BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- The Birmingham City Council today unanimously voted to close a West End Chinese food restaurant after its owner was charged with attempted murder for shooting at a customer.

The council held the final hearing on the Good Friends Chinese and Seafood Restaurant where Chun Hin Ching is charged with shooting at a 20-year-old woman who complained about a roach inside her eggroll.

Most speakers urged the council to close the business while the attorney for business asked for a reprieve, citing previous violence toward Ching.

In the end, council members said the business presented a nuisance to the community and needed to be closed.

The shooting occurred Feb. 6 when 20-year-old Jatari Walker patronized the business. Both Walker and her father were at the Council meeting.

Chun Hin Ching (Photo courtesy of the Birmingham Police Department)

In preparation for today's final hearing, Councilman Steven Hoyt, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, reminded both the audience - and the council - to remember decorum and refrain for epithets or unreasonable statements.

Attorney Carl Chamblee, who represents the business, said Ching's wife owns the restaurant while the husband shared ownership in the property.

If the business remained open, then the wife would promise Ching would not return to the restaurant.

"He will not come back and she will assure you of that," Chamblee said.

Chamblee made no excuse for the incident but told the council that Ching had previously been robbed, shot and had five operations. He lost a kidney in the process.

"I'm sorry about what happened," Chamblee said. "There are two sides to every story."

Councilwoman Sheila Tyson, whose district includes the restaurant, initially asked the council to close the business, a process that began a series of public hearings.

"Just what it hadn't had gotten lodged in the door and hit someone?" Tyson said. "Everything about it is just wrong; from one to 100."

Tyson at an earlier hearing described the owner as violent and recalled her own heated exchanges with him as a customer.

Council President Johnathan Austin agreed, restating his earlier position, calling Good Friends a nuisance that needed to be closed. He said the next incident of violence there might not go without an injury or death.

"The thing that's concerning to me is someone discharged a firearm without any real threat," he said. "I'm not willing to sit by and take that chance."

Birmingham resident Olivia Thompson said the Good Friends presents an unnecessary negative element to the neighborhood. She shooting was the clearest illustration of a safety threat.

"That could have been my niece, my child my nephew," she said. "It could have been me. Our community needs something better than that."