“I need help!” yelped James Brown in a 1972 song. “I can’t do it alone!”
In March, one of the late singer’s tour stops, Eli’s Mile High Club in Oakland, issued the same plea, setting up a GoFundMe campaign asking fans to help save it from the city’s ire. “After months of negotiating with the city, code enforcement officers red-tagged Eli’s Mile High Club’s patio in November 2024,” wrote Matt Patane, the club’s co-owner since 2015. “Please give what you can to help the legacy of Eli’s to continue making Oakland a place of Arts and Culture.”
The ask: $150,000.
Community support was immediate. Local businesses such as 1-2-3-4 Go! Records and celebrities like Billie Joe Armstrong posted about the effort on Instagram. The Green Day singer gave $2,000 and wrote, “We can’t afford to lose another great venue in Oakland.” The initiative has raised more than $62,000 from 1,000-plus donors.
But there’s a problem with the club’s cry for help, according to one of its West Oakland neighbors. “I think that it is fraudulent, and it’s taking advantage of the community,” Greg Barron said. “They should give Billie Joe his $2,000 back.”
As a Burning Man regular, Barron is used to doing things his own way. He says he’s a longtime supporter of the music venue next door, which regularly hosts punk and heavy metal shows, along with the famous blues blowouts that once attracted Brown, Etta James, and Muddy Waters.
But Barron knows a party foul when he sees one. Even on the dusty playa, Burning Man camps are required to detail plans, pull permits, follow safety protocols, and seek approvals. The owners of Eli’s Mile High Club, however, skipped such steps on their multiyear patio build-out, angering Barron, who owns rental storage spaces and workshops next door, and forcing the city to issue “stop work” orders and fines.
“You remember Ghost Ship? This is Ghost Ship again,” Barron said, referring to the Oakland warehouse fire that killed 36 in 2016. “If there’s a fire, this is all gonna go — this is all built without any kind of oversight, without any kind of regulation, without any permits, and without any inspections.”
Barron said he had good relations with previous proprietors of Eli’s, which has changed hands several times since opening as a blues venue in 1974. But that changed when the current owners started building up the back patio area during the pandemic. They added shipping containers, an outdoor bar and bathrooms, second-story decking, a raised DJ booth, and a metal roof.
In a lawsuit Barron filed in February in Alameda County, he claims the construction led to uncontrolled drainage from the roof structures, which have no gutters or downspouts, as well as from a new concrete pad, and caused damage to his property. He also said construction workers were sometimes on his property without notice. He is seeking $166,960 to cover the cost of a new foundation and roof for one of his buildings, as well as engineering, hauling, and materials costs.
Barron claims he’s made many offers to work with the venue’s owners. “I said, ‘Listen, if you want to do construction, that’s fine. If you need access across my property, I can work with that,’” he said. But they’ve ignored his offers and just gone about the work anyway, he claims.
“They don’t care,” he said. “They just keep messing up.”
‘Choking people out of business’
The conflict over Eli’s Mile High Club puts at risk a Bay Area cultural landmark. Patane argues that the club, with its 50-year history of showcasing popular music, is of utmost importance, and the city should come to its rescue.
“It’s inclusive,” he said. “Different generations of people can mix and share a love of music.” The closure of the popular patio has hurt the bar’s bottom line and caused it to cut staff and hours of operation, Patane said. “Small, affordable venues like this are extremely important to towns and communities.”
He acknowledged that the patio construction was not permitted or inspected but laid blame on the slow pace of Oakland’s bureaucracy and what he feels is an unfair distribution of tax dollars, leaving the area struggling with homelessness and crime.
“The city is choking people out of business. [Barron’s] complaint was two and a half years ago, and they are just now getting to it?” Patane said. “Until recently, it seemed like this wasn’t going to be a major issue. We just had to go through the process.”
Oakland City Council member Carroll Fife, whose district includes Eli’s, wants to see the club fully permitted as soon as possible. “I’ve been in conversation with the owners, and I’m doing everything in my capacity to ensure they remain rooted in Oakland,” she said.
The patio was off the city’s radar until Barron complained a few years ago. There were no building or fire inspections until last month, and no official customer capacity has been determined. The city said it is aware of the club’s legacy as an “established cultural institution” and is working with the owners and their architect to resolve the issues. But until then, it has closed the patio and levied the club $4,600 in fees.
“The city is hopeful the property owner can address the safety and encroachment issues that are unfortunately the result of the choice to build unpermitted structures,” Oakland spokesperson Jean Walsh said, adding that several “stop work” orders had been ignored. The orders were “due to continued construction of unpermitted structures despite lack of approved plans, permits, and inspections.”
The city issued an operating permit for the bar and upstairs portion of the club after a recent inspection by the Fire Department, according to spokesperson Michael Hunt, and an assessment of the rear patio will be made after the Planning and Building Department completes its investigation of the complaints.
But Patane worries that Eli’s may be prohibited from using the patio even if it is able to secure the necessary permits. The city is asking the owners to file for a conditional use permit, or CUP, which would give it the ability to define what the space can be used for. Patane said this request came as a surprise, and he is worried that it could spell the end of eating and drinking on the patio.
“All of a sudden, out of the blue, the city asked us to reapply for use of the space,” Patane said, adding that food and drink have been served on the patio from the early days of the club. “We could go through getting all the building permits but then not be allowed to do anything back there.”
The CUP will be used to “acknowledge and legitimize” the area, Walsh, the Oakland spokesperson, said. “The city has not seen any official documentation showing legal use of the space or records suggesting that any expansion was ever reviewed or sanctioned.”
Barron doesn’t want to see Eli’s close, despite his lawsuit, which keeps him up at night. “You shouldn’t take advantage of people to get where you are at, but I support the club,” he said. “It was an awesome club for the longest time. It’s still an awesome club.”
Patane said it was patrons who suggested setting up the GoFundMe. “The community asked what was going on and how they could help,” he said. “It’s a hard thing to ask for help, but the response so far has been heartwarming.”
Musicians at a recent packed Monday blues show couldn’t imagine life without Eli’s.
“It means a lot to me; the blues keeps me alive,” said 97-year-old Nat Bolden, who drives from Stockton every Monday to play a few songs and hold court with regulars. “Losing Eli’s would be bad for the community. People need to enjoy themselves.”