The Brandywine Bar and Grille was a 47-year-old fixture with a dubious reputation.

		Related story Monk is quietly developing temple

But soon the former Braddock hangout will be part of a sangha, a monastic community for Buddhists.

That's because God intervened, says Valerie Perkins, 49, who lives in the borough. Two years ago, when she was a drug-addicted streetwalker, Perkins said she often went to the Brandywine.

Today, she credits her faith in Jesus Christ for cleaning up her life and for closing the Brandywine.

Others say God didn't do it. They contend the former owner's age, condition and need for money, along with pressure from borough officials, shut the bar down earlier this year.

Either way, residents, some local business owners and the head of a drug and alcohol treatment center say good riddance.

"The Brandywine should've been closed down a long time ago," said Renee Johnson-Hoots, 50, a lifelong Braddock resident.

"It was a nuisance bar; it was a drug bar. Everybody knew it. Anything that was illegal went on up there."

A checkered past

Although the owner denies operating anything but a proper establishment, the long-standing drinking spot has joined a handful of questionable Braddock bars that have closed in the last decade:

Gene and Eileen's on Braddock Avenue, the site of a fatal shooting in 1996, closed three years later when its roof fell into the street.

The High Hat Civic Club, later known as the Salt & Pepper Lounge, at Second and Braddock avenues, was shut down four years ago when police found illegal drugs and loaded guns on the premises.

Sonny J's on Talbot Avenue, also closed in 2000 because of building, health, liquor control violations, not to mention a raft of residents' complaints.

The state Liquor Control Board was not responsible for any of the closings. Still, the LCB regulates venues that sell alcohol.

Part of its oversight includes the Nuisance Bar Program, which has at its core cooperation among federal, state, county and local authorities. However, none of them deemed the Brandywine troublesome enough to close.

Twice in the 1990s, the LCB cited owners Edward and Irwin Gurne for improprieties that included operating without a health permit and selling liquor on credit. They paid $400 in fines.

Then, in 1997 and 2001, when the brothers' liquor license was up for renewal, the LCB warned them that it was in danger, said LCB spokeswoman Molly McGowan.

A range of police complaints included loitering, drug abuse and fighting. Each time, however, the license was renewed.

Local complaints alone cannot tag a tavern as a "nuisance bar," McGowan explained. State police must file three or more citations within a two-year license cycle. The designation comes swiftly if a citation involves one serious violation, such as selling alcohol to minors or inebriated patrons, drug sales, prostitution, keeping a disorderly or noisy operation, lewd entertainment or after-hours sales.

From 2001 until Jan. 15, 2004, its official close date, the bar's slate was clean, said McGowan.

Starting the business

Edward Gurne, 71, of North Versailles, said he and Irwin opened the bar right after he returned from the Korean War.

"I couldn't find a job, so I thought I'd go into business for myself," he said.

During its early years, the bar's patrons were white mill workers who slung pig iron at local steel plants and stopped by after work. Racial divisions were clear, socially and in the Gurnes' understanding.

In those days, "[blacks] had their own bars on Sixth Street," Gurne recalled.

In the last 15 years, black customers began coming to the Brandywine, something neither Edward Gurne nor his brother anticipated.

"I never had a gambling machine," he said. "I never had a jukebox, and blacks love music."

Irwin Gurne exited the business.

"When blacks started coming in, he said he wanted to get out before he got killed," his brother recalled.

But fights in the bar were usually petty skirmishes, although Gurne said he once had to wrest away a gun. Any talk connecting the Brandywine with drug sales, prostitution or thievery is false, he said.

"They thought that all the dope was coming out of my place because of all the people standing outside," Gurne said of authorities. "They said the people standing outside of my place were robbing [people]. Everybody loafs outside. I couldn't do nothing about that. They stood outside because I sold the cheapest beer in Pittsburgh."

A can went for 50 cents; a bottle $1.25, he said.

Problems mount

Borough police Chief Frank DeBartolo refused to speak of alleged troubles that locals say hovered around the Brandywine.

"I'm not going to make any comments on the Brandywine Bar at this time," he said recently.

Despite repeated requests, Mayor Pauline Abdullah and borough Manager Ella Jones failed to provide data on how much police monitored the bar. Officers went to the Brandywine "on several occasions over the years," Jones said. "But to my knowledge they made no arrests in the bar."

However, in 2002 the borough tried to close the bar, she added. Municipal officials met with LCB representatives, along with state and local law enforcement. The initiative never got going. Jones blamed a dearth of written residents' complaints.

"The community didn't complain, not as a whole," she said. "You'd see them on the street and they'd say, 'When are you going to do something about the Brandywine?' "

What's more, she contended that the police needed proof of misdeeds inside the business to make arrests.

But McGowan said ongoing criminal activity outside the bar could bring in the LCB if consistent records were kept.

Three major incidents occurred outside the Brandywine in recent years: A prostitute who had been in the vicinity of the bar one day in August 2001 was found dead fewer than 24 hours later in Pittsburgh; a gunfight broke out in front of the bar in June 2003; and later that year in October, the owner of a local variety store said robbers came out of the bar and shot him in both legs.

Nearing the end

Perkins says God began to turn things around.

Several months before Gurne closed, Perkins was cooking for an after-school program at the Braddock library. She had left a rehabilitation program about a year before and was starting her new life.

One day in April 2003, two school-age girls came in telling workers that their mother had nearly been killed in a nearby shooting.

The tale of drug-related violence recalled Perkins' past to her mind.

For much of her adult life, the Braddock native had been a crack cocaine addict. A few years ago, she'd sunk so low -- no income, no home -- she prostituted herself to survive. She ended up at the Peniel Ministries in Johnstown, where she received treatment and counseling and finally got clean.

"When I was in my addiction, I had actually gone [to the Brandywine] and bought drugs," she said. "So I knew what was going on."

When the girls' mother was shot, Perkins became angry. She believed her town was not trying to change.

Perkins said she believed that God told her to pray for the area. For several weeks in the spring and summer of 2003, she met with local church members, survivors of violence, community activists and workers from the halfway house where Perkins lived. They walked near the bar and prayed. When the others stopped coming, she kept praying.

By late fall, the Brandywine had shut down. Gurne said he had had surgery on his foot and could not work. The LCB notified him that while the bar remained closed, his license must be held in "safekeeping" at the liquor board.

By then, Gurne said, he planned to sell the building and the license to another owner who would reopen the Brandywine as an "entertainment" spot.

Perkins said she kept praying.

A new direction

She also wrote to the director of licensing at the LCB. She circulated a petition. Judy Monahan, executive director at Turtle Creek Mental Health/Mental Retardation, signed it. The MH/MR halfway house, where Perkins lived, was too close to the Brandywine for comfort.

"I had an interest in closing the bar because of the safety of the people who work in the facility and the people that come in for service," Monahan said.

The LCB responded that their hands were tied. Unless the new owner had a shaky reputation, the sale of the building may include the license, David Martin, LCB director of licensing wrote to Perkins on March 4.

But the potential buyer bowed out when he was denied an occupancy permit, Gurne said.

He then sold the building to Thich Kien Nhu, a Buddhist monk, for $9,500. Nhu plans to make it a residence for Buddhist nuns who will come from Vietnam.

A soft-spoken man clad in ankle-length brown robes, sandals and wearing wire-rimmed glasses, Nhu, 70, speaks with a thick Vietnamese accent.

He said he purchased the red brick building without realizing it needed tens of thousands of dollars in repairs. It needed a new roof. The second-floor ceiling had caved in. The wall were crumbling. The dingy barroom on the first floor reeked of beer, mold and human sweat.

Nhu said when he asked for his money back, Gurne returned only $1,000.

"Man who live there [next door] tell me I stupid to buy," the monk said with a wry smile. "Say he cheat me. ... But I come here for the people, to serve them."

Perkins said since the building won't be used for alcohol sales again, God answered her prayers.

Jones agreed that "God works in mysterious ways." But, she said Perkins' efforts and prayers had little to do with the outcome.

"We all worked very hard," Jones said of borough officials. "The reason [the Brandywine is] closed now is that Mr. Gurne was ill and wanted to close the bar."