“A nightclub district is your long-term, serious solution,” Dylan Conley says. "It would be an economic driver while taking nuisances out of the neighborhoods.”

With political momentum growing for big changes in Providence’s nightlife scene, the chairman of the city’s liquor authority is proposing a “nightclub district” where clubs could operate with fewer restrictions in a concentrated area outside the city’s neighborhoods.

The idea would zig where others have zagged: Instead of cracking down on clubs that are open until 2 a.m. and making them close earlier, establishments in the nightclub district pitched by Board of Licenses Chairman Dylan Conley could serve alcohol and offer entertainment 24 hours a day.

In an interview, Conley said a nightclub district would alleviate problems in the neighborhoods that clubs now populate while focusing enforcement in an easier-to-police space. The area Conley has in mind is an industrial stretch of Allens Avenue and Poe Street between Lehigh Street and Public Street.

“A nightclub district is your long-term, serious solution,” he said in an interview at the Seven Stars bakery on Broadway. “It would be an economic driver while taking nuisances out of the neighborhoods.”

The idea has flavor of the Las Vegas strip or Bourbon Street in New Orleans, but also bears some hallmarks of Hamsterdam, the initiative in the fictional television show “The Wire” in which drug users were allowed to operate under the watchful eye of public health experts and a concentrated police force. (In the show, Hamsterdam is a success, especially for neighborhoods that become free from the violent grip of drug peddlers, but gets caught up in political machinations.)

To be clear, the idea doesn’t call for free reins on illegal activity, but it would allow bars to sell full bottles of alcohol — so-called “bottle service” is now prohibited — and permit hookah smoking with fewer restrictions. It would also be exempt from noise ordinances.

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Those are the sorts of issues that often come before the Board of Licenses, which meets three times a week.

Ward 11 City Councilwoman Mary Kay Harris, who represents the West End and Upper South Providence, near Conley's proposed location, said in a statement that she and her constituents had been left out of the conversation about the proposal, which would disproportionately affect her community.

"Too often, the South Side is used as a dumping ground for the ideas no one else is willing to house in their own backyards," the statement says. "While homeless shelters, social service agencies, and rehab centers (just to name a few) are all worthwhile investments, why is it always the South Side community that has to compromise quality of life for the better good?"

Since last year, Conley has shared a memo on the nightclub district idea, among other ideas for the nighttime economy, among city policymakers.

A brutal homicide this summer galvanized action. On June 30, patrons leaving Club Seven on Spruce Street got into fistfights, not an unusual sight on Federal Hill after dark. But the fracas escalated: Stephen Cabral, 28, was fatally stabbed in the parking lot of a nearby Walgreens.

Then, a series of other nonfatal incidents occurred in August. A stabbing at Noah Lounge, a stabbing at a parking garage near Rooftop at the Providence G, a shooting at Flow nightclub.

Conley attributes those problems more to the natural ebb and flow of crime in the city and incidents at its bars and clubs than to a worrying trend.

But, “we are at a crossroads,” Conley said.

The city could either choose to make its clubs close at midnight and go back to the days when dancing was prohibited and become “like a small town in Kansas,” or it could try to divert the energy that the clubs already bring into a more sensible area, Conley said. If the city were to crack down on late-night clubs, the problems would just go underground and into neighborhoods, he argued.

City Council President Sabina Matos in a statement cautioned the city against “putting the cart before the horse.”

“We need to fully understand the scope and overriding issues around nightlife culture before we move forward with any major initiatives,” the statement says.

The City Council last week authorized Matos to spend $15,000 on a consultant to review the board Conley chairs, and to set up a working group to address safety issues. The group would include public safety officials, members of the Board of Licenses, the City Council, business owners and community representatives.

Anthony Santuri, co-owner of the Colosseum nightclub on Pine Street, said that before creating a new entertainment district, the city must prioritize bringing every license holder into full compliance with public safety guidelines. He said he has been working with Matos and Public Safety Commissioner Steven Paré to create a handbook of best practices and industry standards that every nightclub owner should follow in order to keep the public safe.

"We need more nightlife," he said. "We need vibrant, job-creating nightlife, but we need it with that dome of public safety always as the top priority."

But Conley said Providence could become a regional nightlife entertainment destination while helping police do their work in one place if issues do come up.

Plus, “it would bring in an ungodly amount of money” and jobs, Conley said.

By allowing clubs to operate with fewer restrictions in one area, the issues that now drive taxpayers up a wall — patrons urinating in their bushes, homes throbbing from nearby subwoofers, trash strewn in parks and sidewalks — would dry up, Conley said.

Other ideas Conley advanced in his memo:

◘ “Business districts” in areas where the clubs are located, with revenue from sources like taxes or parking meters going toward a dedicated fund that would pay for walking patrols and extra cleanup.

◘ “Soft closings,” allowing businesses to remain open one hour later than they currently are, but just serving food. That would prevent the “mass exodus” from clubs when problems often begin.

◘ Loitering liability and parking liability, making bars and clubs responsible if their patrons do bad things farther from the footprint of the clubs. (Right now it’s hard for the board to punish a liquor licensee if an incident didn’t start within its four walls.)

◘ A ride-hailing valet, requiring liquor licensees to have a staff member outside to tell people when their Uber or Lyft has arrived.