Pablo Goris, left, and Rafael Jimenez, co-owners of the La Rumba nightclub, sit at a hearing before the city Board of Licenses.

The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman Andrew Dickerman

PROVIDENCE — The police are asking the city Board of Licenses to revoke the liquor license of La Rumba, the nightclub where a young man was stabbed to death Wednesday. And the board yesterday scheduled a hearing to consider the request.

The board ordered, in the meantime, that La Rumba hire a three-member detail of police officers to provide security every night the club is open until the police complaint is resolved.

“This is a very serious situation,” Andrew J. Annaldo, board chairman, told La Rumba co-owner Rafael Ramirez at an emergency meeting of the board at City Hall. “Your choice is a three-man detail or I’m going to close you” temporarily. Ramirez, speaking through a Spanish-language translator, agreed not to resist the order.

There was initial confusion among police officers regarding what penalty would be sought, with two saying that it would be left to the board. But Maj. Paul C. Fitzgerald, commander of the Uniformed Division, said that to be consistent, the police would ask for license revocation. When homicides occur at clubs, he said, the police always ask for revocation.

The board hearing was set for 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Darren Reagans, 18, a former basketball and football player, was killed late Wednesday as he was in line outside La Rumba, at 1206 Broad St., in the Washington Park neighborhood, waiting to get inside for an all-ages Fourth of July party. An unknown assailant stabbed him during a fight, according to the police.

Mario Mancebo, the translator for Ramirez, said security personnel were present at the time of the attack, that the owners ran a safe operation, and that there was no justification for closing the club because the owners complied with the law.

The owners are “very sorry” about Reagans’ death, he said.

Fitzgerald said the security personnel were inside the club when the stabbing occurred outside.

La Rumba has been disciplined by the board twice in less than a year and combined with the occurrence of the homicide, it is an unruly and dangerous operation, Fitzgerald said.

Last year, the board fined La Rumba $250 and required a three-member police detail as the result of a police complaint of chronic disturbances. Those disturbances included an incident June 11, 2006, in which a man assaulted another man with a baseball bat outside the club in a quarrel over a woman. The assault occurred during or just after a melee outside the club involving club patrons in which beer bottles were thrown at officers.

The detail was discontinued in October with the permission of the board and the acquiescence of the police, according to Richard H. Aitchison, city license administrator.

This year the board fined La Rumba $500 for allowing illegal after-hours consumption of alcohol March 24.

A nightclub called La Fragancia previously occupied the same spot as La Rumba, and there were violent incidents that the police associated with La Fragancia. A New Bedford man was shot in the head in January 2005 outside La Fragancia — he survived — in a dispute that stemmed from an assault that occurred in La Fragancia’s restroom. And a policeman suffered a broken jaw that same month trying to stop a fight that allegedly began inside the nightclub.

In a negotiated settlement of the police complaints, LaFragancia agreed to beef up police details. Later that year, La Fragancia transferred its liquor license to a corporation controlled by the current owners of La Rumba. The new management and ownership is not related to the previous regime, according to Aitchison.

Teens as young as 14 and 15 were in La Rumba at the time of the attack on Reagans, according to Fitzgerald, but he and Aitchison said that was legal. When drinking-age and non-drinking-age patrons are mixed, the law requires that the drinkers have their hands stamped and/or wear bracelets so servers can distinguish them from patrons who are not supposed to be drinking.

“It was ripe for a problem and a problem did occur,” Fitzgerald declared.

Alcohol should not be served at a licensed bar or nightclub when people younger than 21 are present, even if the law allows it, and the police should be notified in advance when underaged patrons will be welcomed, he said after the board meeting. The police were not aware of the La Rumba party, he said.

gsmith@projo.com