The End of Apo?

The late breaking news first arrived by Yahoo Messenger offline messages this morning. I am feeling very connected.

Apparently Hanoi's infamous Apocalypse Now nightclub is down and out after an evening of violence culminated in homicide. It seems it all began with an argument between two groups over a table. A fight broke out in the club, and those involved were kicked out by security guards. The fight then continue outside in the parking lot at 12:30am Sunday morning where one person was killed and three seriously injured. When I asked my friend what the weapon was, he told me "knife, we don't have gun here". The incident was described to me as gang-related.

It also seems that in the investigation afterwards the police discovered that Apo has been illegally selling untaxed alcohol. Several friends told me this was in order to compete with the New Century club across town. Apocalypse Now has been closed indefinitely because of these charges.

I can't find any English language coverage of the incident, but for those who can read it here's the Google cached text of a brief report in Vietnamese in Thanh Nien online.

Giành chỗ trong quán bar, 1 người chết
Vào hồi 0 giờ 30 ngày 14.1, tại trước cửa quán bar Apocalypse Now - “Thiên Khải” ở 2 Đông Tác, P.Trung Tự, Q.Đống Đa, Hà Nội đã xảy ra vụ đánh nhau lớn giữa 2 nhóm thanh niên. Nhóm bị chém có 4 nam 2 nữ, nhóm gây án mạng có 5 nam. Theo thông tin ban đầu, hai nhóm mâu thuẫn nhau vì tranh giành bàn rượu đã đặt chỗ. Hậu quả anh Nguyễn Huy Linh (28 tuổi, ở E8 Phương Mai, Q.Đống Đa) bị đâm chết; các anh Nguyễn Chí Huy (32 tuổi, ở E8 Phương Mai, Q.Đống Đa), Tạ Duy Thắng (31 tuổi, ở 36 ngõ 13 Giải Phóng) và Bùi Quang Hưng (36 tuổi, ở P.Hạ Đình, Q.Thanh Xuân) đều bị đâm trọng thương. Công an Q.Đống Đa đang phối hợp các đơn vị điều tra truy bắt những kẻ gây án. (N.V.C - K.T.L)

Will Apo rise again? Probably. Apparently a similarly violent episode shut down New Century several years ago and it eventually saw the light of day again. In the meantime I've been told that GC will probably experience a sudden influx of "family".

Well now I know why they have those security guards posted conspicuously around the clubs. This isn't the first bit of bar violence I've heard of in Hanoi clubs, though usually it doesn't usually end in murder. In any case, it's not like we don't have periodic club shootings here in Toronto.