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TAMPA — Sharon Jones drove to her son's grave Thursday with a message.
"Mama did it," she said through tears. "We closed it down."
Ybor City's notorious Empire Night Club, where 20-year-old Leslie Jones Jr. was shot in the head a month ago, closed last weekend.
For weeks after the shooting, a grieving Sharon Jones protested outside the club, often joined by Ybor City residents and merchants, who said the Empire was out of control.
And attendance plummeted.
"You can't stay open if you're losing business," said attorney John Brewer, who represents his brother, Joel Brewer, the owner of the club.
The club's last night was Saturday, when Guavaween took place. Even then, patronage was "unbelievably insignificant," he said.
Mayor Bob Buckhorn welcomed the Empire's closing as "the right decision for the greater good."
"This will have a positive effect on Ybor that will resonate with businesses, residents and visitors," Buckhorn said in a prepared statement. "It is a new day and night in Ybor."
Minutes before the Empire closed on Oct. 2, Leslie Jones was in the club's VIP room when a bullet struck him, killing him instantly, police said. Ahmaud Black, 19, was shot in the chest and seriously wounded.
No arrests have been made in the shootings, but John Brewer said he has been contacted by an attorney from the law firm of Morgan & Morgan about what he expects will be a wrongful-death lawsuit.
That prospect, however, had nothing to do with the club's closing, which was "totally an economic decision," Brewer said.
After the shooting, the club bolstered security and added an "airport grade" walk-through metal detector, but crowds dropped by as much as 90 percent — from 700 people on a Saturday night to no more than 70, police said.
Brewer said most of the club's patrons now go to three or four other clubs, forcing the decision to lay off about 20 employees and put the property up for sale. Those employees have found jobs at other clubs, he said.
Sharon Jones said she's glad the protests paid off, but she is focused on a larger goal: the arrest of her son's killer.
"I want justice for me and my child," she said. "I want this person off the street."
Police are still investigating the shooting and are following several leads, police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.
Since 1993, the Empire had catered to a succession of musical tastes: goth, industrial, grunge, techno and most recently hip-hop. The most recent complaints about the violence at the club grew out of a "mob mentality," Brewer said.
"I'm down there at all hours and I feel perfectly safe," he said.
But Jones' death was not the first associated with the Empire. Since 2002, the club, at 1902 E Seventh Ave., has had three other murders, three forcible-sex offenses, 10 robberies, 33 aggravated assaults and 102 drug offenses, police said.
In 2002, two bouncers were shot, one fatally, outside the club. In 2005, a man was shot and wounded outside the club. In 2006, another patron was fatally stabbed in a parking lot nearby.
In 2007, a man was shot and killed after being thrown out of the club for fighting with the man who was later accused in the shooting. In 2009, a man was shot multiple times and wounded in a nearby parking lot shortly after closing time.
Even with the Empire closed, police don't plan to reduce the number of officers in Ybor on weekends. At closing time, the agency usually has 50 to 60 officers in the area. Half were positioned near the Empire.
"Now they'll be spread throughout Ybor," McElroy said.
Times news researcher John Martin contributed to this report.
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