A fight involving roughly 30 people broke out early Sunday morning outside JoJo's Bar and Grill on Monroe Street in Garfield, growing so large that local police had to call in backup from three neighboring towns before it was over. Four people were arrested, a woman was treated at the scene for injuries, and all four were released before the sun came up.
Garfield police responded to the bar just before 1:30 a.m. Sunday and found two people actively fighting amid the larger crowd, according to Daily Voice. With the brawl spiraling beyond what officers on scene could handle alone, Garfield police requested mutual aid from the Lodi, Wallington and Saddle Brook police departments to help bring the chaos under control.
By the time order was restored, four people had been arrested. Three were charged with simple assault and one was charged with obstruction, the outlet reported. A woman injured during the melee was treated at the scene by EMTs, and all four people taken into custody were released there as well rather than being held.
A Bar With a Troubled Recent History
This is not the first time police have been summoned to JoJo's this year. In May, a 28-year-old man working security at the bar was arrested after allegedly pointing a handgun during a dispute and falsely identifying himself as a police officer, per the same outlet's report. That incident, which stemmed from a reported crash that escalated into a verbal confrontation, involved a far smaller footprint than Sunday's brawl, which drew officers from four separate departments.
JoJo's has also been the site of more serious violence. In February 2024, 31-year-old Hawthorne resident Richard Franceschi was stabbed to death at the Garfield bar, a killing that led the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office to identify five people as involved in the fatal altercation and charge them with various crimes.
Fugitive in Fatal Stabbing Case Caught in Texas
One of those five, Ricky “Angel” Vargas, remained at large for years after the stabbing before being tracked down and arrested at a private residence in Longview, Texas, according to the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office. He was booked into the Gregg County Jail in Longview to await extradition back to Bergen County. The prosecutor's office listed the charges against him as first-degree murder, third-degree possession of a weapon, third-degree endangering an injured victim and fourth-degree possession of a weapon, while noting that the charges remain accusations and that all defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
No information has been released on the identities or charges of the four people arrested in Sunday's brawl, and it remains unclear what sparked the fight that drew officers from across four towns to the Monroe Street bar.
