The controversial Ghostriders Tavern in Los Alamos may get a liquor license to reopen down the street from its former location, but with limits on hours of operation and a ban on amplified live music because of nearby homes.

That's the recommendation of an administrative law judge who sided partially with owner Gerald Gormley and partially with opponents who fear Ghostriders will be a noisy and troublesome “biker bar” if it reopens at 508 Bell St.

Its critics include representatives of St. Anthony's Catholic Church, which is 75 yards south of the former hardware store that will be the new Ghostriders.

Gormley, noting he has spent $1.1 million to buy and renovate that property at the southeast corner of Bell and Helena streets, insists it will be an upscale bar, not focusing on bikers as its clientele. He managed and briefly owned the former Ghostriders Steelhorse Tavern, 160 feet to the east, before that bar-restaurant lost its lease and closed down in December 2005.

St. Anthony's officials predict noise problems for the neighborhood, motorcycles parked on church property and safety concerns for parishioners walking past the bar or its patrons. They had urged that no liquor license be issued for Gormley's business.

However, Administrative Law Judge John McCarthy - who listened to hours of testimony from both sides in April - concluded the new Ghostriders “will not interfere with the normal operation” of either St. Anthony's or the nearby Cottonwood Community Church at 490 Main Street.

“While parishioners often walk to church for various activities, it strains belief to accept that walkers will be adversely affected by (bar) patrons,” McCarthy wrote in his proposed decision, dated June 15. “Alternate routes of no significant greater distance are easily available for the most skittish.”

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His proposed decision, including six restrictions on the bar's operations, has been forwarded to the director of state's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC).

Such license recommendations are usually approved intact by the director and are then briefly subject to appeal. Neither Gormley nor church representatives are planning to appeal, though, they said.

Other opponents of the proposed bar could not be reached for comment.

As recommended by McCarthy, Ghostriders could operate only from 8 a.m. to

11:30 p.m. daily and have no live music besides an acoustic guitar and one singer - without amplification and only inside, not on an outdoor patio. Patrons also wouldn't be allowed to loiter outside the bar or on its rear parking lot. Music from a jukebox inside the bar also must be inaudible from outside, when the doors of the building are closed.

Gormley said he's willing to live with those restrictions, even though he contended that they will cut deeply into his profits.

“Out of a need to just open up (for business), I'm going to accept those conditions,” he said. “It's been almost two years” since he began the process of getting approval to move Ghostriders to the new location.

Not having live entertainment and closing at 11:30 p.m., even on weekends, “will make the bar a compatible neighbor and make me nonprofit as a merchant,” Gormley asserted. “But the government doesn't seem to care about that.”

Live bands would increase the bar's income by 25 to 30 percent, he estimated.

That ban on amplified entertainment is necessary, though, “to protect the quiet enjoyment of nearby residents,” McCarthy concluded. Three residences are within 100 feet of the proposed bar, including one at 230 Helena that is only several feet from its rear parking lot and a detached building housing the bar's restrooms.

While the judge's proposed decision benefits the neighbors, it doesn't alleviate St. Anthony's concerns that church functions will be adversely affected by the nearby bar, said the church's attorney, Mario Juarez of Santa Maria.

“Of course we would prefer that the (liquor license) application not be approved,” he said. “It's definitely not a complete victory for either side. It's a compromise decision.”

Yet, if the ABC director accepts McCarthy's recommendations, “we probably would not” appeal, Juarez added.

Chuck Schultz can be reached

at 925-2691, Ext. 2241, or cschultz@santamariatimes.com.

July 30, 2007