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Anna's Jazz Island, a long-standing popular venue for jazz in Berkeley, has closed its doors, effective immediately.

The sudden closure was unexpected, and stunned local jazz musicians and fans alike.

The club has been dark since a New Year's Eve performance featuring a trio of Bay Area jazz singers: Ed Reed, Robin Gregory, and the club's owner, Anna de Leon, who attributed the sudden closure to rowdy neighbors and an offer she "couldn't refuse" to terminate her downtown Berkeley lease early.

"This change has all been very sudden, just a few weeks in the making," wrote club owner de Leon in an e-mail sent out Monday, January 11. "After happily being on University Avenue for more than five years, we moved to Allston Way, a venue twice as large with a stage big enough for a grand piano."

In 2008, the club was awarded the East Bay's "Best Jazz Club That Isn't Yoshi's."

The club's location, known as the Gaia Arts Center, is owned by Equity Residential (which is led by real estate magnate and Tribune Co. proprietor Samuel Zell). Equity leased the Gaia Arts Center premises to Berkeley developer Patrick Kennedy, who originally built the building and sold it to Equity in 2007.

The usage permit for the two bottom floors of the building identified the space for cultural uses, and site developers had reportedly promised to re-open a theater next door to the jazz club.

The city never enforced the usage permit, and the developer rented out the once-empty theater next door to private parties, which resulted in armed guards, hundreds of young adults in the streets, and what de Leon called "rowdy and disruptive events... where the block was entirely blocked off by police cars and... where jazz lovers could not get in or out of the club."

Berkeley police shut down the Arts Center in late January 2009 due to unruly crowds outside the venue who blocked streets. In October 2008, according to the Berkeley Daily Planet, a similar incident forced Berkeley police to declare the Gaia Arts Center, located on the lower floors of the Gaia Building at 2120 Allston Way, a public nuisance after its owners failed to control the behavior of the guests, some of whom tried to crash the party by climbing through the windows of Anna's, a first floor tenant in the building.

De Leon said she has repeatedly complained to the city that the arts center was unlawfully renting space out to churches, weddings and private parties. At least three Berkeley residents have sued the city in the past for failing to impose the "cultural" mandates outlined in the Gaia Art Center's use permit, the Daily Planet reported.

At a Zoning Adjustments Board meeting in 2008 regarding permit violations at the arts center, city zoning commissioners voted to grant Equity Residential six more months to promote culture use in the space.

In an e-mail in which she apologized for not writing earlier, de Leon said that "the agreement with my new landlord to buy out my lease was only completed a few days ago and I needed a few days to organize my thoughts."

The new owner wanted to terminate Anna's lease and "made an offer we couldn’t refuse," she wrote. "We are now looking for a new space and a new partner, somebody who loves jazz, to participate in opening a new venue. We have palm trees, ten years of goodwill in the jazz community, a huge e-mail list, and a loyal audience looking for a new musical home. We know the musicians are ready to play! We shall see what life brings..."