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City Manager John “Jack” Kelly and Asbury Park Police Chief Mark Kinmon are scheduled to meet Thursday with the owners of one of the city’s most popular restaurants to discuss several quality of life issues that crop up when the restaurant morphs into a late night dance club on the weekends.

The meeting stems from issues council members have brought up at recent council sessions.

“Porta is a problem,” said Councilman John Moor at the Wednesday City Council meeting. “I brought it up two weeks ago and I never mentioned their name, I was under the impression two weeks ago that it was going to be solved. To me, it is not getting better it is getting worse…It’s draining the city via the police cost, it’s a disgrace to the city as far as trash, it’s a disgrace to crowd control, and it seems to be never ending. It’s definitely a quality of life issue for everyone.”

“We’ve gone through this before,” said Councilman John Loffredo. “The thing is what goes on at Porta past a certain time. For some reason, the whole thing changes. The whole demeanor of the people, the families aren’t there — it just becomes a different place.”

All of the city’s liquor licenses are up for renewal July 1. Hearings on the renewals start in June.

Complaints from residents and a recent early morning incident outside the location caused the council to seek action, which may include putting restrictions on the establishment’s liquor license.

Potential restrictions include possible suspension or revocation of the liquor license, a restriction on operating hours, Kelly said. The decision would be left up to City Council members.

Kinmon informed the council the police department is in the midst of compiling a list of incidents related to Porta for the June hearing, as per Kelly’s request. Porta owners will have a chance to review the incidents before the hearing takes place, Kelly said.

“There are brutal fights happening all over the place there and multiple on-duty cops have been called over there,” Moor said.

Restrictions were thought to have already been put into place, including a stipulation that the owners hire off-duty Asbury Park police officers to help with crowd control on Friday and Saturday nights, but nothing was ever put into writing save for an obligation for the owners to send someone out to clean the sidewalks, Moor said.

“The restrictions are there are no restrictions,” said Moor. “What we have now are handshake agreements that are not working.”

In December, Porta owners increased the amount of Asbury Park Police officers they employ from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., which they had reduced after the summer season ended.

Jim Watt, one of the owners of Porta, did not return the Sun’s two request for comment today.

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