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

UKRAINIAN VILLAGE — A man found guilty last year of murdering a bouncer in 2023 outside a Ukrainian Village hookah bar — a crime that sparked widespread neighborhood outrage — has been sentenced to more than 60 years in prison. 

Jimmy Chamberlain was found guilty in September of killing Austin McAllister, a 38-year-old father of six, in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, 2023 while McAllister was working as a bouncer at the Lyon’s Den Hookah Lounge, 2123 W. Division St., according to court records. 

About 1:30 a.m. that morning, a man tried to enter the hookah lounge with a gun and was refused entry, police previously said. There was later an “exchange of gunfire,” and the man — who authorities later identified as Chamberlain — shot McAllister and another person before driving away, police said.

McAllister later died at Stroger Hospital. 

Chamberlain was arrested more than six months later in July 2023 and charged with first degree murder of McAllister as well as attempted murder of the other man who was shot outside the hookah bar. A Cook County jury found him guilty of those crimes on Sept. 19. 

On Friday, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Arthur Wesley Willis sentenced Chamberlain to 63 years in prison: 55 for the murder conviction, and eight for the attempted murder, to be served consecutively.

Chamberlain’s attorney, Joshua Kutnick, said Monday he was “unable to comment.”

The sentencing was first reported by CWB Chicago over the weekend.

McAllister’s killing in January 2023 sparked a years-long push by neighbors to shut down the Lyon’s Den and tackle other public safety issues in the immediate area, like public partying and robberies. The Lyon’s Den did not have a liquor license but encouraged patrons to BYOB.

After McAllister was killed, outraged neighbors and Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd), then the area’s City Council representative, urged police to close the hookah lounge, but the department declined to do so. It reopened a few weeks later.

In response, some neighbors initiated what’s known as a community meetings process with Lyon’s Den ownership through the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection.

Those proceedings concluded in February 2024, more than a year after McAllister was killed. The result was a binding “plan of corrective action,” which allowed the business to stay open but included a limit on how much alcohol patrons could bring inside, security requirements during and after business hours, a ban on “outside promoters” hosting events at the lounge and other stipulations.

The measures were not enough, however, to prevent a second shooting outside the hookah lounge in July 2024, when three men were wounded, police said at the time. They were taken to local hospitals in good condition.

That shooting led police Supt. Larry Snelling to issue a temporary summary closure order for the Lyon’s Den, from which the hookah lounge never reopened. Its business license was formally revoked by the city in March 2025.

Last fall, a martial arts studio took over the storefront.