LOWELL — Downtown Lowell may seem like a normal place to stroll through at 6 p.m. on Saturday. With few people walking by, there is less hustle and bustle here than people might expect of a city.

But all that changes by midnight when young crowds start arriving from surrounding towns where bars have already closed. Two hours later, at 2 a.m., the downtown’s core streets — Middle and Palmer — are teeming with 20-somethings who pour out from the bars with a collective alcohol content level that would break an industrial-strength Breathalyzer.

The result isn’t pretty. Trashing begins. Broken beer bottles, public urination and puddles of vomit become part of nightly streetscapes, said downtown resident Chandra Parry. Fights and violence erupt, too.

“It’s turning into a Wild West town. Anything goes,” said George Duncan, founder and board chairman of Enterprise Bank on Merrimack Street. “It’s getting worse by the moment.”

“It’s a major issue that’s got to be dealt with,” said James Cook, executive director of The Lowell Plan.

Some downtown residents and business owners said the beating of two Westminster men on Middle Street shortly after 2 a.m. on Saturday was precipitated by the ongoing chaos in downtown. Duncan and Cook squarely put the blame on the city’s License Commission, which they said allows bars to serve alcohol into the early morning.

“What Lowell has become is the last-call town,” Duncan said. “I think it’s outrageous what’s been allowed to go on for some time now.”

License Commissioners Brian Akashian and Raymond Weicker both said Duncan’s claim that patrons are rushing into the city at midnight isn’t true. Last call is 1 a.m. in surrounding towns and 1:30 a.m. in Lowell, Aksashian said.

“They would have to drive to Lowell, find a parking lot and get into establishment” all within 30 minutes, Akashian said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Steve Syverson, a downtown resident who owns Van Gogh’s Gear art supplies store on Middle Street, said about Akashian’s response. “Whoever on the board said that is not paying attention.”

According to police, the Westminster men had left Village Smokehouse on Middle Street and were walking toward their car when they became involved in a verbal altercation with other men. Several men jumped out of a van at a parking lot in front of 172 Middle St. and attacked the pair, possibly using a bat or similar weapon. One victim was found face-down unconscious by a patrol officer at 2:18 a.m. and was flown to Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston with serious injuries. The other victim was sent to a local hospital with head and facial injuries. Police continue to investigate.

Village Smokehouse is offering a $1,000 reward if someone comes forward with information that leads to an arrest, said bar co-owner Tim Kelleher. Lowell’s Crimestoppers Program is also offering a reward for tips that lead to an arrest and conviction.

The incident followed a string of crime downtown in recent months.

* On Sunday, Jan. 15, a fight between two groups at Lee and Paige streets landed a 25-year-old man to a Boston trauma center with a stab wound. The man, who gave police addresses in Lowell and Nashua, had been at Brian’s Ivy Hall on Merrimack Street before the altercation.

* Earlier in January, an unidentified man vandalized the Babylon restaurant on Merrimack Street. A witness reported seeing a male suspect hurling a large building stone through the restaurant window about 3 a.m. The man was arrested.

* On the morning of Nov. 19, a Haverhill man was arrested at Brian’s Ivy Hall after allegedly trying to punch Boston Celtics player Rajon Rondo who was attending a promotional event at the bar.

Police in August reported an 82 percent increase in violence and disorder around downtown bars since the beginning of 2011. Police Superintendent Kenneth Lavallee recommended the City Council consider moving closing time from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m., or to see if bar owners will voluntarily close at 1 a.m., and allow only patrons already inside to drink until last call. The Police Department has so far spent about $42,000 in overtime during the year to control the downtown, Lavallee has said.

The officers on patrol are risking their lives, Duncan said.

“You won’t believe how out- of-control the crowds are at that hour,” Duncan said, adding that Enterprise Bank has been vandalized many times. “Four or five police officers cannot handle 500 drunk kids.”

Parry agrees with Duncan on safety of officers. Parry, who lives near Brian’s Ivy Hall, said she has had problems with loud music that is “pounding away” until early morning. She said many problems come from over-serving at downtown bars. She said bars should share the cost of police patrol.

“The solution is to shut the bars down at midnight and avoid this rush into the city from all the surrounding towns,” Duncan said.

Akashian said people would still be coming out of the bars all at once even if the closing time was 1 a.m.

Weicker said the commission oversees licensing issues. No one has complained to the commission about a license issue related to the weekend incident, so the commission cannot act, he said. Weicker added the commission has enforced regulations on a number of downtown establishments in the past, including Mr. Jalapeno on Merrimack Street, which was required to close at 11 p.m. for 10 days after an underage patron was found drinking.

Weicker said all complaints about downtown come from the same four residents.

“The License Commission cannot be out on the street at 2 in the morning,” Akashian said, adding more police should be downtown if crime is increasing.

Weicker said incidents appear to be concentrated in some sections of the downtown, including the Enterprise parking lot near where the beating took place. Weicker said Duncan may be trying to shift the blame to the commission.

“For the short term, the city needs to increase police presence down the Palmer Street area during the early- morning hours,” City Councilor Ed Kennedy said, adding that he believes the city can afford increased patrols. Closing bars earlier should also be part of discussions on long-range solutions, Kennedy said.

“We’ve been monitoring this and are very concerned with the increase in problems downtown,” said City Manager Bernie Lynch. “That is one of the reasons we have been trying to get the License Commission to change the times of their meetings (from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.), so more downtown residents and business owners can attend the meetings and be heard.”

Lynch said the city boosted the police overtime budget, providing a $100,000 infusion six weeks ago “to increase police patrols across the city, but particularly in the downtown and we have increased patrols downtown on Friday and Saturday nights.”

Additionally, Lavallee, the police superintendent, is meeting quarterly with downtown stakeholders, with another session planned for March.

Ted Lavash, who lives near the Enterprise lot, said downtown is growing chaotic at night. He said some bars are trying to let patrons out the doors more gradually over time. Downtown residents do not want to shut the bars, he said, but want a bit more peace.

“What we do have to realize is it’s a downtown district, but it’s also a neighborhood,” said City Councilor Rita Mercier, who has spoken with downtown residents about the problems. Mercier said people should not paint all the downtown bars with a broad brush because some of them monitor patrons carefully.

But, “we can’t just slide it under the carpet and say maybe it will go away next week,” Mercier said. “We need to have another type of a downtown summit whereby we meet bar owners and the residents and have a healthy discussion about how we can live in peace here.”

Sun reporter Jen Myers contributed to the report.