Nightclub planned for downtown> Liquor license application approved for Central Street Grant building

BANGOR — How about a nightclub at 6 Central St.? Apprehensively and conditionally, but with good wishes, the Bangor City Council on Tuesday granted the Bangor Beach Club a liquor license for the former W.T. Grant building.

Applicants James Albert and Paul Collard, who have run Bahama Beach clubs in Auburn and Portland, already have met with Bangor Police Chief Randy Harriman about their plans. The chief was less than enthusiastic, given the history of the location.

Crime in the immediate area initially decreased after Club Roxy opened in 1990, Harriman said, but by June 1991 crime had increased 192 percent over the previous year. Crime decreased when it closed, then increased with the opening of Club Metro.

“In our opinion, the lack of off-street parking is one of the major reasons for problems,” Harriman said. The club can hold up to 800 people, he said, but most can’t park near the club. The problems arise when intoxicated people make their way back to their cars.

Harriman said he talked to police departments in Auburn and Portland and was told that the problems in those cities were mostly outside the clubs. He said the largest number of problems occurred on chem-free night. Because people cannot drink in the club, he said, they go out to their cars to drink.

Several city councilors pointed out that if Harriman had been asked for crime statistics associated with other Bangor establishments, there would have been crime there, too.

Harriman acknowledged that there are many complaints at The Bounty Taverne in Bangor, but the calls there come from staff asking for assistance. They are no public complaints because the facility has its own parking lot.

Other than the applicants, the only person to speak during the public hearing on the liquor license was Robert Miller, an attorney representing the owner of G.W. Finnegan’s Dance Club on Franklin Street, around the corner from the Grant building.

Miller told the council that the applicants hadn’t really thought out the project. He said that his client would be out of business if the owners ran the new nightclub the way the old ones were run.

Albert and Collard told the council that they had run the Auburn club for four years, and the Portland club was now in its second year. They had experience, they were going to invest money to bring the Grant building up to code, and they thought a shuttle service might alleviate some of the problems associated with not having a parking lot.

“We want to work with the city and the Police Department and the neighborhood businesses,” Collard said.

“We do have a game plan. We’ve been in the business a while,” Albert said.

The council voted 6-2 to approve the liquor license, conditional upon the applicants’ satisfying concerns of the Code Enforcement Office.

Voting for the license were Gerard Baldacci, Patricia Blanchette, Marshall Frankel, Dennis Soucy, James Tyler and Timothy Woodcock. Christopher Popper and Charles Sullivan opposed it. Bill Cohen was absent.

In other business, the council approved:

A contribution of $3,000 from contingency to help the Paul Bunyan Snowmobile Club in grooming and maintaining snowmobile trails. The money will be given only if the club is able to get council approval for its plan to bring a trail in from Hermon across airport, golf course and Bass Park property.

Authorization to put out to bid tax-acquired properties at 59 Lincoln St. and 6 Chester Place.

Although most of the audience had left, councilors closed the meeting with reminiscences of Reuben Cohen, who died Monday. They remembered him not only as the father of U.S. Sen. William Cohen, but as an exemplary Bangor resident and friend.

“A real role model has been lost,” commented Mayor Charles Sullivan.