There was little trouble at Powell’s bars and other liquor-serving establishments over the past year.

“No complaints,” Powell Police Chief Roy Eckerdt reported to the Powell City Council last week. “It was a good year.”

Continuing a string of strong compliance with state and local laws, Powell’s 19 alcohol-serving establishments and clubs received overwhelmingly positive marks from the police department.

Councilman Steve Lensegrav described the report as “about as good as you can get.” He and his council colleagues voted unanimously to renew all of the 20 licenses for the coming year.

Police award positive marks to license holders when they proactively contact law enforcement about a problem or when they refuse to serve underage buyers.

As required by state law, Powell police conducted “alcohol compliance checks” last December — sending an underage youth into the licensed establishments to see if the business would sell them alcohol. At all 12 retail locations, employees checked the would-be buyer’s ID and turned them away.

“That’s pretty impressive,” said Powell Mayor John Wetzel.

The Maverik convenience store received the highest number of positive write-ups for 2022-23, with six. In one instance in March, a Maverik cashier refused to sell alcohol to a man who was already drunk. The man called police to complain, but responding officers explained that the store wasn’t breaking any laws and police awarded Maverik a positive mark.

In another example, the Lamplighter Inn received a positive mark after one of its employees called police in January to report that teenagers had tried buying booze with a fake ID. The Red Zone similarly received kudos when one of its employees called police to report an unruly patron in November 2022; the man was cited for public intoxication and urinating in public.

In total, the license holders received 20 positives against just one negative. The lone exception was when the K-Bar Saloon was dinged for failing to report an Oct. 4 altercation in which a patron was “severely injured,” police said.

It was only the third negative report that police have logged since November 2020, making it “another really good year,” Eckerdt said.

Overall, the department logged 35 alcohol-related calls for service at Powell’s establishments between November 2022 and this month. That’s down from 47 in the prior year and in-line with the 31 calls in 2020-21.

Last year’s calls included six reports of public intoxication, six disturbances and three assaults connected to the liquor-serving establishments. Those figures were all up from the prior year — when there were three reports of intoxicated people, three disturbances and one assault — but “historically speaking, they still weren’t that high,” Eckerdt told the Tribune. “Yes, there’s still activity around alcohol and there’s still alcohol-related incidents, but not [at] numbers we’ve seen in the past.”

Based on the city’s population, the council can only issue 14 retail liquor licenses, which allow for package sales. All of those licenses are spoken for.

The city has also issued six more limited licenses — including three for veterans and fraternal clubs (where sales are limited to on-premise consumption for members and guests), two for restaurants (where alcohol can account for no more than 40% of gross sales) and one microbrewery license for WYOld West Brewing Company (which also holds a retail license).