The Towson student's beating at the Iguana Cantina might have been one of the final straws. On Sept. 26, about 1 a.m., the man was found unconscious on the floor in the club. He was taken outside and put in an ambulance, at which point witnesses told police he had been hit in the face, fallen to the ground inside the club and then was beaten again. He has emerged from a coma but "has a long road ahead of him," according to police spokesman Sterling Clifford. Detectives have several leads but have not made any arrests, Clifford said.
Iguana Cantina hires four to six uniformed police officers each night it is open - which costs about $15,000 per month, said Dave Adams, who oversees security at the club. Adams previously ran security at the now-defunct rock club Hammerjack's in South Baltimore, which often employed up to a dozen officers. He calls uniformed officers a "must-have."
Venues with crowd-control problems routinely rely on uniformed police officers to help keep the peace, said local concert organizer Evan Weinstein.
"I wouldn't do it without the police there," he said. "When you see two cop cars and cops sitting around outside, you're less likely to start something. It absolutely creates a safer environment."
Businesses will still be allowed to hire retired city officers and police officers from other jurisdictions, though the number of regional departments that allow it is thinning. Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Howard counties now prohibit police officers from moonlighting at establishments that serve alcohol. Departments including Prince George's County and the Maryland State Police allow their officers to do such work after hours.
In Anne Arundel County, officers are not allowed to work in bars and taverns, but the police union, joined by Police Chief Col. James P. Teare Sr. and County Executive John R. Leopold, is fighting the county ethics commission to allow officers to work at restaurants with liquor licenses.
Before becoming a police officer, Anne Arundel County police union President O'Brien Atkinson said he worked at a Greenbelt restaurant that hired off-duty police to work security.
"When they saw a police officer out front, it dramatically changed the behavior of the people at the bar," Atkinson said. "People weren't crawling out to their cars, they weren't fighting. They were much more civil when there was an officer on the premises, for fear of being arrested."
