STOUGHTON (WKOW) -- A Stoughton bar is under close watch as police crack down after responding to several calls about fights and disturbances.
Cheap Shots Bar and Grill in Stoughton has met with police before to work on curbing violence and now it's affecting everything down to the music they play.
Cheap Shots occasionally brings in DJs to host hip hop parties. In a letter sent to the bar manager dated last week, police say they were disappointed to hear about a hip hop night planned for this Friday. It specifically noted that the event was promoted in the Allied Drive and Britta Park neighborhoods, a predominantly African-American area.
The manager says he's trying to work with police and didn't want to comment, while police would only send us a record of calls and checks they've had at Cheap Shots since 2009.
In Janesville, Quotes is facing repercussions after difficulties with police.
"Unfortunately, I was very aggressive in calling the police department for any disturbance," says owner Denise Carpenter.
The calls added up. Now, they're under restrictions that include closing at 12:30 a.m. until October and then at 1 a.m. until December.
"Instead of getting business up until 12:30 a.m., we're almost getting no business now," says manager Libby Carpenter.
"A lot of customers are going to other communities that do offer dancing," says Denise.
No one from Janesville police was available, but they've been quoted in a local paper saying the bar owner hasn't worked with them and hopefully these sanctions will end what they call a "culture of violence."
"You can revoke a license for having boisterous and unruly establishment, but there are no guidelines or criteria to determine what is unruly or boisterous," Denise says.
And what role does music play in that?
"You can say music draws a crowd. I don't think it's fair to cut off a crowd," Libby says. "The best times in here: the place is packed and people are sweating from dancing. It's amazing."
The owner and manager of Quotes say they've improved security a lot since July.
They say they don't fill the bar to capacity, they have a stricter dress code and have 22 security cameras up.
