Crazy Jack’s closes doors

Ryan Carter

After 11 often crazy years, Jack Tavares has called it quits.

Crazy Jack’s Country Bar & Grill, a staple of Burbank nightlife

owned by Tavares, closed for business Feb. 3.

Gone are the country music jams, the dance lessons, the drinking

and smoking, and the nights when the local watering hole at 4311 W.

Magnolia Blvd. was filled to capacity with revelers.

“We’ve done a lot of partying over the past two weeks, and a lot

of crying,” Tavares said by phone this week from Veterans

Administration Hospital in Westwood, where he is recovering from hip

surgery.

Tavares’ lease expired Jan. 1, and was not renewed by the property

owners, Mildred and William Ontiveros, of Glendale, who have owned

the parcel since 1970.

“There were just too many problems there as a bar,” Mildred

Ontiveros said. “We just didn’t want to have that bar. It had nothing

to do with the personalities. It had to do with the fact that it was

a bar, and it was undesirable.”

On Jan. 18, the country and western bar was the scene of a

gang-related brawl during a hip-hop party that resulted in seven

people being injured, including three by gunfire, authorities said.

Four years ago, Crazy Jack’s employee Colleen Harris was getting

ready to make a bank deposit when a car driven by Betty Blaylock, 74,

of Burbank, rammed into the side of the converted office where Harris

was working, killing her.

The bar and grill also gained notoriety when Tavares publicly

defied the state’s ban on smoking in restaurants. But it was the

crash and the brawl, coupled with what they called “bad elements” at

the bar, which prompted the owners to not renew the lease, they said.

They gave him 60 days to move out.

Tavares did not go quietly.

The place closed with partying customers, who even made up

commemorative T-shirts.

“I feel cheated,” Tavares said. “I had a chance to sell it, but my

landlord decided not to give me that opportunity. All they did was

put a lot of people out of work -- band members, six bartenders,

three waitresses and a busboy/cook.”