CINCINNATI -- Longworth's, the iconic Mount Adams bar, is up for sale after complaints over excessive noise and rowdy patrons spilling into the streets.
Art Lykins, who's owned the St. Gregory Street staple for 17 years, is hoping a buyer can change Longworth's for the better. The asking price: $2.9 million. He listed the two-story, 125-year-old building last week.
"We've had some problems, but I think you can go to almost any five or six of the other places around the hill and you'll hear similar things," Lykins said.
But for Longworth's, the issues came to a head in late April. That's when the Cincinnati Police Department formally objected to a transfer of the bar's liquor license. CPD's report said Longworth's "has been a drain on police services due to loud noise complaints, patrons from the bar loitering in the streets of Mt. Adams and becoming disorderly disturbing the peace and tranquility of the residents."
"We want to be neighbor-friendly, do whatever we have to. And we are," Lykins said.
An upscale restaurant and bar catered to locals is expected to move in, Lykins said. The new business owners will have a five-year lease, and whoever buys the building will need to honor that.
"They're just going to really give it a facelift is what they're wanting to do," Lykins said. "It's going to be top-shelf."
Neil Quinn, president of the Mount Adams Business Guild, has heard about the complaints and, like Lykins, hopes a new owners can turn things around.
"This is helping Mount Adams more than anything else with a new operator that’s got new ideas," Quinn said.
