photo by: Journal-World File Photo

A Lawrence police car sits outside a crime scene in this file photo from 2009.

Updated 10:10 a.m. Wednesday

A 26-year-old Lawrence woman was arrested early Wednesday morning after allegedly leaving her two children — ages 2 and 3 — unattended inside a vehicle at a Lawrence bar on a dangerously cold night.

Lawrence police responded shortly after 1:30 a.m. to a trespassing report at Playerz Sports Bar, 1910 Haskell Ave., according to Officer Derrick Smith. A female customer had reportedly been removed from the bar but was attempting to get back in.

At the bar, staff told police that the woman had been at the bar while her two children stayed in the vehicle. Temperatures Wednesday morning were in the single digits as a polar vortex affected Lawrence and most of the Midwest, bringing subzero wind chills.

The woman had left the bar before police arrived, but officers located her vehicle near the intersection of 19th Street and Haskell Avenue and conducted a car stop, according to Smith. He said police determined that the children had been left alone in the vehicle “without heat for a substantial amount of time” while the woman was at the bar.

The suspect was arrested and taken to the Douglas County Jail on suspicion of aggravated endangering a child and operating a vehicle under the influence. The children were not injured, Smith said.

Further details were not immediately available Wednesday morning.