Police want to close violence-plagued bar

Keith Paul

Friday, Feb. 8, 2002 | 11:07 a.m.

Metro Police want the Clark County Commission to pull the liquor license of a northeast bar they say has a six-year history of violence, including three unsolved homicide cases.

Metro investigators are preparing a case for the commission against the Runway 21 Lounge based on a string of slayings -- including one this past weekend -- shootings and fights at the bar.

"It's not simple to take someone's (liquor) license. It's not something we do very often," said Sgt. Paul C. Page of Metro's special investigations section.

"We have worked with the owners in the past, but it gets to a point where it's not getting better, it's getting worse. We're at that point."

Page said he can't remember the last time the department sought to revoke a bar's liquor license.

Messages left for the owners of Runway 21 at their business office were not returned, and no managers were available to comment.

Police want to present the case to the commissioners at their next meeting Feb. 19. If the commissioners approve the license revocation, the case would be forwarded to a Clark County District Court judge for a hearing.

Runway 21 has had a license at its location on Craig Road near Nellis Boulevard since 1986, when it catered more to airmen who were stationed at Nellis Air Force Base.

But more recently the bar has become known to Metro for the gang members who go there, said Lt. Jim Owens of Metro's gang unit.

The state Gaming Control Board also is investigating the lounge, said Keith Copher, chief of enforcement for the control board.

The gaming investigation began prior to Saturday's slaying, but Copher would not reveal what initiated the probe.

"We're obviously looking at the suitability for a gaming license," he said.

Copher said if improprieties are discovered the information will be presented to the three-member board, which could revoke the bar's gaming license.

On Thursday afternoon children rode bikes and scooters on the sidewalk past the open door of the Runway 21 Lounge, locating in an aging strip mall. The barber shop a few stores down was packed with men waiting for haircuts.

Inside the dark, nondescript bar it was mostly quiet; there were two patrons -- one hunched over a drink playing video poker, the other chatting with the bartender.

There was no crowd, such as the one early Saturday, when police say Ricky N. Williams entered the packed lounge to confront a rival gang member. The confrontation about 3 a.m. Saturday turned into a gunfight.

More than 30 shots were fired from five different guns, and six people were shot. Williams, the person detectives believe was the instigator, died. The others survived their wounds.

Williams' slaying remains unsolved, as do the other two killings at the bar.

A 29-year-old bar security guard was shot and killed on April 29, 2000, after escorting a group of men from the lounge after an argument. One of the men went to a car, retrieved a gun, shot the guard and wounded four others.

In October 1996 a 26-year-old man was shot in the chest and killed inside Runway 21.