Paul & Joe’s does not look much different from hundreds of other corner taverns in Chicago.
Tucked beneath the Western Avenue overpass just north of Belmont Avenue, the long, narrow bar has neon beer signs and sports memorabilia hanging on the walls and a jukebox squeezed into the corner near the men’s room.
But a somber memorial on the south wall hints that Paul & Joe’s is different. Beside a collection of uniform badges from police departments across the country are two portraits of Belmont District police officers killed in the line of duty: Richard Clark (April 3, 1986) and John J. Lyons (Oct. 5, 1992).
And, at regular intervals each day–at 7 a.m., 3 p.m. and midnight–a steady stream of men wander into the tavern from the Belmont police station across the street, many of them still wearing their blue uniforms and guns.
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Paul & Joe’s is today’s version of a cop bar, one of two dozen or so taverns across the city that serve as clubhouses and safe havens for the city’s 13,000-plus police officers.
They have operated with little notice or trouble for decades. But last week, the uncomfortable glare of publicity shone on the city’s most famous cop bar, a place called Mike’s in Lincoln Park that has a buzzer on the front door and occasionally stays open well past its legal closing time.
On April 6, a group of white men, including at least two police officers, allegedly came out of Mike’s, beat an African-American man and shouted racial slurs at him.
While the case remains under investigation, it has revealed a slice of police culture that is rich with tales of camaraderie, ribald partying and even shootings, but is typically off-limits to the rest of society.
Every profession–the law, accounting, journalism, truck driving–has its hangouts. But cop bars, from the Irish Temple in Mt. Greenwood to Mike’s in Lincoln Park, have a certain mystique about them that sets them apart.
After all, who would be nervous walking into a bar full of accountants? And who else, besides cops, would want to gather at a place called the Slammer?
Besides carrying guns and being able to make an arrest, police officers project an intimidating aura and a clannishness that separates them from the rest of society.
In general, police officers consider themselves the “good guys,” and they believe that their colleagues are the only ones who really understand them and their jobs. As a consequence, police officers often view the rest of society as hostile, suspicious or simply annoying.
“I just got off work,” said one detective, drinking beer at the bar at Paul & Joe’s sometime after midnight. “If I went someplace else at this time of night–what you call a civilian bar–the people in there have probably been in there since 5 o’clock or 6 o’clock. They’d all be drunk or disorderly.”
James Maurer, deputy chief of patrol, said police officers sometimes want to get as far away from the public as possible after dealing with it all day.
“People come up to you, and they want to talk to you about some problem they have,” Maurer said. “After eight hours of dealing with other people’s problems, you have your own personal life to deal with.”
Mike’s is in many ways a throwback to the days when Chicago police officers were notorious drinkers, and cop bars were places of unabashed carousing.
Situated at 1318 W. Webster Ave., Mike’s is renowned for staying open well past its legal closing time, and one recent Sunday morning was no exception.
Even at 6 a.m., as the sun was peeking over the townhouses and graystones of Lincoln Park, a steady stream of customers approached Mike’s front door and rang the buzzer.
Inside, the bar was standing room only, and cans of beer, served out of a cooler at the end of the bar, were $2.50 each. A buffet in a back room offered sloppy Joes, chips, salsa and French onion dip.
Legendary stories abound about old-time cop bars, including Mike’s, though it is sometimes difficult to discern myth from reality.
One detective recalled that when Old Town was lined with strip clubs, prostitutes were routinely given a choice when they were arrested: Go to jail, or go to a cop bar. Others say that several robbers attempted to stick up Mike’s about 25 years ago and were greeted by a barrage of bullets from off-duty police officers standing at the bar.
One of the most famous of the genre, the Slammer, had a flashing blue light that was borrowed from a wrecked squad car and pictures of policemen lining its walls. One of its most famous patrons was author Joseph Wambaugh, who bellied up to the bar at Slammer’s to research his police novels.
But the Slammer was torn down a decade ago to make room for a parking lot, and its replacement, Paul & Joe’s, is in many ways more representative of today’s cop bar: quieter, less smoky and with fewer cops.
“A lot of our officers just don’t spend time drinking. We have a gym here in the station, and it is full all the time,” said Rogers Park District Cmdr. Thomas Byrne. “We have a lot of working parents who have to head home to take care of the kids when they get off of work.”
In the Slammer’s heyday, the police department was overwhelmingly white and male, and there was always a fresh crop of young, single rookies willing to go out after work. The police department also had a reputation for racism and alcoholism.
Some of those problems still remain. But today’s police department is older and more diverse, with more than a third of the department minority and 19 percent female. In addition, the police department has initiated programs to curb excessive drinking and chip away at the image of the cop as lush.
Still, the police department manages to keep two dozen or so taverns in business, and experts said it is little surprise that police officers stick together after work.
“Staying together is reinforced in the academy and in the police culture,” said Phil Bonaficio, an expert on police psychology at the John Jay School of Criminal Justice in New York. “They don’t really see themselves as belonging to the civilian world.”
For some police officers, going to the bar after work is a chance to continue the “buzz” from the streets, Bonaficio explained.
“There are cops who love the street. They love the job,” he said. “They lose it when they have to go home to their old lady and be ordinary. (But) they can continue the buzz at the gin mill.”
Though many police officers would undoubtedly dismiss such theories, they touched on many of the same themes when questioned at work and at cop bars throughout the city.
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One 30-year police veteran, a sergeant in the Shakespeare District, said cop bars offer a buffer between the stresses of the street and the reality of home life.
“When you go home at night and your kid asks, `What did you do today, Daddy?’ Do you really want to say, `Well, I handled a 2-year-old who was beaten to death?’ ” he said.
“I’m not saying to bury your face in a bottle. That’s a problem in itself,” he said. “But being around others who understand can help.”
How does a bar become a cop bar? Sometimes, it is merely a matter of location–near a district station or in a neighborhood where cops live.
At TR’s on 111th Street, Oak Lawn Police Officer Jim Sheridan, a 20-year veteran, explained that bar’s clientele, mostly police and firefighters, is largely a function of being in Mt. Greenwood, a Southwest Side neighborhood where many of them live.
Sheridan said he sometimes misses the exclusivity of the old-time cop bars such as George’s Tavern in Oak Lawn, which now attracts a younger crowd. These days, he said, he is simply looking for a comfort zone.
“You’re off work. You’re comfortable with the guy you’re sitting next to,” he said. “And if you don’t want to talk about the job, you don’t have to.”
Even Mike’s is not what it used to be. The neighborhood around Mike’s, for a long time working-class, has been taken over by young and upwardly mobile professionals who are buying up half-million-dollar condominiums and shopping at exclusive boutiques.
Said one former Mike’s regular, a detective seated at the bar at Paul & Joe’s, “I don’t know too many policemen who drink in there any more, because there are too many (obscenity) yuppies.”