It's a familiar story in Madison. Neighbors of a bar who were leery of it opening in the first place complain that their worst fears are being realized as customers, traffic and noise multiply. The owners say it's not their patrons who are causing the problems, but people hanging around outside. Disgruntled neighbors are setting them up with a campaign of police calls, they protest.

That was the picture this summer for R Place on Park, a labor of love for owners Rick Flowers and Annie Weatherby-Flowers that opened in south Madison in early 2008 and was building a reputation for live music nights led by jazz drummer Flowers.

And then: Boom! Boom! Boom!

A series of loud - very loud - gunshots rang out from a parking lot in the rear of R Place at 1821 S. Park St. early on Oct. 10. No one was hurt, but the next day, police recovered a bullet from the living room wall of a house right behind R Place, where its most vocal detractors live. A police report says the round struck the wall about four feet above the floor. It appeared to have been fired from a large, .40-caliber weapon.

It was the fifth reported weapons incident at the bar this year, and the third since May substantiated by police. A man was shot in the thigh in one of the incidents. "Without intervention, it is certain that the potential for injury or loss of life will remain alarmingly high," a police summary on calls for service to the bar concludes.

But the issue is not really R Place, says Flowers, the issue is the societal forces and city policies that put unreasonable demands on bars popular with the black community and set them up to fail.

The controversy over black bars in Madison has been simmering for a long time. Back in the mid-1990s, closings of several venues -- the Underground on Gorham Street, the Paramount Music Hall on North Park Street -- after violent incidents spurred a public debate over allegations that racism was behind a heightened level of scrutiny of the mostly black crowds drawn by the hip-hop music offered there. A study by the city's Equal Opportunities Commission found what appeared to be a different standard for bars that cater to people of color compared to campus-area bars, recalls Bert Zipperer, who is still a member of the commission. But recommendations to subject all bars to unannounced inspections and adopt a standardized point system to replace the subjective "disorderly house" standard were never adopted, he says.

More recently, an owner of A Place for Friends, across Sherman Avenue from pricey Maple Bluff, said police labeled the bar a problem because of its mostly black patrons. The city pulled the bar's liquor license early this year, deeming it a "disorderly or riotous house," after the pistol-whipping robbery of a patron on premises capped what police called a pattern of ordinance violations.

At a meeting with police last week, Flowers and Weatherby got a list of steps designed to quell problems at R Place: better lighting and camera surveillance outside, barriers to stop cars from circling the building, posting of "no trespassing" signs and a practice of enforcing the rule. "Things absolutely have to change," says South District Capt. Joe Balles. "When we have bullets going into people's living rooms in the middle of the night, that's it."

Flowers, who is black, says he wishes white people would try to understand the significance of the fact that his bar is the only place in town that caters primarily to people of color.

When the majority culture cringes at bars that are "too dark," he says, that fosters policies that limit the number of black bars and puts the few allowed to operate in an impossible situation. Because there is no other "black" bar in Madison, Flowers says, R Place draws not only the mature clientele willing to pay a cover charge to hear live music, but also those who cruise outside but never come in. Because R Place is the focus of nightlife for people of color, he says, if you've got a beef with someone who's black, it's the place to go to try to get a shot at them.

"Young people with guns are a national phenomenon, and they want a mom-and-pop to resolve it," says Weatherby-Flowers, who is on staff with the city's Department of Civil Rights and a force behind local African-American cultural events like the annual Juneteenth celebration.

Two of the gun incidents since May were armed hold-ups that according to "word on the street," were done by the same group that has pulled other hold-ups in the area over the past year, Flowers says. Police have not arrested anyone. The police department has tens of millions in its budget, "and they can't deal with these shooters. They come over here and I'm supposed to deal with it. They wouldn't ask that of white people," he says.

Kevin McGettigan bristles when Flowers' allegations of racism are raised in an interview. "I haven't wanted to mention this issue,' he says. "For us, it's not about his skin, it's about placement" of the bar.

McGettigan, who is white, lives across Beld Street from the rear of the bar and claims credit, with his neighbors, for placing at least half the 61 calls made about the bar to police this year. Drivers that cruise R Place sell drugs and alcohol from their cars, he says, leaving neighbors to pick up the torn bits of Baggies and empty booze bottles. And then there is the noise of circulating cars with booming sound systems, arguments, fights, and the loud music emanating from the club. South Park Street, with blocks of housing right behind it, is not the place for an establishment that amounts to a small night club, McGettigan says. "A neighborhood bar in a neighborhood is fine, but if you want an entertainment venue, you need a buffer zone for sound," he says. "And the issue has gone from sound to safety. Frankly, where there is gunplay, the neighbors are afraid."

Maria Brown says she finds the race card hard to take. "I don't care if he has polka dots, it's the location of the bar that is the concern," says Brown, a Native American who recalls that a beauty salon was operating where R Place is now 15 years ago when she and her husband bought their house on Beld Street. Neighborhood residents have worked to get drug dealing out of the neighborhood, she says, and they see the scene around R Place as a step backward. "I'm woken up two, three nights a week. I have to put my time and energy into this, and it's not what I want to put time and energy in to," Brown says.

Flowers has been putting his energy into R Place for the better part of the decade, and he says his experience underscores Madison's race-based alcohol licensing policies. In 2003, he sued the city, charging discrimination after officials refused to issue a liquor license for a bar on his property where R Place now operates. His lawsuit pointed to remarks by then-Alcohol License Review Committee head Tim Bruer supporting a supposed moratorium on liquor licenses in the "fragile neighborhoods" south of Wingra Creek.

There was no such moratorium, Flowers charged in his suit, and no official labeling of his Bram's Addition neighborhood as "fragile." He discounted the city's professed reasons for withholding a license -- a lack of parking, concerns over nearness to housing and a burden on police resources -- as "arbitrary and capricious." When the court refused to dismiss Flowers' lawsuit, the city agreed to settle, and Flowers got his liquor license.

Many of the problems city officials foresaw in refusing the license are manifesting themselves now, but Flowers blames the city's own policies in part. It's prohibition of parking on Park Street is groundless and contributes to the shortage of parking for the bar, he contends. And while police cite limited resources as a reason to not post a squad car outside R Place at bar time, police routinely provide security during the closing of downtown bars, Flowers says.

Still, he says he'll go along with the requirements put on by police, except for closing early. "That's not an option, that's punishing me for something I didn't do."

Balles says he thinks the black community will support the kind of mellow local music club Flowers has described if he and Weatherby can overcome the pressures of a rougher element. "I think they can make it, but they've got to stick the plan, hold on to the vision," he says, or the patrons they want to attract will be scared away.

Ald. Julia Kerr, who represents the neighborhood, echoes those thoughts. "Up until very recently, all I heard was positive things. There was good music, people liked the place."

As to the confluence of factors that may have set off violence around R Place? "It doesn't' matter, it's not acceptable to have people shooting at each other," Kerr says. "But I do hope they can turn it around and make a go of it."

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