Crime prompts discussion on regulating Lawrence bars

Some owners worry that bars without criminal incidents could be affected

By Jessica Wicks

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The recent crime at the bar Last Call sparked discussion at Tuesday’s Lawrence city commission meeting to draft ordinances and policy changes to allow regulation of bars with consistent criminal activity.

Last Call owner David Steffes gave up his fight against the city to stay open last week, but that isn’t preventing the city from trying to control similar bars in the future.

The commission discussed rezoning land use and putting another layer of licensing on all entertainment establishments.

The staff attorney for the city, Scott Miller, suggested licensing that would hold entertainment venues responsible not only for their own activities, but for the actions of their patrons. Crimes considered would include physical violence, gambling, illegal possession of weapons or the intent to commit a crime.

The owner of the Replay Lounge and Jackpot Music Hall, Nick Carroll, asked how the city would define problem businesses. He said with the addition of several new lofts in the downtown business district, he was concerned that residents in the area would call in noise complaints that could red flag otherwise compliant businesses. He said there needed to be a provision that respected the purpose of the area.

“A lot of jobs are at stake here,” Carroll said. “They need to maybe tweak the system instead of a total overhaul.”

Mayor Sue Hack said she agreed and called for a balanced plan that would not damage the relationship between businesses and the city.

The creation of permits, licences and zoning led commissioners to ask about the laborious paperwork that would have to be completed and the punishing of businesses that were in good standing.

“As a business owner myself, I am concerned that the city might go past its tenure if it were written broadly enough,” commissioner Rob Chestnut said.

Currently, the city cannot revoke liquor licenses because that authority belongs to the state. The city had tried to work with Kansas Alcoholic Beverage Control to regulate illegal activity inside Last Call. That was not found to be sufficient because the Kansas ABC could not control what patrons did outside the bar.

Miller said that the problem was not necessarily activity inside the bar, but what happened outside of it.

He said that the owner of the bar could simply throw the problem patron out of the bar and that the person then became the city’s problem. He said the source of the disturbance in this case was not the patron, but the bar itself, which fostered that sort of activity.

Ted Boyle, who represented the North Lawrence Improvement Association, said that an unnamed bar in north Lawrence attracted crime to the area.

“We have no problems with noise [of the bar],” Boyle said. “It is after the patrons disperse that we have problems.”

Boyle mentioned crimes by bar patrons, such as shootings, stabbings, urination and vandalism, have been reported by residents. Threats by the staff to residents in the area of the bar have also been a concern.

Commissioner Mike Amyx said that added bureaucracy was not something that he wanted to endorse.

“We need to make sure the ordinance is fair and firm so that a situation like this one doesn’t happen again,” Amyx said, referring Last Call incidents.

No legislation has been drafted yet, but officials plan to write ordinances based on Tuesday’s discussion.

— Edited by Matt Hirschfeld

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