For neighbors, local bar has been source of complaints

City records show higher number of police calls there

For years, people who live near the 4th Street Depot have complained to the City Council about loud noise, rowdiness, gun shots, and drunks throwing up or urinating on their property.

Emily Jensen, whose family lives next to 4th Street Depot, has talked to the council in the past about problems she said they have experienced. On Saturday morning, just hours after the fatal shooting, she sent an email to Mayor Dave Flattery and the City Council.

"I do not write this to say 'I told you so," she wrote. "I wish the concerns I raised earlier this year had proven unnecessary. However, this is precisely the kind of escalation we feared as a neighborhood when we asked the council to take the ongoing issues surrounding this establishment seriously."

"Our concerns have never been about simply disliking a bar or objecting to having a business in our neighborhood," Jensen wrote. "We have lived next door for approximately eight years and understand that noise, traffic and activity come with living near a bar. However, the continued disturbances, police activity, violence and now a deadly shooting have gone far beyond the ordinary inconveniences of living near a business."

She wrote that there is "an identifiable pattern we have repeatedly asked the city to recognize and address."

In her email, she asked the city officials for "meaningful oversight and/or intervention."

In April, the City Council renewed the liquor license for the 4th Street Depot with no restrictions.

In doing so, the council set aside a recommendation from City Manager David Fierke, who proposed renewing the license with the condition that after six months the number of complaints and police calls would be reviewed. Under his proposal, if there was not a significant reduction in those calls and complaints, he would recommend that the council go to court and ask a judge to declare the bar to be a public safety nuisance.

In an April report to the council, Fierke wrote that between March 5, 2025, and March 4 of this year, there were 107 police calls to the bar.

"Over the past several years, and particularly within the last 12 months, the establishment has generated a significantly higher number of police calls for service compared to similar establishments in Fort Dodge," he wrote.

Before the council voted on the license during that April meeting, Helen Thompson, who owns the bar with her husband Rick, told the elected officials that her business was being singled out.

"I think we've been given a really bad rap here," she said. "We get blamed for everything that happens. I feel like we're being targeted."

She said that in response to complaints, they have been closing the bar earlier and turning down the music.

Rick Thompson told the council that 4th Street Depot has "the best patrons in town."

"I surround myself with good people," he said.

During the April council meeting, Rick Thompson suggested that most of the complaints about 4th Street Depot come from one neighbor, whom he said "made a bad choice" by buying a home near a bar.

"That's their choice," he said.

He did not name the neighbor.