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Buddy’s Place on East Fort Lee Road held its last call ever Saturday night after becoming a lightning rod for authorities trying to stem neighborhood crime.
Borough police reported making 33 arrests, nearly a third involving drugs, while responding to a total of 85 reports at Buddy's since January 2017. The majority of calls were for fights and disorderly conduct, they said.
Last year, a Hackensack man was shot dead outside the bar, increasing calls for a solution from neighbors.
ALSO SEE: An Englewood man has been charged with murder in the shooting death of a Hackensack man during a confrontation between two groups outside a Bogota bar.
The Borough Council, in turn, required Buddy’s to hire a late-night security officer in order to get their liquor license renewed, which the owners said forced them closed.
“Due to the new resolution that the town has imposed on us we can no longer afford to stay open,” they wrote in a Facebook post promoting Saturday night’s closing.
Police said they don't know why Eric Gonzalez called 911 on a recorded line to report three men, one of them armed with a gun, walking into Buddy’s.
Gonzalez, a 30-year-old ex-con with a criminal history stretching back a decade, remained held Monday in the Bergen County Jail following his arrest Sunday on charges of causing a false public alarm.
A detention hearing was scheduled in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack to determine whether he would remain jailed or be released.
ALSO SEE: Two repeat offenders were each charged with aggravated assault in connection with a brawl between two groups outside a Bogota bar last month that ended with a Hackensack man shot dead, authorities announced.
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