"Whatever it takes, that can't happen," said Tim Devaney, a manager at Tropical Liqueurs, located around the corner from the alley where the homicide took place. Worley, police and city officials are scheduled to meet today to discuss a course of action, which could include the revocation of liquor or business licenses at problem bars. Police on Monday began reviewing computer records to identify downtown establishments with higher rates of calls for service and more serious reported crimes, said Chief Lynn Rowe.
"We want to revisit that whole issue of the downtown bar situation," he said. "We're not focusing exclusively on (Traffic) right now, but of course the thing that precipitated this was (the Friday homicide). We'll be looking at all of them, but it was Traffic that started it.
" Police, though, so far have not said whether the victim or suspect were in Traffic the night of the shooting, which took place in an alley near the club's west entrance. According to state law, an establishment can have its liquor license revoked if it "harbors a nuisance," he said. "With a shooting outside and the assaults I understand have occurred recently, that's one avenue.
" Another route would use a municipal ordinance originally passed to combat drug houses that is broad enough to deal with business establishments that are the site of repeated crime, Wichmer said. City staff began the process of closing Traffic once before, following a chaotic melee Oct. 15, 2005, during which more than 50 police and county deputies confronted an irate crowd at closing time.
"We have the nuisance letter we sent them after the riot there in October 2005 and that doesn't expire," Wichmer said. Wichmer said he could not comment on what, if any, new action will be taken against Traffic until he has studied the police department's review. "Once I get the information, the city manager and the chief and I will sit down, then we'll talk to council and see what they want to do.
" "In spite of that one isolated situation, downtown is a safe place for people to go, have dinner and enjoy themselves," Rowe said. Although the downtown area contains a higher concentration of bars and clubs than other areas of the city, a News-Leader review of assaults and robberies reported in 2006 showed that large clubs elsewhere, such as Midnight Rodeo or the now-defunct Cowboys 2000, saw as many or more reported assaults than any single downtown establishment. The News-Leader's research showed that most violence involved young men in their early 20s, rather than the 30-and-up crowd the district has more recently courted.
More than 70 percent of reported violence occurred between 10 p.m. and 4 a.
m. Sgt. Mike Lucas, who supervises officers assigned downtown, said the department will assign an additional officer to the downtown area for the next few weeks, bringing the number of officers on foot patrol to three on Wednesday, five on Friday, and seven on Thursday and Saturday evenings.
"I don't think this shooting was preventable," Lucas said, saying there apparently was a feud dating back several years between the suspect, Travis Mack, 28, and victim, 26-year-old Kenneth Dixon Jr. "It could have happened wherever the two met." The idea appeared to do little to comfort the bar owners gathered to discuss Saturday's pub crawl, which they hoped would draw as many as 5,000 people downtown.
"We just hope the Traffic incident doesn't scare a lot of people away," said Jordan Creek owner Mark Coe. For Coe and other bar owners gathered Wednesday, the deadly shooting was a discouraging setback after more than a year of progress. Since late 2005, many have been working with the Hospitality Resource Panel to encourage responsible business practices among downtown establishments.
Working with police and other agencies, the HRP has coordinated regular meetings with bar operators, developed a list of best practices and offered training to bar staff. As they have in previous years, bar owners chipped in $20,000 this year to pay for additional police officers downtown on busy nights. "They've made a lot of efforts to try and police themselves and we compliment them for their efforts," Rowe said.
"But it's my understanding Traffic has not been participating much in that." Eric Zackrison, owner of Patton Alley Pub and the restaurant Agrario both less than a block north of where the shooting occurred voiced support for sanctions against Traffic. "To be honest, I think the crowd that Traffic draws is unsavory .
.. I can't tell you how many drug deals we see go down in the parking lot across from them," he said.
"We've got to let that (criminal) element know they're not welcome in any downtown establishment," said Paul Sundy, co-owner of Icon nightclub and Big Whiskey's. "It does us no good to just push it to another place." Sundy said the problem crowd is defined by a "thug attitude," rather than race, music preference or style of dress.
"If that behavior is tolerated downtown, perception become reality." A similar requirement is included in a new municipal ordinance that waives distance requirements between bars on Commercial Street. If bars fail to comply or otherwise become nuisances, the city can refuse to renew their liquor licenses.
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