Jul 10
2025
Behind the closing of Club Marcella
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The entrance to the former Club Marcella. Photo by Grant Ashley.
When Buffalo police shut down Club Marcella in December 2023, club owners Joe Guagliardo and Michael Slyder seemed to have a lot of questions to answer.
One person died and three others were injured in two shootings inside the club that year, and another three were injured in shootings just outside the club. In the 18 months the club was open at its new location on Michigan Avenue, Buffalo police responded to 32 assaults, 10 fights and four other reports of shots fired. The State Liquor Authority charged the club with negligence and disorder.
In the year after the closure, four patrons sued the club for wrongful death, inadequate security and violent bouncers.
The club’s owners lost their liquor license, paid a $1,000 fine and never reopened their business. Guagliardo and Slyder remain eligible to apply for a new liquor license.
In an interview, Slyder blamed the violence at Club Marcella on a lack of police patrols in the area and accused the police department of having an “ulterior motive to shut us down.”
Slyder filed a 16-page complaint with the Buffalo Common Council on July 3, alleging police failed to deter violence at the club, mishandled investigations into four crimes that occurred outside the club, and had a “collusive relationship” with the owners of the Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino involving a “financial conflict of interest.”
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The report alludes to the two shootings that occurred inside the club, but does not discuss them in detail. Slyder’s report asks city officials to investigate police leadership and the department’s Casino Unit.
The Council Tuesday received and filed Slyder’s report rather than referring it for public discussion at next week’s meeting of the Police Oversight Committee.
Niagara District Council Member David Rivera, that committee’s chair, explained that the city was wary of being drawn into the ongoing lawsuits. He said Slyder and Guagliardo would instead request an investigation into their claims by the police department’s Internal Affairs Division.
New location quickly draws scrutiny
Guagliardo, a hairdresser and drag queen originally from Sicily, opened Club Marcella in Buffalo’s Theatre District in 1995, with the aim of attracting a mostly queer clientele. A club with the same name that Guagliardo launched in Rochester the year before closed its doors in 1999, but his second cabaret became a staple of Buffalo nightlife.
After 27 years on Pearl Street, Guagliardo was ready for a move, according to a 2022 Buffalo News profile. Parking was sparse on nights that Shea’s hosted events, and tenants began to complain about the noise after part of the club’s building was turned into apartments.
Guagliardo eventually settled on a 9,720-square-foot complex in the Cobblestone District and outfitted the building with two bars, two dance floors and two stages.
He also settled on a new business model: try to attract more straight patrons to a club known in large part for its drag shows. Guagliardo told The News that his clientele was “80% straight now and 20% gay.”
“Everyone is welcome at Club Marcella — as long as you respect one another,” Guagliardo said in a promotional video posted to Instagram in August 2022.
The new location had only been open for a few months when the SLA launched an investigation into the club following a bizarre incident that left at least two patrons injured.
A group of security officers surrounded a carful of patrons and accused them of hitting a parked vehicle while leaving the club. An armed, uniformed security guard then broke the patrons’ car window, pulled the driver out, handcuffed him, and brought him to Buffalo police officers arriving on the scene. Police arrested the security guard after determining that he didn’t work for the club and charged him with impersonating a law enforcement officer.
The SLA expedited that investigation on Feb. 12, 2023, the morning after 21-year-old Jorge Luis Garcia-Leon Jr. was fatally shot inside the club.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomJames Curry, the SLA investigator assigned to the case, wrote in his report that security camera footage showed the shooter leaving the club, passing an object believed to be a firearm over the patio fence to his 17-year-old accomplice, then reentering the club. Slyder told WKBW that the 17-year-old got into the club with a fake ID.
The shooter, 20-year-old Sharief McBroom, pled guilty to murder and gun charges and was sentenced to 22 years to life in prison last October. His accomplice was sentenced to five years’ probation.
Curry also investigated allegations of refilling top-shelf bottles with cheap liquor, open marijuana use, selling alcohol to minors and racial discrimination after receiving two tips over the phone. He found no evidence to back up those charges.
Curry closed his investigation in September 2023. The SLA declined to act on his findings because, according to an SLA attorney, “the shooting itself was spontaneous in nature and a pattern hadn’t developed at that point yet.”
Two months later the SLA opened a new investigation into the club after receiving a complaint from the Seneca Gaming Corp., which owns the casino across the street. Casino management wrote in a letter to the SLA that they were concerned about the “multiple violent incidents occurring at or originating from Club Marcella” had “spilled over” onto their property and “unfairly burdened” casino security. The casino included a list of 20 such incidents, including a drive-by shooting.
Slyder called the casino’s complaint “all crap” and said that casino officials rebuffed the club’s efforts to work with them.
“We tried to work with them from day one. I had them come over and do a site tour of our system,” he said.
Before Curry could proceed with his new investigation, there was another shooting. Buffalo police shut down the club. The SLA, at a special board meeting, voted to indefinitely suspend its liquor license and bring civil charges.
The SLA accused the club’s owners of creating a “pattern” 0f disorder, insufficient supervision and “becoming a focal point for police attention.”
State law would have allowed the SLA to terminate the club’s license, bar the club’s owners from holding a liquor license for two years and impose a fine.
Instead, Guagliardo — who originally pleaded “not guilty” to all charges — changed his plea to “no contest.” Under the conditions of the settlement, Club Marcella’s owners didn’t admit guilt, but agreed to have their liquor license cancelled and pay a $1,000 fine.
An SLA spokesperson said in an email that the cancellation would become part of the club owners’ file history and “may be considered in connection with future applications.”
Marcella tries, but fails, to reopen
In a meeting with Curry just days after the club was shut down, Slyder and Guagliardo argued that they had done everything in their power to reinforce their security system and that they were “being unfairly vilified by members of the public.”
But in order to reopen, the club’s co-owners would have to convince increasingly skeptical government officials.
Police and officials from the city’s Department of Permits and Inspections told Curry they had “concerns about the quality of the licensed premises’ security” even before the latest shooting. An SLA attorney told the SLA board that it was “clear that there was a breakdown of security protocol” at the club.
Fillmore Common Council Member Mitch Nowakowski, whose district included Club Marcella, said in an interview that Guagliardo and Slyder were “completely accessible” at first, but he came to the conclusion that the club owners’ efforts were “just talk” when nothing changed.
“No matter how good their security systems became, or how many people they employed, or [if they] built a fence, it did not deter or handle the violence that was inside the club,” Nowakowski said.
The gate to the former Club Marcella. Photo by Grant Ashley.
Guagliardo and Slyder met with city officials twice to discuss reopening, according to city documents. By March, they’d convinced City Hall to lift the closure order — with some strict conditions. The club would be required to implement multiple new security measures and to close by 2 a.m., with last call at 1 a.m.
But the club’s state liquor license was still suspended, rendering them unable to serve alcohol. Club Marcella remained closed.
Guagliardo and Slyder wanted Buffalo police to provide extra patrols during the club’s closing hours, according to the SLA investigator’s notes. Slyder said that the lack of police patrols was the cause of the violence.
“There was no police presence anywhere near there,” Slyder said. “That was the problem.”
A police spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Nowakowski said he was “livid” that the club’s owners were blaming police, especially since two of the shootings happened inside the club and officers were already patrolling the area.
“That’s wrong,” Nowakowski said. “They should have self-reflection: Why do people that engage in that type of violence feel comfortable doing it inside your establishment?”
Uncertainty for Club Marcella in court
The most serious lawsuit facing Club Marcella was brought by the family of Garcia-Leon, who died in the club’s February 2023 shooting. He left behind a 3-year-old daughter, according to his obituary. Garcia-Leon’s sister and father were also injured in the shooting and have both suffered “significant emotional injuries,” according to court documents.
The lawsuit accuses the club’s owners of wrongful death, deficient security, negligence and selling alcohol to the 20-year-old shooter. The family is asking for $6.5 million in damages.
A judge ruled against Guagliardo and Slyder by default in March after the former club owners failed to appear in court.
Peter Kooshoian, the lawyer representing the Garcia-Leon family, did not respond to requests for comment. But Marc Shatkin, who is representing the man shot by three other patrons inside the club in December 2023, said the Garcia-Leon family may be left with a “meaningless” judgment. According to Shatkin, Club Marcella Ltd., Slyder and Guagliardo’s company, has no assets and its insurance doesn’t cover such incidents.
“That’s why people start corporations,” Shatkin said. “I think there should be some compensation for these people, but I don’t know if it’s ever going to happen.”
Attorney Ian Kaufman, who represents a patron who was allegedly “beaten and severely injured” by a Club Marcella security guard in 2022, noted the the club’s “useless insurance coverage” in a letter to the court. Kaufman is suing Guagliardo as an individual to get around corporate protections. His client is seeking $2 million in damages.
Club Marcella is facing a fourth lawsuit from a woman who says she suffered “serious personal injuries” after she was “brutally” attacked by a bouncer who was “unfit” for the job.
Slyder said that punishing the club for security lapses — or even writing about them — would disincentivize other establishments from implementing robust security measures.
“We’re the only ones who caught any of these weapons,” Slyder said.
“If we got six out of 10 weapons coming into the bar, that was six more than the [other] bars … would catch because they didn’t do any searches. This is the point. It’s not fair.”
What’s next for the Cobblestone District?
After moving Club Marcella from the Theatre District to Michigan Avenue in June 2022, Guagliardo told The Buffalo News that his club would help transform the Cobblestone District.
“This is the new entertainment district for Buffalo,” Guagliardo told the paper, “no question about it.”
The Seneca Gaming Corporation, which owns the Seneca Casino, reached a $1.3 million deal with the club’s former landlord to purchase the building, according to county real estate records. The casino took possession of the building last December.
Seneca Gaming Corporation President Kevin Nephew told Investigative Post in a statement that the company hasn’t decided what to do with the building.
Nowakowski said he was “happy someone purchased the building” and that he hoped the building would be put to “a productive use.”
Regardless of what the casino does with the building, a sharp drop in crime on the 100 block of Michigan Avenue followed the club’s closure, according to Open Data Buffalo.
In the 18 months Club Marcella was open at its new location, Buffalo Police recorded 31 crimes on the 100 block of Michigan Avenue, including 25 that took place between 10 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. Since the club was shuttered in December 2023, police reported responding to a single robbery.
“[The calls] weren’t for Helium, they weren’t for the casino, they weren’t for the Keybank Center,” Nowakowski said. “Once Marcella’s ceased operation, the calls begin to not exist.”
Forced retirement
Club Marcella wasn’t Guagliardo and Slyder’s only foray into the nightclub business.
The couple opened Sphere Entertainment Complex in the Theatre District in 2002. The club also drew scrutiny for a series of stabbings and shootings that collectively injured nine people over a 14-month period.
Guagliardo and Slyder defended their management of the club against “baseless charges and accusations” in a 2005 letter to The Buffalo News. Later that year, the pair sold the business to Artie Kwitchoff and Donny Kutzbach, who transformed it into the Town Ballroom.
Guagliardo and Slyder also opened two clubs in Miami in 2009 and 2015. The first closed in 2015 after their landlord decided to demolish and redevelop the building, and the pair opted to close the second in 2018 after a lengthy legal battle over noise complaints.
Now, for the first time in 30 years, Guagliardo and Slyder aren’t running a club.
In his complaint to the Common Council, Slyder says that his investigation spanned 16 months and ultimately produced a 700-page report. He concluded that the police department’s decision to close the club was “both unwarranted and unlawful” and that the Seneca Nation had posed “a clear and present danger to our business.”
Guagliardo started hosting occasional parties at Chippewa Street venues last summer, according to his Instagram account. He also returned to performing in drag under the name Marcella at a drag brunch in January, the first of several performances this year.
Guagliardo has made only one public statement about the closure of Club Marcella, when he posted a photo of two workers tearing down the club’s decor to his personal Instagram account last October.
“Closing this chapter of my life,” Guagliardo wrote in the post’s caption. “God, give me the strength and the glory. Give everyone who was involved in my closing exactly what they deserve. Amen.”
