FOLEY, Ala. — A Lounge Retail Liquor license was denied a Foley club on Monday in spite of assertions by the club’s attorney that some things are going to happen at bars and there needed to be more dialogue between the Foley Police Department and the club’s owner.

“If we don’t know about some of the objections the city had we can’t do anything about it,” attorney Buddy Brackin said in addressing the mayor and city council at the council’s regularly scheduled meeting.

Police Chief David Wilson and one of his senior officers, along with an officer from the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Enforcement Division, presented evidence to the contrary, however, with Wilson saying the bar was “too violent” and several Foley officers had been injured while breaking up fights at the Baldwin County Road 20 West location.

In early August, when the club first applied for the Lounge Retail Liquor license, Wilson recommended the license not be approved by the city council, citing the number of police calls resulting from the club and the violent nature of some of those calls. The council’s recommendation of a liquor license moves an application on to Montgomery for approval by the ABC Board, which has the final say-so in granting licenses.

At the time Wilson asked the council not to approve the Pink Pony’s application, he asked that the matter be tabled so that the club’s owner would have time to present his side of the case.

During Monday’s council meeting, Wilson said police had met with the owner and the owner had tried to make the case that he was running a good club. In spite of allegations that he stayed at the club all the time, Wilson said the owner was unaware of all the problems that had occurred in connection with police calls.

“He also didn’t know three police officers have been injured there,” Wilson told the mayor and council in referring to the club owner.

The owner said the club’s problems were due to the previous bar manager, Wilson said.

Lt. Thurston Bullock, commander of FPD’s Patrol Division, presented a packet of materials to the mayor and council showing that FPD had 156 calls to the Pink Pony from July 2007 to July 2009. Among the incidents Bullock mentioned were 10 disorderly persons, 32 fights, 40 loud music calls, 29 traffic stops, seven domestic incidents, three thefts, two assaults, six traffic accidents, a foot pursuit,and one stolen vehicle.

“Many of the fights involved multiple persons,” Bullock said, adding that injuries at the Pink Pony included everything from a broken leg to a stab wound.

Bullock also said concerts at the Pink Pony attracted a “rowdy element” and that extra police and man-hours needed when concerts were being held was a “substantial ((cost) to the city.”

Sgt. Tim Sears, the enforcement officer who works the area for ABC, told the mayor and council his agency had numerous violations against the club including criminal conduct, untaxed beverages (liquor purchased through Florida, a state violation), a state violation regarding the sale of cigarettes with a Florida tax stamp, and a July 18 violation for having no food when the club was operating under a Restaurant Retail Liquor license at the time.

Brackin, representing the club, said the kitchen or food aspect of the club had proven to be unprofitable, and that was the reason the Pink Pony had quit serving food.

“This is a request to change one license for another,” Brackin said, a reference to the club asking to change its Restaurant Retail Liquor license for a Lounge Retail Liquor license.

Brackin noted the club has been in operation for three years and provides jobs. As for the jobs and fines coming from traffic stops and other activity at the Pink Pony, he said, “There is some return for the City of Foley also.”

“Some of this stuff does go on at bars … but I’m here because of the violence,” Wilson said in response to Brackin.

A number of people were on hand at the council meeting from the Pink Pony and another club, Evolution, to follow the council’s deliberations. One person who came to the podium to speak was Sixto Rivera Jr., who is now manager at Club Evolution. He said he left the Pink Pony Club because he didn’t agree with club owner Bob Patel’s management style.

Rivera called it an “insult that he (Patel) is here asking” for approval of the Lounge license and said approval of it would send a “bad message.”

A woman, who works at the Pink Pony and whose name could not be heard, said from the podium that 80 percent of the Pink Pony violations FPD presented to the mayor and council occurred while Rivera was bar manager at Pink Pony.

“I need my job,” she told the mayor and council.

When the matter came to a vote, Councilman Ralph Hellmich moved not to recommend approval of the Pink Pony’s liquor application to the ABC Board. An ABC officer on hand for the meeting said the city’s failure to approve the application stops the application process immediately — that it goes no farther.

For 30 seconds or so no one seconded Hellmich’s motion. When the mayor said there could be no discussion on the matter without a second, Councilman Charlie Ebert III said he would second the motion for discussion’s sake. Put to a vote, the council voted not to approve the Pink Pony’s application. Councilman Wayne Trawick abstained.

Prior to dealing with the Pink Pony issue, the council, with FPD’s recommendation, voted to approve a Restaurant Retail Liquor license for Gelato Joes LLC at 202A E. Michigan Ave.