Plymouth Officials Discuss Possible Future of The Rock Bar & Grill

The former owners of the popular The Post Bar chain, which had locations around metro-Detroit, have submitted an application to the City of Plymouth to transfer the Class C liquor license at 844 Penniman, formerly Rock Bar & Grill. 

Northville residents Jim and Jennifer Dales sold their share of the bar chain in 2007 and said they are now looking to get back into business by opening a new bar in Plymouth, to be called The Post.

Plymouth's Liquor License Review Committee reviewed the application Monday night, where all three committee members, Mayor Dan Dwyer and Commissioners Ed Hingelberg and Meg Dooley, voiced concerns of not having another Rock Bar. 

The Rock Bar & Grill has been closed since January after bar owner Kevin Montagano agreed to terms with the City of Plymouth to close the restaurant and seek new ownership in lieu of the city recommending revocation of its liquor license to the state's Liquor Control Commission after numerous liquor-related violations.

Jim Dale said they are trying to create some difference from how the bar was operated after it was sold by intentionally leaving off 'Bar' on the name of the new business. In addition, the logo is different.

"We're not looking to recreate a party bar for 22-year-olds," he said. "We want to be busy seven nights a week, not just from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. We wrestled on what to do about that name too. But we just feel like its a known brand that Jennifer's family built for 25 years. I think people have a lot of great memories of being at The Post Bar and we think there's a lot of good that can be built upon that. We'd like the chance to freshen it and create a different concept. We're older now too. We're interested in being a local place, serving local people."

Dale said he was aware of the problems with the the owners and management of The Rock Bar and said the difference would be that his wife would be on site running the bar.

Hingelberg said he was concerned with the proposed menu as well as the fact the business plan says it will welcome families before 10 p.m.

"This looks like a bar menu to me," he said. "This looks like I'm going to go out and get some beers and 'oh I might as well grab something to eat' rather than the other way around."

Police Chief Al Cox provided the committee with a list of all previous Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC) violations as well as the number of assault and disorderly calls for police service at the multiple bar locations during the Dales' ownership. 

The MLCC violations include numerous sales to an intoxicated person, allowing an intoxicated person to consume and allowing an intoxicated person to loiter. There were also cases of selling to a minor in Auburn Hills, Detroit, Ferndale and East Lansing. 

Ferndale also had 24 assault and battery complaints and 29 disorderly conduct complaints between 2000 to 2007 while Novi had 27 assault and battery complaints and 12 disorderly conduct complaints from 2003 to 2007, according to the report.

Colleen Pobur, a former Liquor Control Commissioner, said the list of violations was actually a pretty good record.

"When I looked at this list of violations, not talking about the police calls, just the MLCC violations, to me this is an extremely good record over the period of time you're talking about because of the nature of the violations," she said. "There's a triad of violations that always get written together. It's become a standard the way the police and liquor control writes violations" service to intoxicated person, allowing an intoxicated person to consume and allowing an intoxicated person to loiter. They all spell as one violation to me as opposed to three violations.

"If you look at the volume they did in their establishments, and the locations that they were in, relatively speaking compared to vast majority of licensees that I dealt with, they're pretty good record from the MLCC perspective," Pobur added.

Plymouth resident Janet Adkins lives on Penniman Avenue across from the bar. She told the committee that the same name will "immediately draw the type of crowd it had before."

".... that is unacceptable," she said. "It brought unsavory people, it brought violence and it brought liquor control license problems. It's easy to say you're going to stay on top of it and there's going to be someone there. I'm not saying don't give them a chance, but I would hope that you (city) would set some very tight guidelines of when action will be taken, because that was one of the issues with The Rock Bar. You let things go on too long before you really started to do something useful."

No action was taken at the meeting. The application will come back before the committee in two weeks.