2 shot in Camden biker-bar bust-up

When the Wheels of Soul Motorcycle Club is charging a cover to get into its Camden "doghouse," it's best to pay up or call it a night.

Police said two city men who went to the motorcycle club's fortress-like rowhouse on Princess Avenue early Sunday morning wound up getting shot outside. A source familiar with the incident said the victims, who were not Wheels of Soul members, wouldn't leave after refusing to pay a cover.

Camden Police Chief Scott Thomson said his officers were alerted to the shooting about 3:21 a.m. Sunday through the city's Shot Spotter, a microphone system that detects gunshots.

Thomson said both victims were in front of the clubhouse when they were approached and shot without provocation by a man described as a medium built black who was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and brandishing a black handgun. Thomson did not confirm whether the men had tried to get in the clubhouse, saying the shootings were "still under investigation."

On Sunday afternoon, the clubhouse was crowded, with a few dozen motorcycles and cars parked outside. A man wearing a Wheels of Soul shirt slammed the clubhouse's metal door shut when this reporter arrived.

"They don't know nothing about it," a woman sitting on a motorcycle out front said.

A man was shot and killed outside the clubhouse in 2007. In 2010, the city shut it down over health, safety and fire-code violations. Thomson said he would work to shut the clubhouse down again.

"Whether it is a bar, a barber shop, or a club house, places in which acts of violence occur, get our attention," Thomson said in an email to the Daily News.

Last summer, federal authorities raided the Wheels of Soul "mother club" in Philadelphia.

Anyone with information pertaining to this shooting should contact Camden police at 856-757-7474.