Dispelling rumors that San Diego’s vice squad was intentionally cracking down on local gay bars, it turns out vice presence in local gay bars was part of a broad effort to investigate compliance practices at multiple bars, from downtown to Hillcrest. Overcrowded bars and clubs have long been a concern with fire departments across the country, especially following a fast-consuming deadly fire that killed over 100 people at The Station concert club in West Warwick, R.I., two years ago. Fire marshals across the country have been paying close attention to occupancy levels and other issues affecting safety ever since.

On the evening of Sept. 30, the San Diego Police Department’s vice squad surveyed multiple bars from downtown’s Gaslamp Quarter to Hillcrest. On orders from Fire Marshal Connolly Broom, all bar patrons at Bourbon Street were told to leave with no explanation just past midnight.

“It was done in this case because the bar was overcrowded and didn’t have enough security staff on duty to accommodate all the people that they had inside,” said Lawrence McKinney, a lieutenant with the San Diego Police Department’s vice squad unit.

McKinney said an Alcohol Beverage Control license of this nature requires that an establishment have one security guard for every 50 or 75 people. There were several detectives on site at Bourbon Street that evening who observed capacity levels over the legal limit, so the fire marshal instructed everyone to leave, McKinney said.

“They didn’t have enough [security] on several different occasions. In fact, fire marshals and the vice unit had been out to the bar on three occasions prior to Sept. 30,” he said. “On every one of those occasions there were those types of problems, and again there were meetings with management. There were direct discussions of what needed to be done and then on Sept. 30, when they went back to check, they found that nothing had been done.”

Bourbon Street assistant manager Leo Moore was present the evening of Sept. 30 and confirmed that several meetings were conducted in the past between bar management, fire marshals and members of the San Diego Police Department, including Lt. Margy Schaufelberger, the department’s GLBT community liaison.

Moore said over 17 bars were raided that evening, and she thought the manner in which Bourbon Street was evacuated by the vice squad could have been handled more appropriately.

“We’re not denying that we were over capacity,” Moore said. “The customers didn’t do anything wrong. It was the way the people were handled…. No badges were shown. They were pushing people out; they were saying people couldn’t close their charges. It was more hectic the way they wanted it done than to have our people push them out, because the people know us, as opposed to a stranger taking a drink away from them saying ‘get out.’”

The vice squad could not confirm the exact number of bars they investigated that evening.

Richard Britton, co-owner of Numbers, learned of the raids at downtown bars and clubs from members of his security staff who also work at those establishments.

“[The Numbers’ security manager] had already told me that they were downtown going through the clubs, so I know that they didn’t just limit it to Hillcrest,” Britton said. Numbers and The Flame were in compliance that evening, he said.

Moore said Bourbon Street is working on determining exact capacity levels in each area of the bar. Calculating an exact number is difficult at this point because of expansion construction work, she said, but Bourbon Street is working with the fire marshal to determine an appropriate figure.

“It’s a gray area for us right now because of what we’re doing with the expansion,” Moore said.

As a co-founder of the Tavern Guild Roundtable San Diego, Moore hopes to bridge the communication gap between vice operation staff and bar owners. The Tavern Guild is a coalition of employees from GLBT bars, clubs, restaurants and coffee shops. Moore is working with Schaufelberger to get fire marshal officials to attend their next meeting on Monday, Oct. 17.