Prince George’s County’s reputation as the wild, wild east with barely legal bars, pay-to-enter house parties and underground strip clubs may soon be history if a task force made up of a dozen county inspectors, police and state officials keeps hitting the streets.

At least one night each weekend, the Livable Communities Initiative Task Force visits a list of nightclubs to check for proper certificates and permits needed to operate, as well as inspect the premises for fire, health and other code violations. Where issues can be remedied quickly, the establishment remains open. But, when multiple violations stack up and proper permits are missing, the task force closes the business down.

According to a liaison from the county’s office of community relations, the weekly visits to establishments around the county began in March and are a way to separate the law-abiding businesses from those that flout the rules, sometimes flagrantly.

“The ones who don’t want to follow the law, we’ll get rid of you,” Sandy Vaughns said. “That’s what we’re all about. We’re going to cease this foolishness one way or another.”

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Friday night, a motorcade of nine vehicles, including a revamped school bus complete with workstations, left county police headquarters in Landover just before 11 p.m., with a bar and liquor store in Suitland as the first of its three stops.

Patrons inside the Cedar Hill Bar and Grill/Keno Liquor store barely looked up from their card games as the inspectors fanned out inside the Suitland Road establishment. Within minutes, an inspector from the Department of Environmental Resources had an employee pull licensing certificates off of the wall for closer inspection. In a back room, a fire prevention supervisor with the county’s fire and EMS department was examining a suspect fire exit that would funnel people into a padlocked exterior enclosure, as well as two red gasoline cans stored on a shelf just inside the building.

ejacobson@dcexaminer.com