Fabled Nightclub Hits a Sour Note

The Sweetwater, a funky little nightclub with a ‘60s vibe, has been a community fixture here for more than three decades. It has attracted such singers as Elvis Costello, Jerry Garcia, Huey Lewis and Bonnie Raitt, just to name a few.

But the club is in danger of closing: Its owners say escalating rent and liability insurance costs may force them out of business. And that news has caused a furor in this town amid the redwoods north of San Francisco.

About 55 musicians -- many well-known -- donated their time for a two-night benefit concert recently, and a clothing store owner started a petition drive to save the nightclub.

The landlords, owners of a nearby Italian restaurant, say they have no choice but to raise the rent to cover seismic and other upgrading costs to the old nightclub building in the heart of downtown.

“It will really be a big loss for Mill Valley,” said singer Shana Morrison, 33, whose father is rock legend Van Morrison. “I’ve been in Mill Valley a long time -- most of my life. It’s changing a lot. It used to be a little village. People didn’t come here because it was prime real estate. People came here because there was a soul about the place.”

Morrison, who sings bluesy rock at the nightclub every few months in between her other engagements at bigger venues around the country, is not alone in her reverence for the homey, 110-seat nightclub.

“A lot of national acts will put it on their route,” she said. “They come to Sweetwater on their nights off.”

Besides Morrison, the March 17-18 Sweetwater Legacy Celebration, which raised about $15,000, brought out such musicians as Lewis, Raitt, Norton Buffalo, Tommy Castro, Bonnie Hayes, Maria Muldaur and Al Stewart.

Larry Lautzker, owner of Famous for Our Look clothing store, another longtime downtown Mill Valley business, said he has collected 400 to 500 signatures to save the Sweetwater. Most of the people who signed also checked a box saying they would be willing to participate in some kind of action as a demonstration or a vigil in support of keeping the nightclub open.

“It’s a national treasure,” Lautzker said. “Everyone on the planet has played there, from Elvis Costello to Jerry Garcia. Everyone in the music business knows and loves the Sweetwater. It’s a classic room. Small venues like this don’t exist.”

Lautzker said he hoped the nightclub owners could resolve the dispute with the landlords, but, if not, at the very least, he would like the space maintained for another operator to offer live music. Otherwise, he said, the restaurants that depend upon nightclub patrons could suffer.

Becky Steere, who has owned Sweetwater with her husband, Thom, for the last five years, said the landlords are raising the rent from $6,500 to $9,400 a month (which includes costs for making the restroom accessible for the disabled) and is requiring liability insurance coverage to be increased from $1 million to $5 million.

Steere said she and her husband were seeking a five-year lease with a five-year option to renew while the landlord was offering a three-year lease with no renewal option. She said the couple’s three-year lease expired at the end of March, and they are remaining in the space for at least the next two months on a month-to-month basis.

Fabio Aversa, a member of the family that owns the Sweetwater building as well as the nearby La Ginestra restaurant, which has operated in the community for 40 years, sees the dispute differently.

“Basically, we were told by the tenants they had no interest in renewing the lease at that location,” he said. “They said they were looking for a larger venue for three years.”

During a meeting with Thom Steere, he said the Aversa family also was told “they just wanted a little time to transition the business.”

Aversa disagreed that the family has raised the rent to $9,400 a month. He said it’s “significantly less,” but declined to give the figure.

He said the family already has spent $150,000 to seismically upgrade the building and make the bathroom accessible to the disabled. “We did ask them to look at their insurance,” Aversa said. “We were advised that it was inadequate. It was one of the issues we were planning to discuss.”

Aversa said the family was hurt by the storm of unfavorable publicity. “We supported the nightclub for 33 years,” he said. “If my mother and father had been greedy landlords, the nightclub would not have been there a long time ago.”

Thom Steere said the Aversas misinterpreted his statements at their meeting last month, saying, “We have no desire to move.”

He said that they were in the midst of negotiations and that he was looking for a compromise on the terms of the lease, adding that comparable rents downtown are lower. “I’d never leave Sweetwater by choice,” Thom Steere said. “It’s been a labor of love for five years.”

In fact, the couple, longtime Mill Valley residents, have been going to the nightclub to listen to music since they were 21, Becky Steere said. She said her husband saw a newspaper ad at the end of 1998 seeking a buyer for the nightclub, and that “within two days, we had a deal.”

After heating and plumbing work and other renovations, she said they opened in mid-March of the following year. Her husband had been in the restaurant business for 25 years and wanted a business of his own, she said.

“Most of our shows are close to or at capacity,” Thom Steere said.

But he said the couple would be better able to cover higher operating costs if they had a longer lease to entice investors and if they could get permission from the Aversas to serve lunch.

Although no new meetings to discuss Sweetwater’s lease are scheduled, Thom Steere said he hoped to resume negotiations once things calmed down.

“If it was up to me, it would be a historical site because it gives so much character,” Shana Morrison said. “From my perspective, being a performer, there are a lot of bars with live music in Marin. Sweetwater is more of a music appreciators’ bar.... It’s a cut above the rest.”