The City Council is expected on Thursday to consider a long-delayed overhaul of rules for New Orleans businesses that sell alcohol, but council members remain divided on the proposal and at least one wants the issue to be deferred yet again.

If the new rules are considered, some council members apparently will push for revisions meant to soften the blow to bar owners.

The proposed revisions to how the city handles bars and restaurants have been churning in the background for years, pushed by former Mayor Mitch Landrieu's administration and members of two successive councils and opposed by some business owners and cultural groups.

Along the way, provisions that would have required camera surveillance of patrons and some other controversial elements have been, for the most part, stripped out.

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But that still leaves a central issue heading into Thursday's meeting: new rules that would grant the city’s Alcohol and Beverage Control Board the power to suspend a business’s alcohol permit if officials believe it poses a "direct and immediate danger" to the public. The Department of Safety and Permits and the chiefs of the police and fire departments would also have emergency suspension power.

Whether to move forward with that plan, and allow city departments to draft the detailed rules governing such suspensions, or delay a vote so the council can hammer out the details themselves is expected to be the focus of the debate.

The measure would also require bar owners to pay outstanding taxes and fines before receiving a new alcohol permit.

The new rules, sponsored by council members Kristin Gisleson Palmer and Cyndi Nguyen, are meant to “ensure that those entrusted to sell controlled substances that can have severe and negative impacts on our community and neighborhoods understand their responsibility to operate (responsibly),” Palmer has said.

On Wednesday, Palmer's chief of staff, Andrew Sullivan, said the proposed ordinance has been amended significantly from its original version to address concerns raised by various groups.

But Council President Helena Moreno said she thinks the emergency provision in the rules would deprive bars of their right to due process.

“I do believe we should have local powers for emergency suspensions, but only after the permittee has the opportunity for an emergency hearing,” she said in a statement. “That is the only way we can ensure fairness on both sides.”

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Moreno is expected to introduce an amendment Thursday that would allow for that kind of hearing, while Palmer is expected to introduce a competing amendment that more closely follows her original plan, council staffers said.

Palmer's office has said she wants to let city departments determine exactly how the suspension process would work before the council votes to put it into effect, meaning council members could still weigh in on the final rules.

The suspension provision has struck fear in some bar owners and workers, who say it could be used to put establishments out of business without even a chance to make their case.

Sarah Manowitz, the general manager at Oz, said that's a particular concern for establishments such as hers that cater to the LGBTQ community. She raised fears that they could be targeted, particularly in light of state raids on two such bars this year and other actions against strip clubs in the French Quarter in recent years.

"I think that it affects everyone, but very specifically can have a disparate impact on the gay community, on strip clubs, on burlesque and all of that, especially with things like emergency suspension," Manowitz said. "The language in the ordinance doesn’t specify what an emergency is to begin with. They could come into any of the gay bars and decide that whatever is going on is an emergency."

Meanwhile, Councilman Jason Williams has asked for the entire matter to be delayed until Oct. 7 or later because he won’t be present Thursday. Williams has been among those in favor of softening many of the proposed ordinance's provisions.

"I'm not asking anyone to vote against their policy preferences," Williams said in a letter to his colleagues. "I'm simply asking that (the issue) be deferred to the next council meeting, or in the alternative, scheduled for a special meeting the following Monday."

The rules were supposed to have been considered Sept. 19, when he had planned to be in town, he said.

Erin Holmes, executive director of the Vieux Carre Property Owners, Residents and Associates, said the new rules are important to clear up ambiguities in the law and provide "a clear set of expectations for how responsible owners should operate."

While saying she understood concerns that the suspensions could be used arbitrarily, Holmes said she supported allowing city staffers to hash out the rules and said recent violence has shown that such a provision is necessary.

"In extreme cases an emergency suspension might be necessary," Holmes said. "There have been issues recently with bars that have had multiple shootings. These are bars that are presenting a direct threat to patrons, staff and the community at large."

Landrieu’s administration proposed but then shelved plans to force bars to install exterior cameras.

Supporters of the ordinance want to crack down on problematic bars that have been able to continue operating because of loopholes in the city's rules and to improve the collection of taxes from all businesses that serve alcohol. Less controversially, they want to eliminate outdated provisions and update the city's code to bring it in line with state law.

The current City Council and Mayor LaToya Cantrell renewed the effort last December. An early draft that still pushed for requiring cameras at certain bars was revised considerably after numerous complaints from business owners, bartenders and entertainers.

The latest version of the proposed rules does not require any cameras and softens many other elements that drew the ire of bar owners, restaurateurs and other groups. It grants emergency suspension provisions to the city’s Alcohol and Beverage Control Board, develops an appeals process for applicants who are denied a liquor permit or renewal, and deletes language in the city’s code that hasn’t been updated in decades, such as rules that ban women from asking men for drinks in bars.

Ethan Ellestad of the Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans, an organization that has fought for changes to the rules since they were introduced under Landrieu, said his group could generally live with the current version of the ordinance.

“Honestly, for us, the council members have been really receptive,” he said. “Doesn’t mean that everything we wanted happened, but I do feel like they involved us in the process.”

One group unhappy with Palmer and Nguyen’s proposal is the French Quarter Business League, whose attorney, Ike Spears, said Wednesday that the proposed rules are “classic examples of over-regulation in (Palmer’s) attempt to regulate what she has characterized as ‘nuisance bars.’”

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In the days leading up to the vote, Palmer has made some concessions, said Williams’ chief of staff, Keith Lampkin. A provision that would have prevented people who have been incarcerated from obtaining a bar permit has been removed.

But Moreno is still pushing to give bars the right to a hearing before they lose their permits. It was unclear Wednesday if she will have the support of a majority of her colleagues.

She said some supporters of the current plan are hoping the city's agencies will use "emergency powers for unchecked action against nuisance bars without due process … even if there isn’t an actual emergency."

She said she would support the ordinance "if we can get it right."

Staff writer Jeff Adelson contributed to this report.