Last Call owner Dennis Steffes said Friday that city officials told him if he changed his crowd and music they would back off efforts to get rid of his liquor license.

“It was a racial issue,” said Steffes, who said that Last Call, 729 N.H., played hip-hop music and attracted mostly African-American customers.

Steffes was in court asking Shawnee County State District Judge David Bruns to allow him to continue serving alcoholic beverages while he appeals a state agency decision that denied a renewal of his liquor license.

Bruns took no immediate action after the two-hour hearing.

The issue of Last Call’s clientele arose from questioning from Assistant Attorney General Sarah Byrne.

Byrne asked Steffes if city officials had offered to stop trying to seek non-renewal of his liquor license if he made some changes. Steffes said he was told if he stopped playing hip-hop music he wouldn’t get so much “pressure.”

Byrne then said, “So basically the only thing preventing you from applying for a new license for that same location is your determination to stick to the hip-hop format.”

Later, Scott Miller, an attorney for the city who attended the hearing, said race had nothing to do with city efforts against Steffes.

“This is a matter of what happens inside and outside the club that violates criminal law and not who the actors are,” Miller said.

Lawrence police have contended there has been rampant drug use and violence in and around the club.

Steffes’ attorney Daniel Owen denied those allegations and said the kind of music played in Last Call should have no bearing on the club’s liquor license.

Owen said after five weeks of police undercover surveillance of the club, police found “one marijuana joint and some dancing that the authorities don’t like.”

Owen said Steffes should be allowed to keep his liquor license while he appeals the non-renewal handed down by the Kansas Alcoholic Beverage Commission.

Since the non-renewal, Last Call has opened one or two days a week as a bring-your-own alcohol establishment, which doesn’t require a state license.

But Steffes said that the club is doing about 10 percent of the business it did before, and that his other bar, Coyotes also is in financial trouble.

“It has pretty much been a disaster. It has pretty much brought us to our knees,” he said of the state action.