Around 3 a.m. on a Saturday in July 2024, a resident of an apartment building in Oakland’s Koreatown Northgate neighborhood woke up to commotion outside.
The resident, who asked not to be named due to fears of retaliation, walked out and began recording the early-morning chaos on their phone. The video, reviewed by The Oaklandside, showed several people lined up in front of a business blasting loud music. Some chatted loudly in the apartment complex’s parking lot, located across the street from the business. Drivers double-parked their cars along the street.
It all centered on a business at the corner of 27th and Telegraph Avenue called Lava Lounge. The resident and other neighbors filed multiple complaints about the venue with the city and the Oakland Police Department in 2023 and 2024.
Neighbors’ complaints about Lava Lounge, reported here for the first time, took on new meaning following the mass shooting last month at EZ’s Lounge, another Oakland nightclub run by the same man, Essayas Debas. Two people died and five others were injured in the March 7 shooting, which OPD says was gang-related. OPD identified the victims as Latetia Bobo, a 33-year-old teacher at a San Pablo middle school, and Markise Martin, a 25-year-old father. Authorities have not made any arrests in connection with the shooting.
Both clubs, Lava Lounge and EZ’s, were magnets for complaints about unpermitted events and late-night crowds. The tensions surrounding both venues highlight a broader challenge for city officials in shutting down illegal nightclubs before they escalate into serious public safety threats.
For community members who say they repeatedly raised alarms, the tragedy felt predictable.
The day after the EZ’s Lounge shooting, the neighbor who had complained previously about Lava Lounge emailed multiple city leaders, OPD, and media outlets, accusing the city and police of failing to hold the owner accountable.
“The March 7, 2026, mass shooting at EZ’s Lounge was not an unforeseeable event,” they wrote. “It was the predictable outcome of allowing a known operator with a documented history of violent incidents, illegal nightclub activity, and public safety violations to simply reopen and continue operating.”
A pattern of complaints and warnings at Lava Lounge
Lava Lounge’s Instagram profile as of April 10, 2026. Credit: Screenshot courtesy of Instagram
Lava Lounge advertised itself on social media as “one of the best hookah lounges you’ll ever go to.” But in multiple complaints filed with the city, neighbors said the lounge really functioned as an “illegal nightclub” and dance hall, operating until 5 or 6 a.m. on many weekends from 2023 to late 2024.
Neighbors said they regularly witnessed loud parties, fights, drug dealing, drunk driving, and other activity spilling onto the sidewalk and street.
Between July 2023 and September 2024, Oakland’s Planning and Building Department received 16 complaints about the venue. Records show Lava Lounge was reported for loud music, blight, and dumping garbage on neighboring properties. Neighbors also told the city they believed that Lava Lounge was selling alcohol and tobacco without required permits.
When one resident walked over in March 2024 to try to talk to the lounge’s owner about these problems, they claimed bar customers threatened them. “People in … line said they were going to kill me,” the person alleged in a complaint filed with the city. “They said [to] watch out, and after hearing me talk with the business owner about being their neighbor, they said they knew where I lived and to watch my back.”
When building inspectors entered the property in April 2024, they found multiple violations, including altered electrical systems and lights, added walls, partitions, and platforms, and an illegal second-story addition.
The resident reported the nightclub to OPD and the city’s code enforcement division multiple times, asking them to cite or shut down the business. But over the subsequent months, Lava Lounge continued operating after hours, and fights regularly broke out on the street, according to city records.
The resident accused city agencies of passing responsibility for resolving the problem onto others.
“The Oakland Police Department can only observe and document the illegal activity, while the Zoning Department claims it is a landlord issue,” they wrote in an email to city leaders.
Lava Lounge was evicted from the building in November 2024, according to Jean Walsh, a spokesperson for the city. City staff conducted a final walk-through of the property in early December 2024 to verify Lava Lounge’s ouster.
One of several complaints against Lava Lounge filed with the city’s code enforcement office.
In an Instagram story on July 6, 2024, Lava Lounge’s operators showed off a long line outside the hookah lounge at 3:46 a.m.
EZ’s Lounge opens — and tragedy strikes
Not long after Lava Lounge shut down, another nightclub, EZ’s Lounge, opened about a mile away in downtown Oakland. Downtown residents soon started reporting EZ’s for similar problem activities, and on Aug. 20, 2025, city staff notified the owners they were operating an “unpermitted entertainment venue,” according to city records.
Then, in the early morning hours of March 7 — past legal operating hours — gunfire erupted inside the club, killing two and wounding five.
A resident who lives a block away, and who also spoke on condition of anonymity due to safety concerns, said he had repeatedly seen EZ’s Lounge packed with patrons well after 2 a.m. in the weeks leading up to the shooting. The night of the incident, he saw at least one security guard outside, but no metal detectors.
The clubs’ operator, Debas, who lives in Oakland, incorporated Lava Lounge in 2023, according to records filed with the California Secretary of State. City business tax records confirm that Debas opened EZ’s Lounge in October 2025. In court records from a 2025 lawsuit about a business dispute, Debas also referred to himself as the owner of EZ’s.
Records filed with the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control show that the liquor license associated with EZ’s Lounge is held by Matador Worldwide, a company Debas incorporated in 2019. And Debas is also named on Lava Lounge’s Instagram page.
Debas did not respond to multiple attempts to contact him over email, phone, and social media.
The signage on EZ’s Lounge facade was taken down last month after the shooting, and after Oakland sent the property owner, a Danville-based company, a cease and desist letter for allowing EZ’s Lounge to operate as an entertainment venue without permits.
Public records suggest city officials had long been aware of concerns tied to nightlife operations associated with Debas. But the two clubs illustrate the difficulty the city has in addressing entertainment venues that allow unpermitted activities.
Years of complaints and slow enforcement
Photos and videos taken by a neighbor of Lava Lounge, and other records gleaned from social media, show pandemonium outside Lava Lounge on several occasions during the few years it was open.
In one video, recorded past 2 a.m. in October 2024, at least eight people are shoving one another and yelling in the middle of the street as others record the brawl on their phones. In another clip of the same incident, four Oakland police officers appear to chase after a person involved in the fight while police car sirens blare in the background.
The neighbor with concerns about Lava Lounge screen-recorded an Instagram video showing people fighting and fleeing from police outside the nightclub in October 2024.
Similar scenes played out on many nights, according to neighbors, with fights spilling into the street and crowds lingering into the early morning hours.
“There have been assaults, drunk driving, hit-and-run injury accidents, drug dealing, excessive noise, and lewd behavior from this business from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. Friday and Saturday nights,” one person wrote in a complaint in July 2024 to the Planning and Building Department.
As neighbors continued reporting the business to OPD and city leaders, the city issued numerous warnings and citations.
According to public records obtained by The Oaklandside, in February 2024, Oakland’s Planning and Building Department sent the owner a letter warning them of loud music and excessive noise from Lava Lounge.
The department sent another letter in May of that year, citing Lava Lounge for lacking permits, having broken windows, and other violations following an inspection the week prior.
Over the next three months, the hookah lounge received three additional letters regarding follow-up inspections that found the business had failed to correct the violations cited in the May 2024 letter.
The club was fined a total of $1,755. It’s unclear if Debas or anyone associated with the property paid the fines.
One local business leader, who also asked not to be named, said KONO business district community ambassadors tasked with cleaning the neighborhood and intervening in non-emergency situations had observed Lava Lounge patrons dumping empty liquor bottles and other garbage on the street. The following morning, the ambassadors would see heaps of trash on the sidewalk outside the business.
“They were expecting the ambassadors to pick up their trash, which is not their responsibility,” they said.
In April 2023, the business district sent a letter to the owner of Lava Lounge, directing them to set up trash collection services with Waste Management. The business district never received a response.
Walsh said the city sent cease and desist letters to the Lava Lounge property owner in January and March 2024. In May of that year, the city sent the property owner another letter, declaring Lava Lounge a “public nuisance.”
On another night, in October 2024, the neighbor who’d been trying to get the city’s attention detailed an incident in which a crowd of at least 50 people spilled onto the streets in front of the venue. While the resident was observing the crowd, they saw a man and a woman enter the public section of their apartment complex’s parking lot.
One of the city’s code enforcement letters to Lava Lounge included photos inspectors took of unpermitted modifications made to the building. Credit: courtesy city of Oakland
“The man grabbed a black gun from a bag the woman was carrying, while shouting at her about ‘getting them,’” the neighbor wrote in an email to OPD and city officials.
The man with the gun remained in the parking lot and appeared to aim at a target. OPD officers who were conducting a traffic stop nearby then shone a flashlight on the man, which the resident said “averted a potential tragedy.” The man and the woman fled.
“This is just another night from Lava Lounge that has been operating illegally for over 15 months, functioning as a criminal organization with public signage,” the neighbor wrote in his email to city and police department leaders. “Despite its blatant disregard for the law, the City of Oakland has failed to penalize or shut it down.”
Other emails obtained by The Oaklandside show an all-hands-on-deck effort by OPD, the Economic and Workforce Development Department, and residents to address the issues associated with Lava Lounge.
On one Friday afternoon in August 2024, the resident sent a social media advertisement for a late-night party at Lava Lounge to OPD and Ricardo Salas, a code enforcement officer with the city’s Planning and Building Department.
“I will be working tonight and will handle the best I can,” replied Josiah Ladd, an OPD sergeant.
Lisa Ausmus, an OPD police captain at the time, told Ladd over email that she and Salas spoke to the owner of Lava Lounge, who said the club would not open that night.
But later, in the early morning hours of Saturday, the neighbor notified OPD and the code enforcement officer that they had seen a long line outside Lava Lounge’s door past 2 a.m.
Two weeks later, the same resident asked Salas what it would take to shut down the lounge, adding that it was still promoting events on social media and hosting after-hours parties.
“The operators know they are on their way out and will try to make as much money as possible before vacating,” Salas wrote.
Salas did not respond to an interview request.
Illegal nightclubs have been a persistent problem in Oakland
Unpermitted nightclubs and bars have been a long-standing issue in Oakland, sometimes with fatal consequences.
The 2016 Ghost Ship fire erupted during an illegal warehouse party, killing 36 people, making it the deadliest fire in the city’s history. In 2018, undercover OPD officers raided Music Cafe, a karaoke bar in Chinatown that operated after-hours and where police say narcotics were sold, among other alleged illegal activities. And in July 2025, one person died after a shooting inside an unlicensed club on 85th Avenue. Illegal casinos are also a rampant problem in East Oakland’s San Antonio and Fruitvale neighborhoods, according to police reports.
Lt. Gabriel Urquiza, commander of OPD’s real-time operations center, said officers often face limitations when dealing with suspected after-hours venues, making it hard for them to intervene before situations escalate.
“Somebody felt comfortable bringing a firearm into a venue downtown where there were dozens of police officers who don’t feel they have the ability to address a lot of this stuff,” he said.
After the March 7 shooting, the city contacted the landlord of EZ’s Lounge. On March 10, Salas sent a cease and desist letter to the building owner, warning that EZ’s was operating as an unpermitted entertainment venue. On March 13, Salas followed up with another letter to the property owner, declaring EZ’s Lounge a public nuisance due to documented unpermitted parties and illegal alcohol sales. (Attempts to contact the building owner were unsuccessful.)
Salas ordered the owner to pay a nearly $17,000 fine and to remove any weapons, drugs, and the tenant, EZ’s Lounge, from the site. He added that OPD’s Homicide Unit is investigating the venue for the March 7 shooting.
Ashleigh Kanat, director of the Economic and Workforce Development Department, said in a statement that the city is “strengthening enforcement” and “expanding staffing” to address unpermitted events and nightclubs.
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