No more Shark Club with ‘no pants parties’; it’ll be MCM with tapas and craft cocktails

A Costa Mesa nightclub under fire from neighbors over noise and other concerns is being reinvented in hopes of attracting new clientele.

The Shark Club, 841 Baker St., closed in December and is completing renovations to reopen in coming weeks as Mansion Costa Mesa, or MCM.

In an interview Friday, club founder and former owner Gregg Hanour, who is now acting as a consultant for the current ownership group, said MCM plans to serve tapas paired with craft cocktails and take on more of a “restaurant lounge” vibe than a nightclub.

The result, he added, will be a broader base of customers than the venue historically has had since its opening in 1990.

“They’re going to be focusing on a different customer,” Hanour said of the new owners, Livemore LLC.

At a City Council meeting Jan. 5, Colin Zarbough, a resident of the nearby Pentridge Cove condominium complex, publicly lambasted the 11,000-square-foot venue and submitted to city officials a report of nearly 100 pages chronicling what he considered problems at the club. His report called the club a “restaurant [the] Costa Mesa City Council refuses to deal with.”

“It took us spending countless hours putting that document together, after a year of complaining to actually get to the point where the city took notice, until it was jammed into their face, where they had to deal with how out of line the club had gotten,” Zarbough said in an email.

Zarbough was particularly critical of the Shark Club drawing hundreds of police calls over the years and of the “no pants parties” offered as part of the club’s WTF Fridays series. His report also included screen shots containing sexually suggestive pictures.

In an interview, Zarbough said he’s not “in the business of shutting down businesses around here,” but that Shark Club’s ownership has violated many of the rules set years ago by City Hall.

In a written response to Zarbough’s concerns that Hanour submitted to city officials last week, he acknowledged some of Livemore’s past mistakes — like hosting live entertainment without a permit — but said the problems have since been fixed and will be better when the venue reopens.

Hanour noted that outside promoters spread wrong information about the club, like boasting an incorrect occupancy or three dance floors, Hanour said. The club has two.

Management was “not on top of it, as they should have been,” Hanour said.

Last year, to contain noise, the club spent “thousands trying to chase a problem that others could not hear,” Hanour said. Management hired sound experts, employed people to regularly monitor noise and installed 6-inch concrete bunkers behind speakers and 50-gallon, sand-filled barrels double-stacked against a wall. They moved speakers away from the neighbors’ direction and toward the 73 Freeway.

He added that the Shark Club, which he called an industry leader for its strict on-site security and alcohol control procedures, has unfairly received neighbors’ blame when problems actually occurred at other Sobeca District venues or area house parties.

Still, Hanour said, the plans to become Mansion Costa Mesa are not new, nor are they in reaction to recent neighborhood concerns.

When Livemore bought the club from him around 2011, Hanour said, it spent $100,000 in architectural designs, but couldn’t finish the plans because they lacked funds for the envisioned $5-million remodeling.

“This is something they’ve been trying to do,” he said.

Hanour also noted that the Shark Club has never received any city code enforcement violations or infractions from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which has conducted its own investigation but concluded no wrongdoing.

City spokesman Tony Dodero noted that a city prosecutor reviewed reports at one time of un-permitted adult-themed entertainment at the club, but officials never pursued it after learning that such entertainment had ceased.

Dodero said city teams also measured noise at the venue, but couldn’t determine that decibel levels violated municipal codes or ordinances.

“While we do not plan to issue any citations or up code enforcement for the time being, we are going to continue to hold them accountable,” he said.

Hanour said he’ll soon meet with neighbors to inform them of the club’s plans.

“There’s nothing we have to hide,” he said.

Some residents, including Zarbough, however, say they’ll need convincing that MCM’s owners will have a cleaner second act.

Zarbough said it’s unlikely that Livemore is having its own “road to Damascus moment and it’s the dawn of a new day.”

Pentridge Cove resident David Smith is skeptical “because for the last four or five years, the people who have owned it haven’t listened to us at all.”

His wife, Kitty, described patrons shouting and fighting in their complex late at night.

“It’s like a high school lets out at 2 in the morning,” she said.

“People are really on the edge right now,” she added. “They’re not going to put up with it anymore.”