better suited for a location where there are no homes nearby. Many Grant Park neighbors’ quiet enjoyment of their homes was negatively impacted. We wish him success in his new location.”