Man Who Killed Ukrainian Village Hookah Bar Bouncer Sentenced To 63 Years

A man convicted of killing a bouncer outside a Ukrainian Village hookah bar on New Year's Day 2023 has been sentenced to 63 years in prison, closing out a case that set off years of neighborhood pressure to shut the business down for good.

Jimmy Chamberlain was found guilty in September of murdering Austin McAllister, a 38-year-old father of six, who was working security outside the Lyon's Den Hookah Lounge at 2123 W. Division St. when he was shot in the early hours of Jan. 1, 2023, according to court records. Cook County Circuit Court Judge Arthur Wesley Willis handed down the sentence Friday: 55 years for the murder conviction and eight years for attempted murder, to be served consecutively.

According to police, Chamberlain tried to enter the hookah lounge with a gun around 1:30 a.m. that morning and was turned away. Gunfire broke out soon after, and Chamberlain shot McAllister and another man before driving off, police said at the time. McAllister was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he died.

Chamberlain wasn't arrested until July 2023, more than six months after the shooting. He was charged with first-degree murder in McAllister's death and attempted murder for shooting the second victim outside the club. A Cook County jury convicted him on both counts on Sept. 19.

Chamberlain's attorney, Joshua Kutnick, said Monday he was "unable to comment" on the sentence.

McAllister's killing hit Ukrainian Village hard and became a flashpoint for a fight neighbors had already been waging over the Lyon's Den. The bar didn't have a liquor license and instead let patrons bring their own alcohol. After the shooting, then-Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) and angry neighbors pushed police to shut the lounge down immediately. Police declined, and the Lyon's Den reopened within weeks.

That response pushed a group of neighbors to start a formal community meetings process with the bar's ownership through the city's Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, a mechanism residents can use to force changes on a problem business. Those talks dragged on for more than a year before wrapping up in February 2024 with a binding "plan of corrective action." The agreement let the Lyon's Den keep operating but capped how much alcohol customers could carry in, mandated security staffing during and after hours, and barred outside promoters from running events at the venue.

The restrictions didn't stick. In July 2024, three men were shot outside the same hookah lounge and taken to hospitals in good condition, police said. That shooting prompted Chicago police Supt. Larry Snelling to issue a summary closure order against the Lyon's Den. The bar never reopened. The city formally revoked its business license in March 2025.

The sentencing closes out a case that spanned more than three years, from McAllister's killing on Jan. 1, 2023, to Chamberlain's conviction on Sept. 19, to Friday's sentencing. By last fall, the storefront that once housed the Lyon's Den had a new tenant: a taekwondo studio.