PINE BLUFF — A Pine Bluff alderman wants the city to get out of the business of regulating private clubs and has proposed allowing them to stay open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
That would essentially allow nine private clubs with class B licenses to serve alcohol until 5 a.m., two hours later than they can under the current law, and it would allow those clubs to remain open after last call.
State law says that private clubs with class A licenses - there are 13 of those in Pine Bluff - can serve alcohol from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. Clubs with class B licenses can serve alcohol from 10 a.m. until 5 a.m.Currently, a city law that trumps the state law says Pine Bluff clubs with class B licenses can serve alcohol until 3 a.m. and must be closed from 3:30 a.m. until 10 a.m.
Alderman Thelma Walker’s proposal, which is on tonight’s Pine Bluff City Council agenda, essentially gets the city out of regulating clubs altogether, City Attorney Carol Billings said, but Walker said the clubs won’t be open when they aren’t permitted to serve alcohol.
This is Walker’s second proposal regarding private clubs. Her first proposal - which would allow Class B clubs to serve alcohol until 5 a.m. - is up for a City Council vote tonight, although it’s unclear if there will be a vote on that ordinance because of Walker’s new proposal.
“I don’t think any club, if they can’t serve alcohol, there would be no need to stay open 24/7,” Walker said.
Billings described the proposal as “ill-advised,” noting that the clubs basically want to remain open later so that they can serve alcohol when they are not supposed to.
“They’re trying to get around these private club laws now,” Billings said. “There are a lot of people out walking early in the morning and if these clubs are allowed to stay open all night long it allows people to be in an intoxicated state and on the streets when pedestrians are out.”
Walker said her reasoning for getting the city out of regulating private clubs is because the club owners are complaining they have to be out of their clubs 30 minutes after serving alcohol and don’t have time to clean up and prepare for the next day.
Billings said that’s not technically true. The current city ordinance regarding private clubs, passed in May 2004, requires the patrons to leave the clubs at a certain hour but says nothing about owners having to leave, too, Billings said.
Walker said she would be willing to work on a compromise after learning that officials with the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Board said allowing a club to stay open hours after they stopped serving alcohol would make it tougher on investigators.
Michael Langley, director of the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Administration Division, said the state quit issuing Class B private club permits almost a decade ago and he wishes there were no Class B private clubs in the state.
“Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.,” Langley said. “Or as my mother used to say, nothing good happens after midnight.”
Jerry Pritchard, owner of Class B Bad Bob’s Country Nightclub in Pine Bluff, said if he were the director of the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Administration Division he would agree with Langley’s stance on class B clubs.
“People throw their money away the later it gets and the drunker they get,” Pritchard said. “A club is not a casino. There’s no hotel attached to it where people can just walk or crawl to the bed. They have to get on the roads and drive home.”
Pritchard said he will be getting out of the nightclub business soon, but if he were to stay in it and closing time was 5 a.m. he would have to stay open until 5 a.m. to remain competitive.
Buffie Butler, owner of Class B Captain’s Quarters and Class A Buffie’s Bar and Grill in Pine Bluff, said she thinks it’s a bad idea to extend the hours for class B clubs in Pine Bluff.
“If they allow the clubs to stay open until 5 a.m., there’s going to be a lot of dead people,” she said. “Past 3 a.m., people are way too drunk to be out and about and I think they’ll be running into people on the roads.”
Langley said there are still a couple of private clubs in Little Rock that serve until 5 a.m., and there is a proposal in Paragould to force all class B clubs to stop selling alcohol at 2 a.m. rather than 5 a.m.
While state law allows class B clubs to serve until 5 a.m., a City Council can pass an ordinance that essentially trumps the state law, Langley said.
Lt. Bob Rawlinson, a spokesman for the Pine Bluff Police Department, said the Police Department has no official stance on Walker’s proposal.
“We’re just going to enforce the law,” Rawlinson said.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 06/21/2010