Former Hoppy's bar demolished

ZANESVILLE — Dan Quinn stood and watched as an excavator bit chunks out of the former Hoppy's on Putnam Avenue on Wednesday, celebratory cigar smoke drifting away in the spring breeze.

"I am absolutely elated," he said, as chunks of the building were loaded into a dumpster. "This thing has been a nuisance forever." Quinn owns the nearby Sunshine Shoppe florist.

The Muskingum County Prosecutor's Office seized the building at 753 Putnam Ave. following an incident on October 30, 2021, where more than a pound of marijuana and $13,000 in cash were found during an after-hours party. The building's owner, Christian Black, was arrested and charged with one count of trafficking in drugs, a fifth degree felony. He was sentenced to community control, and forfeited the building.

It was once a respectable neighborhood bar, with good sausage sandwiches, said Quinn. In the 1970s, he said, the building burned. Once a two-story structure, it was rebuilt following the fire as a single story.

"Over the last 15 to 20 years, this building has never been operated in compliance with the law," said Muskingum County Prosecutor Ron Welch, as he watched the demolition. The building had been the site drug distribution, illegal alcohol sales, half a dozen shootings, numerous fights, and of dozens of calls for service from the Zanesville Police Department, he said.

The building fell into a spiral of illegal activity, Welch said. "I think the fact that it has always been used in that manner, and people are familiar with it being used in the manner" means the building continually draws in a segment of the population used to operating outside of the law, he said. 

"Historically, it was passed through various individuals who otherwise would considered lawful owners, but it has always been operated as a front" for things like drug dealing and illegal after-hours bars.

"The continued threat it poses to the neighborhood being operated illegally was something we had to address," Welch said.

The building was demolished by Sidwell Materials free of charge as part of the company's community service program, Welch said.