Jonesboro Police Chief Michael Yates is adamant that limiting the hours that private clubs in his city are allowed to stay open helped reduce late-night crime and that the same measure could help Little Rock. He said that a report distributed recently by an association of club owners in Little Rock that indicated otherwise is "very skewed and misleading."
In an effort to persuade the Little Rock Board of Directors to vote against a proposal that would enact an across-the-board 2 a.m. closure of private clubs in the capital city, the club association compiled a 40-page report that includes data about Jonesboro, which put in place an ordinance in 2007 that forced its private clubs to stop serving alcohol by 2 a.m.
The club association -- called the Arkansas Licensed Beverage Association -- said forcing early closure on the nine establishments in Little Rock that hold special state permits allowing alcohol to be served until 5 a.m. wouldn't have any effect on the number of police calls to the clubs. Instead, the association says, it would be detrimental to the businesses.
Using data provided by the Jonesboro Police Department, the club association's report stated that the number of "incidents" at bars and clubs has fluctuated in the years since the 2 a.m. closing rule, and that it has increased many of the years. There were 77 incidents in 2006, 65 in 2007, 50 in 2008, 83 in 2009, 74 in 2010, 82 in 2011 and 106 in 2012, according to the data.
"There has been no identifiable correlation between the ordinance and the number of police calls," the report said. "While this data is subject to interpretation, it is evident that the 5 a.m. clubs had no appreciable impact on crime in Jonesboro; otherwise, a greater change would have been seen in the wake of the 2 a.m. ordinance."
But Jonesboro Police Department Crime Analyst Basia Combs contends the data provided to the group was "faulty" and thus the association's interpretation of it is "not valid."
The association's report didn't account for the 414 percent increase in private bars since the new rules took effect, she said, nor did it factor in the population increase since then. There were seven private clubs in Jonesboro in 2006; that number rose to 36 in 2013.
Justin Allen, the Little Rock club association's lawyer, said by phone Friday that he used the information provided to him by the Jonesboro Police Department.
"We can only work with what we were given," he said. "I think it's worth pointing out that we note in our report that the data is not perfect and is no doubt impacted by an increase in bars and population. It is our interpretation, and clearly the chief and folks in Jonesboro would argue differently."
Combs said in a memorandum she sent to Yates this month that it is more accurate to compare year-to-year data of only the seven clubs that were open the year before the hour change and the years since. The total number of calls to those seven clubs and bars have fluctuated, but mostly decreased since the establishments were forced to stop selling alcohol by 2 a.m., her data shows. Not all of the clubs stayed open past 2 a.m. before the ordinance. Yates said he thinks three of them had 5 a.m. permits.
According to Combs, there were 103 calls for service to those seven locations in 2006, 77 in 2007, 29 in 2008, 85 in 2009, 75 in 2010, 60 in 2011, 78 in 2012 and 88 in 2013.
She said her comparison still doesn't account for the change in population or the number of days each business is open per year. (One club shut down completely for six months in 2008.) Further analysis taking population into consideration shows that calls for service to those bars in Jonesboro have dropped 28 percent and offenses have decreased 49 percent since 2006, Combs said.
Both she and Yates were quick to add that there were likely other factors contributing to the crime decrease.
Allen, the attorney for the Little Rock club owners association, said he still believes Jonesboro doesn't know if limiting club hours had an effect on crime. The department's own memo, he noted, states that "it appears the ordinance had an impact on crime" and that that would have to be determined through a more extensive analysis.
"They think it has had an impact, and my interpretation I think provides a reasonable argument that it really didn't," Allen said. "There's a difference of opinion there, but what remains clear is they really don't know. If we have no idea whether modifying the operating hours is going to have an impact on crime, is it still a public safety issue that merits taking the action the Little Rock board is considering?"
In a recent conversation with Little Rock At-large City Director Gene Fortson, Yates detailed the changes he made when he was hired as Jonesboro's chief in 2005. In addition to limiting club hours, he changed the Police Department's policy that prevented officers from working off-duty at a place where alcohol is sold.
Now his officers are employed off-duty at all but one of the city's private clubs and they "self-police." He said it's hard to look at calls for service as an accurate depiction of whether crime is decreasing because many of the calls now are from his off-duty officers requesting pick-up of someone they arrested.
When Jonesboro overhauled its club ordinance, it also included authorization for the city to put clubs on probation, he said.
"You can throw stats out and all of that, but you have to use some common sense," Yates said. "After 12:30 [a.m.] or 1 o'clock in the morning, the only thing to do is alcohol consumption and things like that. Serious calls almost always come in after 1 or 2 o'clock."
His advice to Little Rock was that limiting private club hours to 2 a.m. is a "step in the right direction, but I'm afraid if you only do that and expect a tremendous outcome, I don't think you are really going to see much."
He said clubs have to know there will be consequences for breaking the rules and that there will be strict enforcement.
At-large Little Rock City Director Joan Adcock has submitted a proposal that calls for across-the-board closing times of 2 a.m. The private club industry talked with City Manager Bruce Moore and had a counterproposal presented that doesn't change the hours, but mandates a certain amount of security at the late-night clubs. Fortson and Ward 4 City Director Brad Cazort have been researching the issue and plan to present their own report to the board at a 4 p.m. agenda meeting Tuesday at City Hall. They said they are still considering what to propose.
The Arkansas Licensed Beverage Association has argued that if the Little Rock Board of Directors limits club hours to 2 a.m., many that stay open until 5 a.m. now will lose more than half of their yearly revenue, which they say comes in after other bars have closed for the evening.
The association is made up of five of the nine active 5 a.m. clubs in the city -- Midtown Billiards, Electric Cowboy, Club Elevations, Discovery and Triniti. The other clubs are Salut, Paper Moon, Jazzi's and the Fraternal Order of the Eagles, and of those, Jazzi's elects to close by 3 a.m every day and the Eagles club rarely stays open past midnight.
"Bluntly, this is not a public safety issue that warrants an ordinance that will result in layoffs, a loss of tax and local revenue and perhaps result in the closure of one or more of these otherwise legitimate businesses," the association's report said.
Fortson said he has a problem supporting anything that puts someone out of business but that he's convinced "there are some things happening after 2 o'clock around those clubs that are bad."
In Jonesboro, Yates said the clubs that had 5 a.m. permits before the city limited hours are all still in operation and that the increase in the number of clubs since the ordinances proves that an establishment can survive under the 2 a.m. rule.
"We've seen no change to the businesses. The only change has been good," he said. "We're not having to sweep up people's teeth out of the dance floor. Fewer people have been shot or stabbed."
Metro on 08/11/2014