The City Council, acting as the Liquor Control Commission, handed local bar P.K.’s a $250 fine Tuesday night for a violation of operation hours the first liquor code violation in the bar’s history.

The hearing officer’s report for the case states that two police officers testified that at 2:39 a.m. on Aug. 12 they peered in the front window of P.K.’s and noticed four men sitting at the bar drinking Budweiser. The officers said when they began knocking on the bar’s door, a woman came over and threw the beers away.

The bartender, Karen McNichols, was cited for violation of operating hours.

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Gwen Hunt, the owner of P.K.’s, said of the five people in the bar, three were employees but one was not working that evening. The other two people, one of whom was McNichol’s boyfriend, were there to help their friends clean up and give them rides home, Hunt said.

P.K.’s opened in 1955, Hunt said, and has had a liquor license since the mid-1960s.

Hunt said she is not happy to be fined but respects the commission’s decision.

I don’t try to stir up trouble, she said. I disagree on some things, but they make the laws and the laws are meant to be upheld.

The only question I have is why couldn’t they be doing something more beneficial at that time than looking in bar windows? Hunt continued.

I’ll take my whacks with the cane and get on with it.

Some commission members said the 3-2 decision to fine the business was too harsh because of P.K.’s clean record.

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Being in business since 1955, I would ask for leniency because this is the first time, Commission member Maggie Flanagan said. Flanagan, along with Richard Morris, voted against the fine.

Morris called P.K.’s lack of violations amazing and said he could not take the hard-line in this case.

Although I want to be tough, and I am going to be tough, I have to vote no here, he said.

Mayor Neil Dillard and Commission members Michael Neill and John Yow voted for the fine.

Neill said the decision was hard to make.

It was a tough one. It really was, he said. You can tell she runs a good operation there, he said.

Neill said the main reason he voted for the fine was because it was the action recommended by Jeff Doherty, the hearing officer for the case. Doherty is also the city manager. Neill said P.K.’s record was not enough to make him go against the recommendation of people who worked closely with the case.

Two other bars, The Checkered Flag and the Hideaway Lounge were also charged with operating after hours. The commission decided fines would be inappropriate, however, because they believed the time past operating hours was minimal and that any patrons left in the bars were waiting for taxis, Neill said.

The commission also decided two local bars should make an appearance before the commission to explain why their establishments have had a high amount of alcohol-related arrests.

Members voted unaminously to order representatives from Detours and Sidetracks to come to next month’s meeting.

Sidetracks has had 50 arrests on their premises between July 1 and Sept. 30, according to police reports. Detours has had 33. The only other bars with over 10 arrests during the period were Gatsby’s II with 21 and Stix with 14.

The meeting took place after a City Council meeting.