Harvey officials, who have watched late-night clubs operate in their city for years, will require “alcohol-related businesses” to close by midnight.

Beginning Nov. 1, businesses in Harvey that sell, serve or permit alcohol consumption must close by midnight or be considered in violation of a new city ordinance enacted Monday in an effort to enhance public safety and refocus scarce police resources, Mayor Christopher Clark said.

Restaurants and hotels, however, may remain open serving food as long as they don’t allow alcohol sales or consumption, according to the ordinance.

The City ouncil’s decision to tighten restrictions on alcoholic beverage sales came just days after a Harvey strip club, where a man was fatally shot this year, reopened upon reaching an agreement with the city.

“It’s a health and safety issue,” Clark said. “We need to be able to create an environment that is safe for our residents and for people that visit our city.”

Many establishments currently sell liquor until at least 2 a.m., while some have obtained “extended hours” licenses that permit them to continue selling until 5 a.m., officials said.

Related legislation passed Monday enhances penalties for violators of the city’s alcoholic beverage ordinances and abolishes the extended hours license, meaning that no new businesses will be able to seek extended licenses and businesses that already hold them will be unable to renew them, Clark said.

Harvey, which has a population of around 25,000, currently has 42 establishments with some type of state liquor license and 20 businesses that are licensed for on-premises consumption, according to Illinois Liquor Control Commission records.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many city businesses hold extended hours licenses, but Ald. Dominique Randle-El said he knew of at least four strip clubs operating in the city that stay open late.

Randle-El, a former Harvey police booking officer who supports the ordinances, said he viewed them as necessary to enhance public safety and unburden the overstretched police force.

He said in his experience limited police resources had been directed to keep tabs on the city’s late-night clubs, where the potential for violence is heightened, at the expense of patrolling the rest of the city.

“When you have that many nightclubs operating, what I’ve seen in the past is, just the amount of police attention that you have to give to these entities because they’re just in existence,” he said. “I think overall we need to reduce the amount of these places we have because of that alone. We just don’t have the resources to constantly put that attention there.”

Clark, however, was quick to point out that the ordinances were not intended to target late-night clubs and that he did not want to create the perception that the city was “waging war” on clubs and bars.

“It’s all about changing the overall perception of the city,” he said. “It’s become the place where basically anything goes, and we want to let everyone know — people in Harvey, people outside of Harvey, we want to let businesses and investors know —that it’s not business as usual anymore. That we will be aggressively pursuing whatever avenue we can to try to make this a family friendly environment.”

Clark said Harvey also will ramp up enforcement of laws that are already on the books but were not necessarily being applied by the prior administration.

“Our current laws work,” he said. “There just hasn’t been much as far as enforcement is concerned.”

For example, by ordinance, liquor license holders who apply for an extended hours license are supposed to retain licensed security personnel, install outside surveillance cameras and submit a written safety plan as part of their application.

They also must agree to shut down immediately following a violent incident and to remain closed until they’ve modified their security plan to the city’s satisfaction.

Those requirements, Clark said, have been applied selectively, depending on the applicant, and vowed to change past practices.

In addition to restricting the hours when liquor can be sold, the Harvey City Council on Monday also hiked fines for first-time violators of its alcoholic beverage ordinances from $1,000 to $2,500, Clark said. Fines for second-time and third-time offenders will remain the same — $5,000 and $10,000, respectively — but will be enforced more aggressively, the mayor said.

Randle-El said some club owners were in attendance at Monday’s meeting, but that none spoke out against the council’s liquor-related ordinances and Clark said he hadn’t received any pushback from bar and club owners regarding the city’s renewed emphasis on code enforcement.

Boogie Nights, a strip club that Harvey closed this year following a fatal shooting in its parking lot, reopened this past weekend with the city’s blessing.

The club, at 14701 S. Wood St., had been shuttered since March 13, when the son of a Harvey police officer shot two security guards and a patron after being denied entrance and was subsequently shot dead, according to police.

The club’s operators filed a lawsuit against the city on April 29, alleging Harvey had violated their due process rights by refusing to hold a formal hearing on the club’s business license suspension within 30 days, as is required by city ordinance.

Because failure to conduct such a hearing within the prescribed time period results in the automatic reinstatement of a suspended business license, Boogie Nights argued that its license should be reinstated immediately and that damages should be awarded.

Clark, who inherited the lawsuit when he took office in May, said the city worked out an agreement with Boogie Nights that allowed the club to reopen if its owners dropped the lawsuit. No money changed hands, he said.

“We weren’t in a position of strength with the negotiations. Closing them and closing them improperly was wrong, and so we didn’t have much room to negotiate,” Clark said. “The most we could do to help save the city additional expense was to go ahead and capitulate.”

Randle-El said he supported the decision to let the club reopen.

“We have to do right by any business and give them the proper due process if we intend to close them,” he said. “That didn’t happen, so we have to make that right and open them back up. That’s just the right thing to do.”

Dan Garbis, an attorney for the club’s owners, said they were willing to work with city officials and had thus far had productive discussions with the new administration.

He said Boogie Nights employed licensed security guards when the March shooting happened, but that he believed his clients intended to bring in a couple more to forestall any future violence.