D: What happened...tell me everything that led to Karma's closing?
Raksh: The harrasement started the first day we opened. The city came after us and shut us down on our very first night. That was all caused, in our opinion, by our landlord cashing in a political favor. In the early days of Karma, he had plans on demolishing the building and building a high rise there. He wanted us out although we had a ten year lease. Our being there didn't really mesh well with his plans on developing the building. Since then, his plans never really got approved in a timely manner and his highrise plans subsequently changed. Now we're his best friends because we're paying the rent and paying his bills. Because of what happened on that first night and the attention that was drawn upon Karma, there was a very negative light shed upon us before we were ever really opened. After that the city decided to take their own case against us. Our landlord got the ball rolling without really realizing what he had done. From there the problems basically took on a life of their own. The people targeted us for many reasons. You know, we're just two guys, two business men chasing a dream. Srin (my partner) is a doctor at Northwestern; and myself, I was in the I.T. (Information Technologoies) field doing financial systems consulting for Anderson and KPMG Pete Marwick. So we weren't heavely connected. We were just two business savvy guys chasing a dream, which was ultimately our downfall because A.) we weren't heavily connected and B.) we were very successful. Karma club goers were witnesses the harrasement. There were periodic raids in the early days. You know, twenty or thirty cops coming in, shining flash lights in our patrons' faces and trying to find underage people. At one point they hit us five weekends in a row, not finding anything for four weekends and on the fifth weekend finding one person who admitted that they had a fake I.D. that was passed on to him but that he was still carded on his way in. All of these charges were dismissed in court because we do run a responsible operation and have a strict door policy. They handed us the first revocation on a court case based on a few issues. One, stating that we needed a separarte liscence for each bar. They would write us multiple tickets each time they came through on that issue. Although we beat them all criminally, the Mayor's Liscence Commission decided that it was one reason for shutting us down. This is ironic considering that there exists other liscenced establishments like the United Center, which have close to two hundred points of sale, yet only have four liscences, which is the same amount that Karma owns. It's not equal protection, equal enforcement or equal interpretation of the law. It just depends on who you are. You don't see the United center getting raided or ticketed for similar reasons. That was one of the allegations that led up to our first revocation. The second revocation was handed down recently and the allegations this time were that we failed to render aid to an incapacitated individual and left him in parril on the sidewalk. This guy's testimony was that he was in Karma on a Saturday night. Our position is that he was never inside Karma. He testified that he was in Karma on a Saturday night, sat at a barstool on the main floor (he stated that he didn't know exactly which floor he was on, but he thinks it was the main floor). He stated that within four hours he consumed nine shots of Quervo 1800 and an MGD. He said that he spent a total of $45.00 including the cover. By our price sheets nine shots of Quervo 1800 alone would have cost him $63.00. He also testified that he did not have any kind of VIP card and was not on any guest list. The cover alone on a Saturday night is $15.00 and at that time Karma did not serve MGD, we didn't even carry it! And as you and I know, patrons don't sit at "bar stools" at our bars. We don't even have bar stools at our bars. So that was this guy's testimony and the city found him to be a "credible witness". That was the only witness that the city could come up with and they found him to be a "credible witness". They found a guy who drank nine shots of tequila and sat at a bar stool for four hours to be a "credible witness". However, they found myself, a college educated man and business owner, to be a "non-credible witness". They found Tim O'Reilly, our head of security who was a medic in the Air Force for several years and had been in security positions for 10 years, follows our policy of not drinking on the job and had a clear head that night, also to be a "non-credible witness". They found Rhonda Praster, a college graduate and general manager, also to be a "non-credible witness". The other charge that was also a part of this last case, was our failure to call the police for a fight that supposedly happened in Karma. I don't know if you're familiar with our security policies, but we fill out an incident report for anything that happens inside the club and keep them all on file. Someone claimed that they got into a fight at Karma. They also claimed that we (our security) asked them if they wanted to press charges and offered to call the police. The person said "No, I do not wish to press charges" and said "I want to leave" and ran out of the club. Later on, i guess this person decided that they did want to press charges and also went to get medical attention at Swedish Covenent Hospital which is FAR! The city could not produce a single witness to show that this person was ever even at our club. The most recent revocation was based upon the last two incidents. Whether we are innocent or guilty the city has a plan, and has had a plan since day one to shut us down! By issuing two revocations within twelve months, even if they're not totally based on truth, it doesn't matter. Their plan was to shut us down by handing us these two revocations within twelve months, thus taking away our right to stay open while under appeal. What normally happens to businesses that cannot stay open while fighting a legal battle, is that they go under. By doing this they basically cut our legs off. So their hope was that we would just go under and go away quietly.

D: What is the future or is there a future for Karma?
Raksh: We've been planning for this, for this day and for this fight, so we are not without a war chest. We are fighting the revocation through the liscenced appeal commission. We're going through the legal steps trying to get justice in these matters. Our case is very strong, although what we cannot control is political influences. So that's where Karma sits. Although we have a very strong legal case, politically however, the city does what it wants to.

D: Obviously you hope that Karma will reopen, but in all honesty do you truly believe that you have a chance at it?
Raksh: Absolutly! We're basically calling upon any influence that we do have. I think we've got the right law firm behind us and I also think that we have a great case. We've been in this business now for almost three years and we're not in the same position that we were when we first started. In the early days we didn't know that many people at all, and now I think we know a few more.

D: If Karma's liscence isn't reinstated, do you see yourself moving into a different location?
Raksh: Well, I think what we've created in this city, we really wanna keep it going. So, in one way or another, we'll do our best to keep the city entertained. We'll try and keep our brand of clubbing alive either directly or indirectly. We're not ones to just walk away, we've all worked way too hard to get clubbing to the level it's at today in Chicago.

D: So whether the space is the same or not, you absolutely see a future for Karma?
Raksh: Whether it's Karma or not we see a future for the scene we've helped develop.

D: Thank you so much for your time!
Raksh: You're welcomed!