WESTBROOK – Seventeen incidents in the past six months at Skybox Bar and Grill, including fights and a liquor law violation, have fueled a new effort to revoke the bar’s liquor license.

The city’s Municipal Officers, which include the seven city councilors and the mayor, will hold a public hearing Monday on whether to revoke the state license. That license was awarded to the bar in December 2008 by the Department of Public Safety’s Liquor Licensing and Compliance Division, after local officials denied it to owners Allen and Lynn Moore that August.

The Moores’ attorney, David Lourie, said local officials don’t have the jurisdiction to take away the license.

“You can’t revoke something you never granted,” he said at a meeting Monday, where the Municipal Officers voted to set the date of the public hearing.

“Once this license is issued, you’re done with the liquor license,” Lourie said.

The city’s attorney, Bill Dale, disagrees. He said that the state’s decision to grant the license is not “a freebie to act inappropriately.”

Both attorneys will lay out their positions in front of the Municipal Officers Monday.

The last time the Skybox stood in front of the board was in May when the owners failed to persuade the council to change a decision they made in April not to grant the Moores their food service, pool room and pinball licenses. The lack of a food service license would effectively shut down the bar because liquor cannot be sold at an establishment unless food is sold, too.

The Moores have challenged that ruling in court and also asked for a stay, which would prevent the city from enforcing its decision and allow the Brown Street bar to stay open until a judge makes a ruling on the appeal.

The court has not yet ruled on the request for a stay, but, because the motion has been made, Skybox has been able to continue to operate.

Skybox’s liquor license has been the subject of debate in front of city officials for a decade – long before the Moores got involved.

In 1999, when the bar was called Andy’s Tavern, officials denied a liquor license renewal to owner Jerry King, who also appealed to the state, which approved the license over the city’s rejection. Later, owners Tom and Ellen Dore defended the license in front the elected officials several times, and were denied renewal in March 2008. Sick of fighting with the city, the Dores closed Skybox. The Moores, who live nearby the bar and were regulars there, then decided to take on the battle.

The basis of the Municipal Officers’ decision not to renew the Dores’ license in February 2008 was that there had been 16 calls for police service to the bar during the previous year – a number that exceeded police incidents at any other bar in town. In not granting the food service license in April, councilors cited a complaint to the police department within the bar’s first week after reopening, saying it showed that Skybox continued to be a nuisance in the neighborhood.

In total, the police said there have been at least 17 incidents that occurred in and around the bar between April and October.

Regardless of what happens Monday, Allen Moore said he’s nowhere near ready to give up the fight to keep his bar open.

“They can have my business,” he said, “but they can pry it out of my dead hands.”