Baltimore's police commissioner, Frederick H. Bealefeld III, is about to stop cops from moonlighting at clubs and bars that sell alcohol. This is bound to be controversial, angering both officers for whom these gigs have proved lucrative and business owners who want the extra peace of mind.

I think it's a necessary and prudent move. Bealefeld argued in a story that ran Saturday by police reporter Justin Fenton and nightlife correspondent Sam Sessa that businesses were dumping their own security problems on the city. The city already has paid out $50,000 to an Edgewater man who accused six officers of beating him outside Power Plant Live and a 21-year-old Towson University student was beaten into a coma at the Iguana Cantina that employs as many as many as six off-duty cops for security.

"When people wind up in a coma in a club that I have cops working security at and no one knows anything, or cops are throwing unruly, drunken, disorderly, combative, violent patrons ouut on the street only for them to shoot and stabe and kill each other, is unacceptable," Bealefeld said.

The city has been trying to get clubs and other business to hire their own security guards and shoulder more of the responsibility. I've walked through Federal Hill a lot on a Friday and Saturday night and seen dozens of uniformed officers outside bars. It's a reassuring sight, but it also makes it confusing to know who is on duty and who is working for the club.

It's important because the cops who are on-duty answer to their sergeant and lieutenants. Who do the cops working for the bar answer to? The owner? And if so, doesn't that create a conflict of interest? What does a police officer do when he sees illegal activity going on inside the bar? Turn away because his "employer" condones it or start making arrests because that's his responsibility to the city? Does the officer worry about being fired if he arrests a regular customer, and does the officer testify at a Liquor Board hearing?

I admit it's a hard decision when your're getting paid by competing interests. And of course these types of conflicts can occur in any off-duty job a police officer takes. But it seems to me that mixing alcohol and cops with guns can lead to more conflicts and more problems than in just about any other job.

I'd love to hear from the police, retired and on the force, and bar owners on this one.