VIDALIA — City officials have asked them to do so, but the owners of Danny’s Lounge in Vidalia have not started to voluntarily shut the bar down at 2 a.m.

Co-owner Danny White Jr. said that is because all of the owners — several family members — want a formal agreement with the city.

“I would rather have an agreement than this going back and forth between us,” White said.

The Vidalia Board of Aldermen made the request that the proprietors close the bar at 2 a.m. at their August meeting.

Last Saturday, the club shut down between 3 and 3:30 a.m., and there were a number of Vidalia police officers there at the request of the owners, Police Chief Tapper Hendricks said.

“They didn’t shut down until after 3 a.m., but the police presence probably ran a bunch (of people) off,” Hendricks said.

The police have received more than 20 complaints related to the bar in the last eight months, ranging from criminal mischief and drug violations to carrying of weapons, aggravated battery, shootings, purse snatchings, shots fired and hit-and runs.

But White said many of the incidents connected to the bar do not, in fact, have any connection to the bar.

“Any night we are open they want to blame anything that happens in that area on us,” he said. “We have had some incidents, but most of it is bogus.”

Just because crime — whether drug-related or just loud music from a car — happens near somewhere does not mean that it is connected, White said.

“Someone could pull up at the city jailhouse and make a drug transaction,” he said.

Nonetheless, White said he would like more of a police presence near the nightclub to deter possible crime or disturbances.

“Someone isn’t going to pull out of a parking lot playing music really loud if they see the police,” he said.