Split Council Votes Down Motorcycle Club

Club members express frustration over lack of transparency

By Jason Togyer
The Tube City Almanac
October 03, 2025
Posted in: McKeesport and Region News

McKeesport City Council has denied a request for a conditional use variance for Noise Makers Motorcycle Club to use this former bar on Ringgold Street as a meeting space. (Tube City Almanac photo)

City council has voted down a request for approval to open a motorcycle club on Ringgold Street in the Downtown business district.

By 4-3 vote, McKeesport council rejected the recommendation of the city’s planning commission to approve an application from Noise Makers Motorcycle Club to turn the former Bubba’s Bar & Grill into a private club.

Council Members Jim Barry Jr., Richard Dellapenna Jr., Brian Evans and Jill Lape voted no. Council Members Keith Soles, LuEthel Nesbit and Amber Webb voted yes.

Club President Ryder Simpson expressed frustration with the city’s permitting and planning process, especially after finding out that the group would not be able to get an occupancy permit for the property because the previous owner owed thousands of dollars in delinquent property taxes.

Allegheny County Court records show liens totalling at least $20,381 for city, school district and county property taxes dating to 2012.

The club has already invested time and its own funds to correct code violations at the property, Simpson said. It has not yet purchased the bar from its previous owners.

“We’ve spent all this money and no one has ever said until today you can’t get an occupancy permit if back taxes are owed,” he said. “Never once did anyone say that.”

Simpson said he’d also gotten conflicting information from different city officials about the parking requirements at the building. The planning commission recommended that Noise Makers to provide 12 off-street parking spaces and referred the club to a private property owner to negotiate a lease for those spaces.

But city officials said the private property owner doesn’t own the lot — instead, the spaces would need to be leased from the city.

“This process has been really crazy,” Simpson said. “It’s not been transparent at all. You keep telling us to do this and that. I feel like you don’t want us here. It’s crazy. This process has been so backwards and so confusing.”

McKeesport Solicitor J. Jason Elash said the motorcycle club was told at its first meeting with the city that it would need to pay any back taxes owed on the property before it could be sold, and that the club had agreed to settle the taxes before closing on the purchase.

Further, Elash said, the club changed the description of its plans for the property after meeting with the city.

“When your representatives first came, they described what they called a ‘sobriety club,’” he said. “There would be no alcohol.” Although Noise Makers is not pursuing a liquor license, the club has said members would be allowed to consume their own beverages on the property.

Mayor Michael Cherepko said the city has not had good luck with motorcycle clubs in the past, and that he did not want to see the conditional use application go through.

“Over the past several years, the police and I have spent countless hours chasing away parties,” he said. “We went through it on Route 48 at the old Lemon Tree, we’ve had to do it in the (marina) area. To me, I don’t see any good coming out of it.”

Cherepko added that he was not expressing a negative opinion of the Noise Makers club, but that he couldn’t see that a motorcycle club would help efforts to attract new businesses Downtown.

“I love for McKeesport to be a destination point,” he said. “Nothing is better than when McKeesport is a destination point. Anything that brings people into our town is great. But when you’re bringing people in to have a big party, nothing good is going to happen.

“We get blamed for everything by the public anyway,” Cherepko said. “If we let this club come in there, and something bad happens, they will be right.”

Originally published October 03, 2025.

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