By ALLI SCHIEBER
Editor-in-Chief
The Nite Lite, located in Alva, has had its ups and downs.
The Nite Lite was an 18+ night club that was meant to be a place for college students to hang out on the weekends.
That is exactly what it was for 30 years, even though it had different owners and two different buildings as the first one burned down in 1999.
It eventually closed its doors in 2018. Now it is coming back.
Connor Martin has bought the property and is working to restore the Nite Lite building to become a nightclub once again in Alva. It is located south of Family Dollar/Dollar Tree at 1263 Lane Blvd.
The original Nite Lite was essentially for the college community, giving students a place to come together and socialize.
Northwestern alumni Montana McCullough was a bouncer at the Nite Lite for four years before it shut down. She said it was overall a fun time unless the football and rodeo guys wanted to get into it that night and cause trouble.
It was also fun to see who was going to come out that night because anyone from freshmen to graduate assistants would show up, she recalled.
“It was just like a place where you could go be with your friends, have fun and let of steam from the week you had during school,” McCullough said.
She said under the ownership at the time she worked there, employes would put wristbands on those 21 or older and stamps on customers 18-20 in order to keep track of who was able to legally drink.
The Nite Lite will remain an 18+ club, have a capacity of 1,000 people, and have live music and a DJ, Martin said. However, some things will change compared to the old Nite Lite.
Martin, 32, owns Nitram, a company that takes existing properties, rehabs them and gives them their life back. So, owning and operating the Nite Lite will be a little different than what he is used to.
“The Nite Lite is not the end- all, be-all for us,” Martin said. “The Nite Lite is just a step toward the overall goal, which is improving Alva as a whole. … I think the entire community will benefit from it not just the university.”.
In remodeling, the Nite Lite, Martin has also been revamping
their social media presence by creating Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Both accounts have in their bios “Local legend. Worldwide known. Make Thursday nites in Alva fun again.” Which are exactly what Martin’s plans for the business are.
“We are going to keep a lot of nostalgia of previous Nite Lite’s, so to speak, but we are also going to put our own spin on it,” Martinsaid. “I think that it’s going to be a big thing and it’s probably going to be one of the coolest things the community’s ever seen.”
The original Nite Lite just sold beer and was cash only. Martin plans on selling bar-style food along with beer and liquor.
Martin said this could mean that on Thursday night they have something like pizza and different food the next night.
However, it will be a simple small menu.
The bar area will also be separate from the dance floor and rest of the building, and you will have to be over 21 to enter that area.
Martin said with 18-year-olds being allowed in the building, it will be closely monitored, and they will not tolerate underage drinking.
Martin also said with incidents that has happened at the original Nite Lite that safety is their No. 1 priority.
“Before you do anything, it has to be a safe place,” Martin said. “Anybody that wants to go out and have fun needs to feel safe before they’re going to show up.”
Martin went on to say that, they will have staff and training methods in place, so that if a fight happens it would be controlled quickly before it gets out of hand.
“I think it’s great that it’s reopening,” said Kaylyn Aldrich a freshman, early education major from Okeene. “It will give people a fun place to go and do something here in Alva.”
Haley Combs a sophomore heath and sports science major from Hinton said she thinks that the Nite Lite holds a lot of potential for a fun evening, and she is looking forward to it.
While many members of the Northwestern and Alva communities are excited for the reopening of Nite Lite, not everyone is.
Residents of Magnolia Drive are not as happy about it because the location of the Nite Lite is at the east end of their street.
Magnolia Drive has been a quiet neighborhood since the closing of the Nite Lite seven years ago.
Cindy Smiley, a resident of Magnolia Drive, said their street might be the quietest in Alva now.
But when the Nite Lite was open, people in the neighborhood did not enjoy how loud it was with the volume keeping them and their children up at night.
Smiley said she moved here during winter break in 2016 and was unaware of the Nite Lite when she bought her house.
“Shortly after my first month in my home, I thought somebody was parked in my driveway with the bass on,” Smiley said.
They also had issues with people leaving trash in their yards along with people hitting their mailboxes and cars when they left the Nite Lite and tried to avoid Oklahoma Boulevard.
Danielle Longhurst, another resident of Magnolia Drive, said her husband had his mirror taken off his car one weekend by a drunk driver. They would have to remember to park in their driveways on the weekends.
“It would be trashy all around that area on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night,” Longhurst said. “We ride bikes and run and walk a lot on that road, and it was just sad to see how little care they had for what was going on there.”
Smiley said she is hoping that the new owner keeps the parking lot and street cleaner.
Though the noise is the biggest complaints from the Nite Lite’s neighbors, it is likely that nothing can be done about that situation.
This is because the club is just outside Alva city limits, which means the city has no control over how loud the Nite Lite is.
That would be up to the county, if anything can be done. However, Woods County does not have any sound ordinances listed on its website.
“We would hope to petition that there should be required to be sound barriers, which I know are expensive, all around that area,” Longhurst said.
Longhurst also ssid it would be nice for the owner to communicate with them, especially since he is going forward with this project and will be disrupting their quiet neighborhood whether they like it or not.
Martin is not letting the complaints from some of the residents stop him. He said he is excited for the opportunities this project will bring to both Alva and the Northwestern community.
He also said his goal is to bring something to Alva that will help the town as a whole.
“It’s just the beginning,” Martin said. “Once this kicks off, we are going to be on to the next project to build off. We are excited; it’s going to be a great thing for Northwestern, the Alva community and Woods County.”
