Deputies Break Up Brawl Outside House of Blues

Ever since it opened earlier this year, the trendy House of Blues club on Sunset Boulevard has been an incongruous presence. Whoever heard of a blues club with valet parking and doormen with walkie-talkies?

But early Thursday morning, they finally got down in the alley. About 50 to 75 patrons spilled into the parking lot as Tommy Lee, a drummer for the heavy metal band Motley Crue, scrapped with other patrons. In the end, a dozen sheriff’s deputies and a helicopter were needed stop the brawl after almost half an hour.

There were no arrests, although Lee was pepper-sprayed by a deputy after refusing to stop fighting, said sheriff’s Sgt. Art Salas. Lee, 31, was treated at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and released.

House of Blues spokeswoman Hayley Sumnerboth said this was the first big brawl at any House of Blues (there are smaller ones in New Orleans and Cambridge, Mass.), though she said there had always been worries about the West Hollywood location, “given the club scene out there.”

Sumner said the battle started near closing time, at 1:45 a.m., when Lee, a guest at the club, got into a heated conversation and shoving match with some patrons. Sumner said that Lee used racial epithets, and that friends of the drummer joined the scuffle.

A representative of Lee’s manager said Thursday that she could not reach the drummer and had no comment.

Sumner said security guards isolated the combatants, but were boxed in by curious customers and the fight eventually moved outside. She said that the 50 to 75 people massed around the combatants were just watching the battle, but the sheriff’s report says they were pushing, flailing and shoving as more than 300 other patrons watched the rumble.

Sumner said the House of Blues and its employees regret the incident, especially because racial epithets were used.

Salas said the nightspot is mainly a traffic headache rather than a magnet for brawls. He was also amused by interest in the incident. “If he wasn’t there,” Salas said, referring to Lee, “this would have been another disturbing the peace, crowd dispersed, goes home a little sadder but wiser.”