Pittsburgh Cafe closed

Students will have to wait a while before enjoying local DJs and dance parties on Meyran… Students will have to wait a while before enjoying local DJs and dance parties on Meyran Avenue.

Pittsburgh Café has been declared delinquent after they failed to pay nearly two years worth of taxes, city officials said. The popular campus bar chose to close last week.

Richard Miecznikowski, Special Tax Division manager for the City Treasurer, confirmed that the bar owes taxes from as far back as March 2008.

“We have not received any revenue from the bar in a considerable amount of time, and we have taken legal action against them,” Miecznikowski said. “They are in the hands of our attorneys. I can’t go any further than that.”

A spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board said the bar’s liquor license expired May 31, and that “the relevant paper work has not been filed to secure a new license.”

Pittsburgh attorney Jake Lifson, of Goehring, Rutter & Boehm is handling the delinquency case for the city. He said the bar owed about $12,000 at the end of 2009, but were making ongoing payments. Lifson could not confirm how much Pittsburgh Café owes currently, but he did say that the city currently has no plans to padlock the bar.

It is yet unclear exactly what the legal action means for the Pittsburgh Café, but Miecznikowski said a lock down is possible.

“We’ve had other bars in similar situations where the judge decided the best move was to padlock,” he said. “I can’t say that’s what will happen with this one, but that has been done in the past.”