By a vote of 5-2, the Westbrook City Council voted to approve the renewal of the liquor license for the Skybox Bar and Grill Monday night.

The license renewal comes after the owners of the bar and neighbors reached an understanding about concerns neighbors had about the bar.

The police department intends to increase its presence on Brown Street with patrols by Westbrook’s two school resource officers after school is out and possibly establishing a substation on the street. The city plans to add new streetlights on the side streets off Brown Street.

At the same time, owners Tom and Ellen Dore will be adding an outside canopy awning they hope will reduce some of the noise when customers go outside to smoke. They’ll also be looking into adding a smoking deck next summer if their liquor license is renewed again next spring. They’ve already begun patrolling the outside of the bar every half hour at night.

Meanwhile, the City Council will watch to see if these measures do anything to reduce the noise and activity that has been attributed by some to the bar. If the measures don’t do anything, at least some of its members will be voting against a renewal next March.

“I’m still very much on the fence about this,” said Councilor Drew Gattine, who voted against the renewal Monday night.

“The spots on the leopard have not changed,” said Councilor John O’Hara, who also voted against the renewal. “It just doesn’t seem to go away. Even the best efforts have not changed a thing.”

Several in attendance at the meeting disagreed, including People’s Regional Opportunity Program Executive Director Grant Lee, who spoke in favor of a renewal. He said the secret to going forward in a positive manner is maintaining the relationships being established now between the Dores, the city, and the neighborhood.

The Dores and a number of Frenchtown neighbors met recently with Mayor Bruce Chuluda, City Administrator Jerre Bryant, Police Chief Paul McCarthy, Council President Brendan Rielly, and City Councilor Dottie Aube, among others. Besides the liquor license renewal, the group discussed what the city could do to help.

Suggestions included the new streetlights, improved police presence and efforts by the Dores, as well as potential traffic calming and sidewalk improvement measures that the city will be looking into.

While O’Hara said he believed the situation at the bar has not changed over his duration on the council, others said they felt the new owners were more responsive than the previous ones.

“I think the Dores have made much more of an effort than anybody else who has owned the bar,” said Aube, who lives down the street from the Skybox.

McCarthy said the bar had called police recently about a man who was thrown out of the bar, but before that, the last call to service was on Dec. 23, 2005.

If the council rejects the license renewal next spring, the Dores can appeal to the state, which has final authority over issuing the license regardless of how the council votes. It would then be up to the city to develop a strong enough argument against a renewal to convince the state. The council rejected a renewal once before when the bar was under different ownership, but the state approved the license over the city’s rejection.