Kansas City mayor vows to crack down on unlicensed clubs after mass shooting
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas this week vowed to crack down on unlicensed businesses after a weekend mass shooting injured nine people at an unregulated club on Troost Avenue.
“As long as I’m here,” Lucas told reporters on Tuesday, “I will continue to try to pass every rule possible to shut them down more quickly.”
The weekend shooting at the after-hours club laid bare the city’s yearslong struggle to combat both gun violence and unlicensed parties. City officials have long acknowledged the dangers of unregulated clubs after a series of high-profile incidents in recent years, including a 2023 shooting that killed three people near 57th Street and Prospect Avenue.
“I think it’s heinous activity,” Lucas said. “Frankly, promoters who are engaged in this space should be ashamed of themselves when they see these harms.”
As Kansas City prepares to host World Cup matches, the city is now grappling with the shooting on an international stage. National and international media outlets immediately seized on the moment with exaggerated reports about the shooting’s proximity to the event.
In the wake of the shooting, Lucas is expected to file an ordinance on Thursday that would ease a path for the city to shut down unlicensed businesses. A copy of the draft ordinance, obtained by The Star, would allow the city to declare as a nuisance any business operating without proper licenses.
The move comes as officials and residents have warned that the city has not done enough to stop unlicensed parties that result in violence. Some blame City Hall, while others argue that the Kansas City Police Department should be doing more. One state lawmaker said both share the blame.
City leaders who spoke with The Star broadly agreed with Lucas’ push to clamp down on similar businesses. The effort builds on a push by Lucas last year to strengthen city laws surrounding problem businesses and parking lots that have hosted illegal activities.
Council member Melissa Patterson Hazley said City Hall and members of the community have a shared responsibility to combat the issue.
“I do think it’s feasible to deal with it,” said Patterson Hazley, who represents the city’s 3rd District at large. “We need some stronger rules and we need city staff to implement those rules.”
Patterson Hazley said she has read Lucas’ proposed ordinance and was “very interested in it.” She said she needed to read through it again, but might decide to co-sponsor the measure.
“I just know of (unlicensed clubs) just as being a lifelong Kansas Citian,” she said. “We used to call them an ‘after-hours place.’ Could have been a house, could have been a building, but they’re always dangerous at that hour.”
Council member Kevin O’Neill, who represents the 1st District at large, said he was “very concerned” about large gatherings across the city where “a lot of these shootings and violence” occur.
“It’s just scary,” he said. “I support doing something.”
Guns in Missouri
Meanwhile, Council member Johnathan Duncan touted Lucas’ push to try to crack down on similar types of businesses. However, he also criticized the KCPD for not investigating the business before the shooting, pointing to the fact that the club had promoted the event online.
“I’ll give him credit, he’s trying to find ways to better regulate these things,” Duncan, who represents the 6th District, said of Lucas. “But, at the end of the day, it’s an unregulated nightclub that was broadly advertised…I mean, it’s illegal.”
Duncan went a step further and added that the shooting illustrated a larger problem: the proliferation of guns both in Missouri and across America.
“There are too many damn guns on the street,” he said. “We live in a state where it’s easier to get a gun than it is to get healthcare or a mental health provider and that is the state and the nation in which we live and the whole world is looking at us right now.”
The weekend shooting has renewed focus on Missouri’s gun laws, which are among the loosest in the nation. After a mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl rally in 2024, state lawmakers did not pass any new restrictions in the two years leading up to the World Cup.
State law allows 19-year-olds to carry concealed weapons without a permit and the state also does not have a minimum age requirement to possess a firearm.
Perhaps most remarkably, Missouri lawmakers have reserved gun regulations to themselves and severely restrain cities and counties from enacting stricter rules. That makeup leaves the city few options to address waves of gun violence.
The weekend shooting and Lucas’ push against unlicensed clubs come in the twilight of his term, which ends in 2027. The city’s role in the World Cup — and its ability to stem off future violent incidents — could mark a defining moment in his tenure as mayor.
“This isn’t me trying to be big government,” Lucas said of his push against unregulated clubs. “This is actually us trying to say there are reasons that we actually have licensure, that we have rules, that we have security in Kansas City, Missouri.”
