Repeated complaints about crowds spilling out of a Mobile sports bar and filling the surrounding parking lot have put the business on the Mobile Police Department’s radar, and the chief says a permanent police presence at the site is not far off.
The Stadium Sports Bar and Grill, located across from Bel Air Mall, has drawn concerns about capacity overflow since it opened in August. Police said weekend crowds have produced recurring trouble, including a fight captured on video in August and a shooting over one weekend.
Weekend shooting
According to police, a woman was shot on a Saturday night by a man who was handling a gun carelessly. Investigators described that shooting as accidental, but said it came alongside numerous other reports of criminal activity connected to the area around the business.
Police said calls tied to the location have included suspicious activity, property damage, repeated noise complaints and citations for loitering.
For August and September, police identified three reports filed by people who were involved in disputes with others at The Stadium but who contacted police only after leaving the property. One additional report was filed at the location involving leaving the scene of an accident.
Complaints predate the current location
The complaints are not new to the ownership. Similar issues were raised when the business operated at its previous Azalea Road location under the name Halftime.
Mobile City Councilman Joel Daves raised the matter publicly in June, saying constituents had contacted him repeatedly.
“I have received a number of complaints. His customers need to be inside and we don’t need 2 or 300 people congregating outside the business all hours of the night,” Daves said.
Chief: most of the crowd aren’t customers
Police Chief Lawrence Battiste said the department has been working with the owner of The Stadium to curb the overflow, and noted that the core of the problem sits outside the building rather than inside it. According to Battiste, most of the people filling the parking lot are not patrons of the bar at all.
“There have been incidents at the club but the bulk of them really surrounds those individuals that are congregating in and around the parking lot and so our focus has been how do we disperse and disband,” Battiste said.
He said the department is close to establishing a command post at the bar, a step it previously took at the business’s former location.
“We’re not going to tolerate parties being held in parking lots, bringing their own alcohol listening to loud music because it infringes on those rights of those who live close by,” Battiste said.
Parking-lot gatherings that form around a venue rather than inside it present a persistent enforcement problem, since the crowd is on private commercial property but is not under the venue’s control and often is not subject to its security screening or alcohol service rules.