Larry's Nightclub picked the right lawyer. David Osgood, who is representing the club in its effort to get back its liquor license, has won legal fights like this one before.

Six years ago Osgood challenged the city's harassment of Oscars II after officials wanted the black-owned, black-patronized club closed as a drug-trafficking nuisance. The city and state liquor board paid out a total of $1.2 million to the club's owners. Osgood has also defended two more clubs with black clientele—the Rockin' Iguana Cantina and the Italian Celebrity Kitchen. Osgood says there is a campaign to purge Seattle of minority-dominated nightclubs, and Larry's is the latest target.

"We either need to treat these clubs fairly," says Osgood, "or just drop all pretense and say, 'We as a government will not allow a certain class of people to go to nightclubs'."

The real question may be whether Larry's, considering its controversial track record, belongs on Osgood's list of clubs unfairly targeted.

The club lost its license January 6 after being linked to a bunch of high-profile violent incidents, and owner Larry Culp says the club will remain closed until it gets its license back.

Two Iraq war veterans got pummeled after a trip to Larry's last July; Seahawks safety Ken Hamlin suffered career-threatening injuries from a fight outside the club in October; and on New Year's Eve a man was allegedly stabbed on the dance floor and then escorted out of the club by security, who never bothered to tell the cop parked nearby.

What's more, Larry's Nightclub seems to have alienated nearly all of its neighbors. "We were all celebrating around here like it was V-Day," says Rick Wyatt, co-owner of Fenix Underground, referring to the day the liquor board shuttered Larry's. "I would say that the high-profile reported incidents are few compared to the small assaults that haven't been reported.

"There's a much larger reality here than you get from the high-profile cases," Wyatt believes.

It's the same story next door at Central Saloon, where they've had to clear out the bar on occasions when Larry's personnel used pepper spray. "That was the only way (Larry's) security could control the crowd," says Kelly Edinger, Central manager.

Seattle Police Spokeswoman Deanna Nollette says that the New Year's Eve incident wasn't isolated: In November, there was one case where a security guard pepper-sprayed a patron, and another case where a man with a gun was taken out of the club by bouncers, who didn't contact police. December saw a pepper-spraying on one night, then a fight in the line outside on Christmas Eve, which also was not reported by the club, Nollette says.

The police report from the New Year's Eve incident alleges that when an officer asked for more information about the altercation, a Larry's bouncer told him to "Fuck off."

These details don't look good from the judge's bench, and so far Osgood has not been able to convince one to lift the club's 180-day liquor-license suspension.

Much of his case seems to rely on reports from Larry's personnel, who might have reason to forget their own mistakes. For instance, the bouncers deny saying "fuck off"; they say they were encouraged to use pepper spray by police; and that the "stabbing" victim's injury was so minor he didn't know of it himself.

Owner Culp says that since the veterans' beatings took place an hour after last call and two blocks away from his bar, he doesn't deserve the blame. "We are being used as a scapegoat," he says.

This is where Osgood's past experience may help the embattled club: He aims to show that enforcement is either arbitrary or racially biased. "Black hip-hoppers," says Osgood, "are not compatible with drunken, white frat boys."