Although Sidney Torres IV was hoping to flex some more by buying gay club monolith Oz, which went up for auction today, it looks like the proud owner of the club is now touristy French Quarter T-shirt shop magnate Kishore "Mike" Motwani. NOLA.com reports that he bought the club for $8.175 million, and no one is happy about it.
Described as "the worst person in New Orleans" by a NOLA.com commenter (so maybe not a reliable judge of character), Motwani is "not a good person," says a structural engineer in this 2008 article about him. Why the hate? According to the story:
They have objected to the spread of his T-shirt shop empire throughout the French Quarter, his repeated flouting of government regulations, his failure to maintain some of his buildings and his gobbling up of Canal Street properties to open cut-rate stores that impede efforts to upgrade Canal as a shopping destination. Most recently, he tried and tried again to demolish a row of historic buildings at the corner of Tchoupitoulas and Canal Streets to erect a 20-story hotel there.
While Motwani says he plans to continue to operate Oz as Oz, many are worried that he's going to transform the club into the biggest shitty T-shirt purveyor in the Quarter. But, others are saying that Oz has gone downhill over the years anyway, so it doesn't even matter. Either way, people are probably not going to be happy about it.
· Oz dance club bought for $8.175 million by Mike Motwani [NOLA.com]
· T-shirt kingpin under fire on ATMs [NOLA.com]
· Don't let history be bulldozed at Canal and Tchoupitoulas: Editorial [NOLA.com]
· All Oz coverage [Curbed NOLA]
· All Kishore "Mike" Motwani coverage [Curbed NOLA]
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