CHARLIE JUBA'S CLUB WON'T OPEN TONIGHT – OR EVER

Sorry, Charlie! People don’t want you hassling their kids on behalf of the National Socialist Movement. Guess you will have to continue doing the 9-5 thing until you can come up with some other scheme to raise a few Deutsche Marks for the Fuhrer! As we celebrate the 65th anniversary of the day Hitler went back home to Hell, we do so knowing your dream to open up an all-ages club in Odessa, MO is not going to be fulfilled. See, once the locals started complaining, you should have known this would not be the best business venture for you. Hopefully you did, and will not try this again. Now run along, and this time stay away for good. The comedy is always fun, but we have to admit, this is getting old, and so are you.

The Pitch

Update (1:36 p.m. April 30): Charles Juba has thrown in the towel. There will be no Black Flag Club.

This statement is posted on the club’s Web site: “At this time the ownership announces that The Black Flag Club will not be open for business. We thank you for your support.”
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Tonight was supposed to be the debut of the Black Flag Club, an under-21 nightclub that’s been the center of a lot of arguing this week due to owner Charles Juba’s ties to the white power movement. But the club will remain closed for now because it hasn’t met city codes.

During an Odessa Board of Alderman meeting last night, Juba tried to defend himself against a mob of angry people who didn’t want a neo-Nazi running a club for their kids. They got their way for now.

Odessa officials reportedly found Juba failed to properly fill out his business application and that his license has been rescinded, and the club itself still isn’t up to fire code.

Even if Juba gets all of his paperwork in line and the building up to code, Odessa still might shut him out. City leaders are considering ordinances that would allow them to regulate businesses, including one with a provision about the moral character of the owner.

Juba claims he’s a different man than the one the Southern Poverty Law Center put on it’s “40 to Watch” list in 2003. But divorce records show that just five months ago, his ex-wife feared Juba would take their children to white power rallies, and Juba requested his Nazi flag pillowcases and Ku Klux Klan robes be returned.

The SPLC also claims Juba founded a National Socialist Movement chapter in Oak Grove in December 2009.

WDAF

ODESSA, MO. – A western Missouri community has derailed plans by a former leader of a white supremacist group to open a nightclub for young people on the anniversary of Adolph Hitler’s death.

Charles Juba, a former self-proclaimed leader of the Aryan Nations, had intended to open an under-21 club on Friday, the 65th anniversary of Hitler’s apparent suicide. But Odessa Mayor Tom Murry said Thursday that Juba’s business license had been rescinded and the club couldn’t open as planned.

Despite assertions a day earlier that the club would open as soon as it satisfied local codes, the owners announced on the club’s website Friday that “The Black Flag Club will not open for business.”

“(Joba) called city hall, talked to the clerk and wanted to stop utilities and wanted a refund on all city licenses,” Murry told FOX 4 News.

At a special meeting Thursday night that drew an overflow crowd to the Community Center, Murry said the nightclub had not met city code and Juba had failed to properly fill out his business application, The Kansas City Star reported.

Odessa’s Board of Aldermen considered two proposals Thursday night aimed at keeping out the club, including one that requires business applicants to exhibit “good moral character.”

The board decided not to act because some members felt the proposals were being brought up in haste and could unduly burden existing businesses.

“Who gets to determine good moral character?” Alderman Justin Murry asked. “That is way too subjective.”

Murry told the AP in an earlier interview that city officials also were trying to persuade the owners of the outlet mall where Juba planned to open The Black Flag to revoke Juba’s lease, which is in renewable 30-day increments.

Many Odessa residents say that they were glad to hear that the club would not be opening for business.

“Kids are easily influenced,” said Theresa Allman. “They’re an at ange where they don’t listen to their parents and he could do that very easily.”

Jose Vera, 18, says that he has lived in Odessa for his entire life, and says that neither he nor his friends wanted anything to do with the Black Flag Club.

“Everything it represents, the guy’s history, I wouldn’t support anything like that,” said Vera.

Juba has said the club’s name refers to the black flag carried by Civil War guerrilla William Quantrill, who led a pro-Confederate gang that attacked and burned pro-union Lawrence, Kan., during the Civil War. More than 150 men and boys were killed.

The website for the club, which invites high school students from Blue Springs, Independence, Fort Osage, Grain Valley and Oak Grove to attend, said the black flag represented people who didn’t surrender.

Thursday’s meeting was the second in a week in which hundreds of people showed up to speak out against the club. On Monday, Juba said he had abandoned his racist and anti-Semitic past, but angry residents of the town about 35 miles east of Kansas City shouted him down.

Juba didn’t attend the meeting Thursday, but a woman speaking on his behalf said he goes to church twice a week and is a fine family man.

“He’s got a past, yes, but who doesn’t?” asked Monica Loges, who identified herself as a friend of Juba’s. “But that doesn’t mean he’s in the Klan today.”

Arluster Haynes told her Juba had underestimated the town’s intelligence by thinking anyone would believe he has changed.

“Well, Mr. Juba didn’t do his investigating,” Haynes said. “Odessa is not a hick town. We know all about him.”

But that wasn’t always the case. The city initially welcomed Juba’s plan to open the club in the struggling outlet mall near Interstate 70. That changed after word spread of the owner’s past.

In 2005, Juba announced that the Aryan Nations would move its headquarters from Pennsylvania to Kansas City, Kan. The controversy that followed led Juba to quit as the group’s leader. He stayed in Kansas City, while the Aryan Nation moved its headquarters to Sebring, Fla.