Liquor license applications reviewed

The Crowley City Council’s Public Safety Committee took an unusual turn Wednesday night when members voted to recommend that the full council deny beer and liquor license applications for four local businesses.
Those four businesses are City Bar of Crowley, Fat Boy’s Grocery, K&L Grocery and Korky’s Food Mart. The remaining approximately 45 applications will be recommended for approval by the full council Wednesday, Dec. 8.
The committee voted unanimously in all respects, with Chairperson Brad Core, Vice Chairperson Byron Wilridge and Kim Stringfellow in attendance. Neither Vernon Martin nor Steven Premeaux was in attendance.
Discussion surrounding the decision to recommend denial of the licenses was focused generally on the amount of criminal activity that has required police intervention and whether the businesses were permitting criminal activity on their premises.
Of the four business owners, only Chad Monceaux of City Bar was on hand to address the council’s concerns, which he was allowed to do subsequent to the committee’s vote to recommend that the council deny his license application.
Monceaux, who has owned the bar for approximately six years, pointed out that there are four bars in the two-block radius in which City Bar is located and five in a three-block radius, with patrons walking back and forth between them. He indicated that a number of calls to the police were made by him for incidents such as vehicle crashes and disturbances on streets and in parking lots that are not owned or controlled by City Bar.
Monceaux told the council that he has added signage to the premises with plans for more and has ordered a wand-type metal detector to screen those entering the bar. He also told the council that he was open to any other suggestions.
In other business, the committee heard a routine report from Police Chief Jimmy Broussard, who told the committee that the Crowley Police Department had responded to 931 calls for service during the month of November. Included in that number were three accidents with serious injuries and one with a fatality, seven attempted burglaries, eight auto thefts; two cyberbullying and two cyberstalking complaints, 15 domestic abuse complaints, eight hit and run accidents, 116 disturbance calls, 49 suspicious persons calls, 68 suspicious circumstances calls, two open container violations, 20 incidents of simple criminal damage to property, three simple batteries and 11 calls for illegal use of a weapon.
Additionally he reported that:
• The Narcotics Division had executed one search warrant on a known house where illegal narcotics were being used and sold;
• Citations issued during the month of November included 63 in the city and 203 on TED detail;
• The department is processing one candidate to fill a patrol position, which will leave two patrol openings and one dispatcher opening as a dispatcher recently had resigned; and
• There are no remaining storage areas for old files that must be retained and that some of those files will need to be moved at the beginning of 2022.
As to the last item, Mayor Tim Monceaux commented that with regard to the CPD’s storage space at the Enterprise Center, which had sustained significant hurricane damage, he could not provide an exact date when the repairs would occur but could confirm that the materials had been ordered.
Neither Fire Chief Louis Romero nor Tony Duhon of Code Enforcement were present with reports.
In closing, the committee approved a routine resolution for certain law enforcement-related items to be declared as surplus junk equipment and either sold or donated to other law enforcement agencies or, in the alternative, destroyed and sold as scrap metal.
The full council will meet at Wednesday, Dec. 8, at 6 p.m. in Council Chambers.