Most of the nightclub operations in Selma or the police jurisdiction are operating with legal licenses, according to a survey by The Selma Times-Journal of lists of clubs and business licenses, but some of those clubs have had at least one legal issue, costing money and creating concerns.

Only one downtown club, the 12 Tropicana, does not have a business license, according to city tax records. Outside of club 12 Tropicana is the site of a shooting Saturday, Jan. 15 that left one dead, Rodney Martin, and four others injured and led to the manhunt and eventual capture of 29-year-old Ronald Fitts.

Fitts was arrested in Henrico County, Va. last week. He’ll be returned soon to Selma to be processed through the justice system.

Other downtown clubs — 12th Stone, Blues 24/7, Entourage Lounge and Warren’s Old Southern Tavern — have licenses for 2010 and are in the process of renewing them for 2011.

Roosevelt Goolsby, director of the Selma Tax and License Department, said businesses operating in Selma and the police jurisdiction, which is a five-mile radius around the city, must renew their license every January.

“We give them until the end of January. If they haven’t renewed, then they aren’t in compliance,” Goolsby said.

For nightclubs, the owner must first obtain a permit from the Alcohol Beverage Control Board of Alabama to sell liquor before he or she may apply for a city business license, Goolsby said.

To obtain the ABC license, a person must apply with the name, date, place of birth, address, telephone number, race, gender, driver’s license number and social security number of every person who has any ownership or profit right in the establishment. In addition, the criminal history of the last 10 years must be given to the board, including those of the board of directors. The ABC requires the name of the courts and the disposition, or result of each matter.

Additionally the licensee must sign an agreement allowing agents of the ABC Board or other commissioned law enforcement officers to enter and search the premises without a warrant and any other building owned by the licensee adjacent or adjoining to the premises, even if the site is used as a private dwelling.

The applicant must provide financial statements related to ownership and operation of the facility and evidence of ownership or lease of the building.

Agent Mark Barber works the Selma area. He confirmed by telephone the 12 Tropicana did not have a license from the ABC.

Goolsby said the manager of the Tropicana said because he rented the space to others and didn’t sell liquor, but provided set-ups only, he didn’t need a license.

Goolsby didn’t know the name of the manager, and the tax record had no record of an establishment at the Alabama Avenue address, where the old Tropical or the old Tropicana once operated.

“They have changed hands so much and names so much you can’t keep up with them,” Goolsby said.

The Selma Times-Journal checked the Alabama Secretary of State and the county office of records and could not find corporate papers for clubs or businesses operating under the names of Tropical, Tropicana or 12 Tropicana.

James Brown of Tuscaloosa, who owns Blues 24/7, around the corner from the 12 Tropicana on Washington Street, said he understood the Alabama Avenue-based club operated as a BYOB or a Bring Your Own Bottle, which doesn’t require a license from the ABC.

When pushed about the nature of clubs in downtown Selma, Brown said his is for adults. “It’s quiet. We don’t deal with that type of setting,” Brown said.

When asked why his club opened, then closed and re-opened just last August, Brown cut the telephone interview short.

“I’m from Tuscaloosa and I don’t know much about what’s happening,” he said. “I don’t want to get in that story. I don’t want to put my business in jeopardy. I don’t know. I’m like on foreign ground.”

Clyde Richardson operates the Entourage Lounge at 1212 Alabama Ave., across the street from the 12 Tropicana. He has a license, which allows him to operate in the city, but the license does not have an activity date filled out on the paperwork received from the city tax office.

The telephone number supplied on the license to the city is disconnected.

On corporate papers filed in the office of records at the Dallas County Courthouse, Richardson is listed as the only agent of the corporation, which gives Richardson’s home address as 5007 Freeman Dr., Selma. The papers were filed Oct. 4, 2010, making the Club Entourage a limited liability corporation.

But the Entourage existed before Oct. 4, 2010, according to a judgment filed against the lounge and its owner, Richardson. That judgment was filed in Oct. 6, 2008, for $100,370 in a Dallas Circuit Court case brought by Antonio Green.

Antonio Green sued the club and Richardson, claiming Antonio Green, the minor son of Georgetta Green, was sold or given alcoholic beverages on May 27, 2007. The complaint also alleges Antonio Green became intoxicated and while on the dance floor of the club was shot in his right lower arm.

The complaint also alleges those in charge of the club allowed Ken Prevo to enter the club with a weapon. Prevo was accused of shooting Green.

Although a judgment was entered in the court file, the case remains open because the judge in the case set aside the judgment at the request of attorneys for Richardson, according to circuit court records.

Two blocks over on Water Avenue, is the 12th Stone, commonly called 12 Stone by most locals. Also operates with the proper license, but it has suffered some legal issues.

Carvin Thomas is listed as the licensee for the 12th Stone, 1408 Water Ave., Selma, in city records. Attempts to reach Thomas at the telephone number listed on the license were unsuccessful.

The club was incorporated April 3, 2002, as a food and entertainment establishment by agents Maurice Watson and Kindaka Sanders, son of state Sen. Hank Sanders and Faya Rose Touré. The location at the time was at 1410 Water Ave., according to records at the Alabama Secretary of State’s office.

However, that corporation was dissolved May 25, 2005, according to business records in the secretary of state’s office.

There are no corporate records in the secretary of state’s office or in the county office of records showing how 12th Stone became licensed on Dec. 7, 2004, in a new location before a club of the same name and two doors down dissolved its business.

Thomas and 12th Stone were defendants in a Dallas County Circuit Court case filed April 15, 2008. Neither Thomas nor any attorneys responded to the complaint filed by Ralph Eugene Pruitt during the 30-day response period.

Pruitt claimed he slipped and fell in the club and alleged the club’s ownership and licensees and others were negligent.

The court ordered a $750,000 judgment against 12th Stone, and the club and its ownership were charged $320 in court costs.

Additionally, in November 2007 the State of Alabama placed a tax lien on 12th Stone for sales taxes due for April, May and June 2006 for a total of $333.66. The lien was released June 19, 2010.

More recently, the outside of the 12th Stone was the site of a shooting that left one man dead of a gunshot wound to chest. Ronald Darnell Cooper, 21, is in the Dallas County Jail under $1 million bond, charged with murder.