The Selma City Council Public Safety Committee decided they would, “stick with the law on this one,” when deciding if the business license for Club Entourage would be granted this month, instead of in June of 2013.

After a string of violent acts occurred outside of Club Entourage on Alabama Avenue in June, the council moved to revoke the business license of Clyde Richardson, owner of the club. At last week’s council meeting, Richardson approached the council asking them to reconsider their decision and let him get the business license back sooner than the one year the city ordinance specifies it should be revoked.

“This ordinance was applied to two institutions or two clubs back in 2004 and Chief Riley, we started talking and said it needed to be more than six months,” city attorney Jimmy Nunn said about the ordinance which was once to hold the license for six months. Then, Nunn said, the ordinance was amended to be for one year.

“We can repeal this [ordinance] or repeal and amend to put [the ordinance] up to two years but it would not be retroactive,” Nunn said.

After Richardson addressed the committee and asked that they consider granting him the business license now, though it has only been six months, the committee said they would make a recommendation to the council.

“We have no choice really but to follow the law in this situation,” Ward 1 councilman Cecil Williamson said.

The committee will make a recommendation to the council to keep Richardson’s business license revoked until one year has expired in June of 2013, as the city ordinance suggests.

Linda Booker and members of the Booker family came to the meeting to ask the council to not renew Richardson’s business license after they lost a family member from violence at Club Entourage.

“Where I’m from when something like this happens at a club, the club gets shut down totally,” Booker said to the committee. “There isn’t any discussion about if the business can reopen.”

Nunn said in June when Richardson will be eligible for getting a new business license, he will have to apply for one and go through inspections as if he were applying for a business license for the first time.

“If the city refuses to give him a license then he can file something against the city,” Nunn said and added that Richardson has kept his liquor license and will only have to renew it, not reapply for one.