Safety is watchword as Mpls. nightclubs gear up for Halloween

Club regulars Lesa Stampley and Adrienne Beecham made their usual rounds last Friday. The St. Paul women said they have never felt unsafe inside downtown Minneapolis bars, but a fatal shooting Oct. 18 in Augie's strip club on Hennepin Avenue got their attention.

"I don't have plans on going to Augie's ever again," said Beecham, 23.

As downtown's nightlife community prepared for Halloween — one of the year's biggest bar nights — it grappled with the aftershocks of that shooting and another incident that night, involving a motorist who allegedly struck a woman on purpose.

The city has a variety of security requirements for bars, often developed in conjunction with the Minneapolis Police Department and the city's licensing department. The city intends to review the security plan at Augie's in the coming weeks, manager of business licenses Grant Wilson said in an e-mail.

While some clubs are equipped with metal detectors and conduct pat-down searches, owners say that level of security isn't necessary everywhere.

"Obviously, this Augie's thing is no good, but I haven't felt like it's been the Wild West or anything downtown," said Brian Bell, co-owner of Rouge at the Lounge, who declined to detail his club's security procedures.

At the beginning of the year, the police department added a "power shift" on weekend nights. Instead of one shift ending and another beginning at 2 a.m. when bars close, the power shift keeps officers on duty throughout the night, 1st Precinct Inspector Medaria Arradondo said. He would not disclose numbers, but said extra patrols are added during weekend nights, special events and holidays including Halloween.

The perception that downtown is safe is important, agree Arradondo, club owners and City Council member Jacob Frey, whose ward includes much of downtown.

"A lot of these things are isolated issues," said Behnad Taheri, owner of Tangiers lounge in the North Loop and a manager of downtown clubs since the mid-'90s. "If somebody walks into a gas station and shoots somebody, they don't shut down gas stations. But when it happens in a bar or restaurant, because we serve booze, all of a sudden it becomes a different kind of an issue. It seems to be dramatized and made a bigger thing than it is."

From January through September, violent crime in the center of downtown was up 16 percent compared with that period a year ago. Arradondo said incidents involving multiple victims can increase those numbers.

"Perception is reality," Frey said. "Regardless what the statistics say, if downtown is perceived as anything other than absolutely an awesome place to be, then we need to work hard at it."

About 11:30 p.m. last Friday a man lay motionless on bloodstained concrete in the parking lot across N. 5th Street from Sneaky Pete's. Bystanders watched as police dealt with what one officer later described as an attempted robbery-turned-self-defense that went "a little overboard."

One of the victims said he does not plan to return to downtown bars.

While downtown nightlife isn't her scene, Amy Shaunette, 26, of south Minneapolis watched as she waited for a bus nearby at 5th Street and Hennepin Avenue. "This just happens," said the downtown worker. "I'm not worried about safety, but I'm not involved."

The vibe has changed in at least one hub of downtown nightlife.

On Saturday, two men waited in line to be carded and searched before going into Pizza Lucé, a Warehouse District after-bar-close hot spot that's had its share of troubles. A police officer stood outside, shooing away loiterers.

"This ain't the Pizza Lucé I grew up with," one of the men grumbled while being frisked.