Little Rock's review of nightlife after the July mass shooting at Power Ultra Lounge has refocused the city's attention on another club that has divided local officials and state alcohol regulators.
Shooters Sports Bar & Grill, on Interstate 30 in southwest Little Rock, has long irritated neighbors, elected officials and investigators, who urged the state Alcoholic Beverage Control agency to withhold the club's license and limit its operation.
But the state agency instead allowed the business to expand its entertainment in previously prohibited ways, without alerting the residents and officials who had successfully fought for the restrictions, according to interviews and records obtained under the state Freedom of Information Act.
"I probably made a mistake," former beverage control director Michael Langley, who lifted the restrictions, said in an interview. "My estimation would be that's a mistake on my part, and the city could certainly come in and challenge [it now]."
The July 1 shooting at Power Ultra Lounge left 28 people injured, and has generated state and local attention on alcohol regulations. Police had previously responded to more than three dozen problems reported at the downtown Little Rock nightclub -- which city officials later said was operating outside of zoning regulations -- but the club remained open.
The back-and-forth with Shooters Sports Bar & Grill -- spanning eight years and outlasting two beverage control directors -- illustrates how challenging it can be for local officials to influence how bars and nightclubs operate.
Fed up with how the state responded to Police Department allegations about Shooters, police stopped reporting some alcohol-related violations at the club and other restaurants to beverage control authorities, said Chris Ringgold, a detective on the department's vice squad. He called it "a waste of time."
Little Rock's current nightclub review comes at a time when a state legislative committee is studying whether to mandate that police departments report all calls to bars and clubs to state regulators, and the state Alcoholic Beverage Control agency is considering changes in how places that serve mixed drinks are licensed.
Little Rock City Manager Bruce Moore has asked his staff to specifically take another look at Shooters as part of a broader effort to identify bars and nightclubs that are operating outside zoning rules or have been sources of frequent complaints.
Moore said in an August memo to the Little Rock Board of Directors that the city was scrutinizing Shooters, which he called "an active club that has been previously cited."
"It does bother me that an agreement we thought was in place is no longer in place," Moore said in an interview.
City Hall's issue with Shooters hasn't been so much about violence, criminal behavior or zoning, but about repeated noise complaints from neighbors.
A police log of incident reports shows seven cases of reported violence at the address since 2010, including when police officers were reportedly attacked outside the club in 2015.
"This is starting to be a problem again," Moore said in an April 2016 email forwarding a resident's noise complaint to the police chief.
LICENSE WITH RESTRICTIONS
Shooters, which markets food and entertainment to Hispanic customers, abuts the Town and Country neighborhood. Shooters on its Facebook page describes itself in Spanish as "the best show center in central Arkansas."
It opened in 2010 under the name Hog's Breath but has since changed names, ownership and its menu as the state gradually allowed it to offer live music and dancing.
Langley in July 2009 rejected the original Hog's Breath application for a restaurant mixed-drink license, noting objections from city officials and an area resident. With the building under construction, Langley also said it didn't have the required kitchen facilities, Health Department approval or restrooms to qualify as a restaurant.
In January 2010, the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control Board -- which can review the director's decisions -- overturned Langley's ruling by a 4-1 vote on appeal.
The board granted the license with several "permanent and continuing" conditions, writing "no loud music will be allowed or tolerated" and that "there will be no dancing of any kind." Conditions also prohibited video games and a disc jockey booth.
"The Board is convinced that this will not be a private club but will be more of a restaurant operation," the decision says.
Eight months later, the business's attorney Charles Singleton mailed a letter to Alcoholic Beverage Control seeking to expand the allowed entertainment to include dancing.
More than three dozen residents submitted letters of opposition, and several city officials, including Mayor Mark Stodola, testified against the change during an October 2010 board hearing.
"It was quite contentious," Stodola said.
Kenneth Dixon, who lived in the neighborhood, testified that "dancing may increase the crowds in the restaurant which could increase the noise," according to the 2010 ruling.
The beverage control board rejected the application by a 5-0 vote, noting in a written decision that dancing "is not in the public interest" and mentioning that the decision was based on testimony and letters that "requested the Board to adhere to the condition of no dancing" that had been placed on the license.
The permanence of the initial conditions nonetheless began to fade, along with other Alcoholic Beverage Control orders that didn't face the same public scrutiny.
CONDITIONS LIFTED
Eight months after the unanimous board vote, in June 2011, Langley approved a name change from Hog's Breath to Shooters Sports Bar & Grill.
In the same letter to Shooters management, he approved the restaurant's request for video games, table games and music, "as long as you are not in violation" of the agency's good neighbor regulation.
Langley said in an interview that he remembers thinking the request was for light music, such as an acoustic guitar set, that would be "proper with a dinner atmosphere."
Five months later, in late 2011, Langley in a letter to Singleton authorized dancing inside the restaurant in response to a request from the attorney.
Langley wrote that he reviewed the October 2010 meeting transcript and didn't see any testimony that indicated dancing would create noise problems for neighbors. In an interview, he said he could not remember making that determination but said it would have followed a conversation with Singleton.
Singleton did not respond to two voice messages or an email seeking comment.
Local officials, despite their opposition to dancing a year earlier, were not informed that the board's 2010 decision was under review, they said. The decision -- like the one allowing live music -- was handed down without a public hearing.
"We were shocked and amazed," said City Director B.J. Wyrick, whose ward includes the club and who testified at the October 2010 meeting. "All of a sudden we get this information that says they can do whatever they want to do there."
An Alcoholic Beverage Control spokesman said the state division has no records showing that local officials were notified or that the beverage control board signed off on Langley's changes. Langley said he does not remember notifying officials or taking the issue back to the board.
MUSIC PERSISTS
Beverage control has since found that Shooters violated the good neighbor regulation on three occasions, each time for being too loud. The orders were issued in April 2013, December 2014 and April 2016, but regulators did not strip the nightclub's permission to play music.
Then-Alcoholic Beverage Control Director Bud Roberts in the 2016 order admonished the restaurant's owner and manager, issued a $1,000 fine, suspended its permit for a week and threatened to revoke it. Roberts' decision was based on an investigation by the agency's enforcement arm, rather than by the Little Rock Police Department.
His order referred to a November 2015 community meeting that the restaurant's owner and manager attended.
"The gentlemen promised to keep the noise down," Roberts wrote. "They said they would install a special knob -- one that controls volume. A volume knob. Perhaps their intentions were good. For reasons not explained, Shooters employees have failed to maintain control over the loud music -- the bass in particular."
Asked why music was still allowed at Shooters after the three good neighbor violations, current Alcoholic Beverage Control Director Mary Robin Casteel said it appeared that Langley's written condition was not enforced but she considered it a genuine condition.
Roberts, who left the agency in May, said he "considered all the information that was in the file" but that he wanted to let his order "speak for itself." It was one of three decisions he made about Shooters and the only one against the club.
The Shooters file maintained by beverage control does not include any later violations for any reason, including any accusations that might have been deemed unfounded.
That's at least in part because frustrated Little Rock police had effectively stopped filing formal violations against Shooters and investigating whether other restaurant licensees were operating outside of their licenses' scope, detective Ringgold said.
Police instead funneled most complaints and inspection findings to beverage control's enforcement division for follow-up, he said.
"It was a waste of time," Ringgold said. "I addressed multiple violations in the spring [of 2015] that went nowhere with Director Roberts. It was pretty apparent in my mind that nothing was going to be done."
In February 2015, a Shooters patron punched a Little Rock police officer in the face and bit another officer on the arm while police tried to break up a fight, according to a complaint filed with beverage control.
Roberts in June 2015 signed an order saying the complaint was not severe enough to justify a good neighbor violation. Notes from the hearing point out that the fighting happened outside the restaurant and that an officer who testified "did not indicate" the officers "were hurt at all."
After the altercation but before Roberts' decision, the Little Rock police vice squad showed up to Shooters four times in just more than a month's time. From those visits, police reported 10 alleged violations to beverage control that focused on noise levels, whether the business was properly operating as a restaurant and how patrons were parking.
Roberts signed an Aug. 20, 2015, order that dismissed all 10 complaints.
The order says no neighbor testified that the noise rose to the level to "constitute a disturbance of the public peace" and that Shooters' menu qualified it as a restaurant. It also found that there was no testimony to indicate that "parking on grass or in fire lanes is a violation of any standards established by the State of Arkansas" or the state Board of Health.
Roberts said a beverage control attorney presided over both hearings -- as he authorized two staff attorneys to do when he was busy -- and he merely signed the orders.
"I've been a trial lawyer close to half my life," Roberts said. "I lost plenty of cases, and it didn't stop me from doing my job."
MOVING FORWARD
Casteel, a veteran beverage control attorney whom Gov. Asa Hutchinson picked to replace Roberts, said she does not believe the city of Little Rock has any standing to challenge the currently allowed entertainment at Shooters because too much time has passed.
"The board has had hearings on Shooters since those restrictions were lifted, and they haven't seen fit to go back and reverse that," Casteel said.
But Casteel said she believes Langley's condition on allowing music -- that Shooters not violate the good neighbor regulation -- can be enforced and that she would consider the full case file if reports of violations at the nightclub resurface.
Also, officials are reviewing the broader beverage control rules and regulations that apply to alcohol licensees.
Arkansas bars and nightclubs typically hold one of two state licenses. A restaurant mixed-drink license requires that businesses prepare meals on-site and serve them up to at least two hours before closing, among other requirements.
The alternative, a private club license, requires the operators to incorporate a nonprofit to hold the license, charge membership dues -- often done via cover charges -- and maintain a list of members.
Langley said an option for change is to make a licensing distinction between restaurants that provide music from those that don't.
Casteel, noting that changes would require legislative approval and the next full legislative session is in 2019, said the agency is taking stock of restaurants across the state and how they operate to study what changes could be warranted. She expects the pace of that review to pick up next year.
"We're taking a very thorough look at pretty much everything now," Casteel said.
Information for this article was contributed by Aziza Musa of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Metro on 09/03/2017