As it was, long ago. File photo.


Eight years after the Sidelines sports bar was shut down after a drug bust, owner Salvatore Costanzo is trying to reopen it. 

In 2020, Sidelines and Toby and Jacks, two Arcata Plaza tavern-row bars owned by Costanzo, lost their liquor licenses two years after a months-long Arcata Police Department investigation showed that bar employees and patrons were selling drugs out of the establishments. Nine patrons and three employees were arrested. At the time, both Costanzo and his son, Michael Costanzo, who managed much of the day-to-day operations at the bar, claimed they were unaware of the drug activity taking place. 

But Costanzo’s giving it another go. He owns the building the bar used to operate out of, at 732 9th Street, and if the Alcohol Beverage Control permits him to purchase a license (from the Glendale bar Louie’s), he told the Outpost he’d love to refurbish the building and give it another go. It’s currently occupied by a Miranda’s Rescue Thrift Store; he said he didn’t know what their plans were.

It wasn’t entirely Costanzo’s idea. The city council is focused on growth and revitalization, and having more businesses open on a derelict side of the Plaza sounded incredible to them. City Manager Merritt Perry reached out Costanzo, asking him what he wanted to do with the building, if he’d be interested in selling it to someone interested in establishing a new business there. Costanzo said he wanted to reopen Sidelines. He has the city’s blessing.

Perry admitted it seemed strange that the city was OK with reopening the infamous establishment, but said that Costanzo’s Myrtlewood Lounge in Eureka had been operating without issues for years. 

“It might seem strange that it came to a point of impasse before, where it resulted in the city asking for those liquor licenses away, but I think we’re in a different space now,” Perry said. “And Sal’s in a different place now, where we would like to work together, and he would like to see that come back to this. He’d like to bring that business back to the community, and he’s very passionate about it…I think it’ll be an opportunity to kind of see a long-time, loved business come back in a positive way for the community, and for Mr. Costanzo as well.”

Toby and Jacks, as well as the Alibi, both long-shuttered, have interested parties pursuing their reopening (in some form or another), Perry said. There’s demand for it; at the beginning and end of every summer, graduating or returning students flock to Everett’s and the Basement, moths to an ethanol-fired flame. After Cal Poly Humboldt’s graduation last month, the line to get into either of them stretched up the block deep into the night.

Arcata city councilwoman Alex Stillman told the Outpost she was enthusiastic about the idea of having more businesses open on the Plaza, excitedly ruminating about the possibility of adding a large awning over the sidewalk, adding tightly-packed tables and chairs outside, recreating the feeling of a happenin’ French bistro. She said the city is researching how other cities pull it off.

“I just have this vision, that we can make the Plaza lots of fun — not a disturbance for the hotel — but a lot of fun,” Stillman said, referring to the Hotel Arcata up the street. “Something where someone from the hotel would want to go down and have an evening cocktail like you find in France.”

City hall is aware of the erstwhile Tavern Row’s reputation for intoxicated lawlessness. But it’s a new age, everyone says. 

“It’s put the city in a funny position,” Perry said. “Where we went from being against operating it, to now supporting it. Time has gone by. Things change. People change. And I think there’s an ability to work together.”

“It’s been over eight years already,” Costanzo said. “All the accusations — I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. Eight year’s water under the bridge.”

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