MADISON (WKOW) -- More than 160 people met downtown to talk about bar safety on Monday.
This follows a summer of increased violence at Madison bars and controversial policies some put in place to control that.
The turnout was huge, especially if you consider that fewer than ten people showed up to the one before this.
Organizers had to bring in extra chairs to the Madison Senior Center to make room for everyone at this safety training.
City leaders talked about when to call police and what is an acceptable entrance policy.
The city got involved last fall when some downtown bars required guests to have a driver's license or a passport to get in, rather than just a state ID.
There were concerns that the policy discriminated because research shows African-Americans and Latinos in Wisconsin are less likely to have a driver's license.
Monday, they discussed other ways to keep bars safe like enforcing a dress code.
Madison has a session like this every six months, but the alcohol policy coordinator worked to revamp the program this time.
"We want it to be productive. We want people to want to attend. We want them to gain new information," said Mark Woulf, the alcohol policy coordinator.
"In the past, it's been more drab. Truthfully, it's been boring in the past and when only 10 people show up you don't get a lot of insight to other bars and their problems," said Hawk Sullivan, owner of Hawk's Bar & Grill.
He says it was much better Monday night.
Instead of just having a police officer, Madison included the City Attorney's office and the Department of Civil Rights in the discussion.
They also tried to keep it shorter than the three or four hours it's run in the past.
Meetings like this are especially important for police working with bars because, as an officer said Monday, there are only about nine officers patrolling downtown on a given night compared with more than 16,000 people all the bars downtown can serve.
