Wild Greg's fires manager, bouncer after assault allegations, makes every night 18+

The owner of Wild Greg’s Saloon has fired the manager and bouncer behind recent assault allegations.

The Palafox Street bar’s owner, Gregory Urban, said Tuesday morning both Kurt Just and Kory Moegenburg had been terminated in light of allegations they denied entry to a group of men on May 4, then chased them down the street to pepper spray them after they left the bar. Moegenburg allegedly kicked one of the victims in the face.

Moegenburg faces additional charges of kidnapping and battery for allegedly taking a patron into an elevator on Feb. 11 and assaulting him.

Urban himself is also facing a charge based on the claim he and Just concealed surveillance video footage of the February incident.

Urban argues the police reports detailing the separate incidents don’t tell the full story, but he said the bar terminated the two suspects’ employment following community backlash.

“It’s too much of a distraction with all the news stories, we need to put some fresh faces in there and hopefully get the law enforcement side done and move forward,” Urban said Tuesday.

Urban also said his security staff is suffering without the benefit of off-duty Pensacola Police Department officers working on scene.

Many other establishments in the city employ the officers as security, where they can utilize their uniform, patrol car and the same resources an on-duty officer would have. Urban said he has had a difficult time getting off-duty officers to work, while he notes that Bedlam and World of Beer don't seem to have a problem recruiting help.

“We just feel it’s so unfair everybody else gets multiple officers,” Urban said. “When people come in (and see a police officer) it gives a sense of 'look, this place has rules, just come in, act decent and there won’t be problems here.'”

PPD spokesman Mike Wood said the PPD is not targeting Wild Greg’s, but the shortfall of off-duty officers demonstrates a wider issue of strained resources. And at the end of the day, the off-duty officers volunteer for the assignments and they get to choose where to work.

“Officers are not forced to work in an off-duty capacity, we have several off-duty jobs at several locations, they volunteer for those jobs,” he said. Wood added that other locations such as banks also struggle with maintaining off-duty officer numbers.

Urban said Wild Greg's in negotiating with a licensed third-party security company to instead supply bouncers for the club.

“We really want to get the security aspect of the business under control,” he said. “It’s unfortunate what got us in the news here and it’s frustrating because things have happened to us here, and the law enforcement officer would’ve arrested these people and taken them to jail for what they did if they had been here working security.”

Urban said a general manager from the Wild Greg’s Saloon location in Lakeland is relocating to Pensacola to take over the manager role, and the current head bartender will serve as assistant manager.

The bar’s Facebook page also announced this week that as part of its plight to “Make Wild Greg’s Great Again” it will open the bar through the summer to teenagers aged 18-21, as well as the over-21 crowd.

Until now, only Thursday's College Night was open to teens. The bar is open Thursday through Saturday.

Moegenburg and Just are both scheduled to be arraigned in Escambia County court Thursday morning for the battery charges relating to the pepper-spraying incident. Urban is scheduled to be arraigned June 7.

Emma Kennedy can be reached at ekennedy@pnj.com or 850-435-8680.