The lights at Rick’s Place have been dark since Wednesday morning, and it’s unclear when owner Rick Younger will get a key to the new locks installed after a writ of restitution was ordered on his bar.

The writ, which returns a property to its owner, comes a month shy of the end of the bar’s lease on the building at 623 Vt., Younger said. He declined to comment on the nature of the order, issued by Douglas County District Judge Jack Murphy, until matters are cleared.

Younger said he hoped to get permission to open the bar this weekend. Several events, including the NCAA Final Four and the Kansas City Royals’ opening day on Monday, could make this weekend the most profitable of the year. But not if the bar isn’t open.

“No one really knew it was going on,” he said. “Someone had been there and changed the lock.”

The order complicates the bar’s already-tricky move to the strip mall at Ninth and Illinois streets. In November, Younger began petitioning the City Commission for a variance to move into the building that housed Dodson’s Liquor, 846 Ill., which neighbors St. Sophia’s Orthodox Church. City ordinance prohibits bars from operating within 400 feet of a church.

Despite dissent from church members and neighborhood residents, Younger was granted permission to set up business there.

Younger said he would be working to accelerate construction at the new location in order to reopen as soon as possible.