The problems are continuing for the Watusi II at 45th and Locust and its owner Noel Karasanyi. The bar’s commercial activities license has been revoked for “serious tax violations,” according to a sign affixed to the building dated Sept. 11.

The business owes about $37,000 in back taxes, according to the Revenue Department website. The closing of Watusi II follows The closing of the Watusi Lounge at 46th and Walnut earlier this month due to an expired food license. Both bars are owned by Karasanyi, who has a Yeadon address listed on tax and real estate documents. Karasanyi also owns the Third World Lounge at 49th and Baltimore.

All three establishments have received complaints about late night noise and fights. Three people were shot near the Watusi Lounge on Aug. 30 and the Third World Lounge got some brief citywide publicity for its second-floor “pee pipe” that drained onto the sidewalk along 49th Street.

The Watusi II was briefly closed and put up for sale in 2012, but later taken off the market and reopened. The cease operations sign at the Watusi II lists its name as “Spider Kelly’s,” which is the name of the establishment before it was sold in 1988. It still retains that business name in city records.

Photo from Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll 2012/West Philly Local.

This year’s only Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll – after the first Stroll scheduled in June was rained out – will be Thursday, Sept. 12. This popular annual event draws huge crowds from West Philly and other parts of the city, who come to enjoy $1 deals, from food, sweets and beer to arts & crafts items to music and yoga class vouchers to theater tickets.

University City District (UCD), which organizes the event, says that established neighborhood businesses, like Milk & Honey, Dock Street Brewery and Firehouse Bikes, will participate in the Stroll along with newcomers that include Little Baby’s Ice Cream and The Green Tambourine. See the complete list of participating businesses here.

Radio station WXPN favorite The Fleeting Ends will perform live at the 46th Street Triangle, along with other artists and street performers. Free face painting and balloon artists will be on hand to entertain the little neighbors. Food trucks, including Jimmies Cupcake Co., Sunflower Truck Stop, The Tot Cart, and Lil Dan’s Food Truck ,will also be selling $1 items along the avenue.

Finally, stop by Clark Park (43rd & Baltimore) at 6:30 p.m. to take part in The Mp3 Experiment, a public, flash mob kind of event created by Improv Everywhere, where participants carry out coordinated instructions delivered to their headphones (instructions are available here).

As usual, the Dollar Stroll will take place from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. along Baltimore Avenue between 43rd and 51st Streets. As we always recommend, make sure to get there early if you don’t want to miss out on best deals from over 30 local businesses.

Those of you who like to knock one back now and again will be happy to learn that premium wine and liquor store at 43rd and Chestnut that has been discussed for what seems like a few years will open – on Tuesday!

The free booze will be flowing at the Premium Wine and Spirits Shop – if you are 21 and prove it of course – beginning at 11 a.m. on Tuesday. The store has been in the works for a long time and was approved by the city, despite some protests from neighbors. It replaced an adult video store and check cashing joint. The store’s “premium” label means that no pints will be for sale. Read the whole saga behind the opening starting here.

The store’s opening will likely take much of the customer pressure off the store near 49th and Baltimore, which absorbed much of the traffic after the liquor store closed near 41st and Market in January 2012.

Here is the tasting schedule, according to Philly.com:

11 a.m. – 1 p.m.:

• Grand Marnier Raspberry Peach
• Hennessy VS Cognac
• Moet & Chandon Imperial Brut
• Chandon Napa Brut

4 p.m.– 6 p.m.:

• Barefoot Cellars Pinot Grigio
• Barefoot Cellars Malbec
• Barefoot Cellars Red Moscato
• Barefoot Bubbly Moscato Spumante

The store hours are: Mon-Sat 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.; Sun noon – 5 p.m.

The cease and desist order at the Watusi Lounge at 4600 Walnut St.

Editor’s Note: We are aware that the sign on the establishment at 46th and Walnut says “Watutsi.” However, the business in all its public dealings (its filings, licenses and even its Facebook page) refers to itself as “Watusi,” so that’s what we have always gone with. Both words, of course, refer to the Tutsi people of East Africa.

The Watusi Lounge at 46th and Walnut has been closed for not having a proper food license, according to the city’s Office of Licenses and Inspections.

A cease operations notice was put on the door of the bar and night club on Sept. 6. The Watusi Lounge has received complaints from neighbors for late-night noise including alcohol-fueled fights. Police are still investigating a triple shooting earlier on Aug. 30 allegedly connected to the bar.

The lounge will not be permitted to open until a food license is issued. The notice is the latest in a list of violations the city has issued to Watusi.

In other Watusi-related news, the Watusi II at 45th and Locust, which has also received complaints, got a new paint job over the last few days. Local businessman Noel Karasanyi runs the Watusi Lounge, Watusi II and the Third World Lounge at 49th and Baltimore. The Watusi II was the subject of a community meeting in August, where some community members complained about noise and open drug use. But other members of the community have defended the businesses, saying they are among the few black-owned establishments remaining in the neighborhood.

In July, we reported that the former MexiCali space was rumored to become a Korean restaurant. Turns out that rumor was true—U-Town, a Korean food and sushi joint, opened its doors last week at 110 S. 40^th Street.

When West Philly Local visited U-Town yesterday, the bustling new restaurant was nearly packed and the air was filled with eager chatter. Considering the decor, U-Town is far removed from the former Mexican joint. The walls are painted in a relaxing sea foam green bordered by a soft mustard yellow color, and the tables are made of a dark red wood. The bar/register area, stationed at the back of the small space, is made of stark, smooth white material, breaking up the pastel palette.

Scanning the takeout menu, U-Town’s cuisine promises to be an exciting blend of different styles. There are Korean staples like soon doo boo (a hot and spicy stew offered with beef, tofu, seafood or mushroom), dup bap (a steamed rice dish offered with seafood, shrimp or squid), bibim bap (a warm mixed rice dish topped with hot pepper paste and served with vegetables, seafood, poor, chicken or beef), and deok boki (a spicy stewed rice cake combination). U-Town also offers a variety of dumpling and tempura dishes and taco, fish and chicken combinations, and Asian style tacos in chicken, bulgogi and kimchi forms.

U-Town’s owner, who goes by the name of Ocean, was curt when asked for more information on his restaurant. According to the owner, it was a busy time of day (around 6 p.m.) for him and he didn’t have time to talk. He only offered that U-Town opened last week and seemed bothered when asked further questions, abruptly turning away without conclusion after receiving our business card.

What we do know, however, is that U-Town does not have a credit card processing machine, but it is working on installing one according to a note on the wall when you first walk in. As for hours, the restaurant is opened Monday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

–Annamarya Scaccia

Dock Street beer was reincarnated in an old firehouse near 50th and Baltimore six years ago this week. The brewpub, which despite initial concerns has proven to be an anchor in the Cedar Park neighborhood, is throwing a party to celebrate.

Draft beers will be available at half price from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursday as part of the celebration. Dock Street will also release Trappist IPA, which was brewed with past Dock Street Brewer Scott Morrison, George Hummel of Homesweet homebrew and Tom Peters of Monk’s Café.

Rosemarie Certo raises a glass during Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll in 2012. Photo by Mike Lyons/West Philly Local.

The party is also a chance to look back at how Dock Street came to the firehouse, which was the center of a community controversy for many years. Many will recall the debut of the original Dock Street, Philly’s first microbrewery, back in 1985. Rosemarie Certo and her husband Jeffrey Ware later sold the brewpub, located in Logan Square, in 1998. A few years later, after it folded, Certo bought back the bottling rights and the name.

The stately brick building, built in 1903, has its own storied history. Here is the short version for those who need caught up: Fire companies Engine 68 and Ladder 13 moved out of the building in 1984 and there was a good chance that it would go on the auction block and, very possibly, be demolished. In stepped Cedar Park Neighbors, which bought the building for $1 from the city. The neighborhood organization helped save it by taking out a loan to renovate the building, which had become an eyesore with boarded up windows and decaying bricks. Members also helped lead the West Philadelphia Future Fund, which raised and distributed money to attract minority-owned businesses to the new farmers market opened inside the firehouse in 1988. The market had everything from working bakers and butchers to fish mongers.

That said, this is Philly, and the farmers market was not without its controversies, including complaints from potential tenants that the rent was too high.

“This project has been planned so that the community can see that there can be efforts where minorities can be providers as well as consumers,” a person involved in the project told The Philadelphia Inquirer at the time. “If this works, this will be a model for the whole state.”

It didn’t quite work out that way and by the late 1990s the main part of the building was empty again.Cedar Park Neighbors kicked into gear again and petitions started going around. Some nearby churches feared the brewpub would do more harm than good for the area and there was heated debate. Again, this is Philly – West Philly.

After a possible spot in Mount Airy fell through, Dock Street applied to the city to open a brewpub and pizzeria in the space, which was in the heart of what The Philadelphia Inquirer called “the gentrification frontier” in September 2007.

Dock Street opened on Aug. 20, 2007 and since then has helped attract more new businesses to the neighborhood. Back then there was a party, just like tomorrow.