The City of Cincinnati has filed a lawsuit in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court asking a judge to declare Memories Lounge a nuisance and to order the Downtown nightclub, on East Seventh Street, to remain closed while the case is pending, according to court documents obtained by the Cincinnati Enquirer and reported Nov. 6. The filing follows the fatal Nov. 1 shooting of a 20-year-old club employee inside the lounge.
“Defendants prioritized profits over their own patrons,” the city says in the lawsuit, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. The suit alleges the owners — who include former Bengals player Dre Kirkpatrick, according to the Enquirer — made decisions that contributed to violence at and around the club, connecting it to violence, noise complaints and liquor and code violations since it opened in 2025, the Enquirer reported. Those are the city’s allegations in court documents; Kirkpatrick could not immediately be reached for comment, according to the Enquirer.
The lawsuit recounts earlier incidents the city attributes to the club, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer: an April 4 fight in the entry line after which a person retrieved a gun and shot one of the people involved, and an April 12 incident in which a person removed from the line allegedly fired nine rounds, striking vehicles and an apartment window. The city says the owners denied accountability after those incidents, and that from May police deployed up to 30 officers weekly at closing time, according to the lawsuit as reported by the Enquirer.
For Nov. 1, the lawsuit alleges more than 720 people were inside — more than double the legal limit — and that security was not consistently searching for weapons or checking identification, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Police called to the lounge around 1:30 a.m. for a large crowd heard gunshots and found employee Kameiro Blair-Martin, 20, wounded; he died at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, police spokesman Brad Underwood said, as reported by the Enquirer on Nov. 2.
Police confirmed Deryka Minor, 20, fired the shot that killed Blair-Martin, Underwood said, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer on Nov. 4. The Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office said Blair-Martin punched the accused shooter more than a dozen times, according to the Enquirer, and Minor’s attorney, Clyde Bennett, told the Enquirer his client acted in self-defense. Minor is charged with felony carrying a concealed weapon — not homicide — posted a $5,000 bond Nov. 4, and a grand jury may consider more charges, according to the Enquirer.
The city says it has previously filed criminal charges against Kirkpatrick over occupancy limits and liquor violations, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. What happens next: a Common Pleas judge will rule on whether the club stays closed while the case proceeds, the owners can answer the allegations in court, and Minor’s weapons case continues. The filing also lands as City Council’s delayed chronic-nuisance ordinance for bars — $1,250 fines for owners who refuse to address repeated problems — awaits further debate, according to the Enquirer.