GREEN RIVER - The Elks Lodge in Evanston has lifted a brief ban on Hispanic functions at its facility after Elks officials met Friday with a Latino family that was denied the use of their hall for a retirement party.

The lodge will continue to rent space for large Hispanic functions and is in the process of drafting a new contract policy that will be reviewed by Latino community members, Elks officials said Monday.

The lodge is also planning a Hispanic celebration at the end of October and will actively try to recruit more Latinos into the Elks Club, officials said.

The Hispanic community will also make a better effort to police itself at such functions, Evanston Latinos said.

"I feel like we've accomplished a lot because initially it sounded really bad, the stereotyping that was going on there," said Tony Yapias, who tried to arrange the retirement party with brother Jim and sister Jenny for their father Leo.

"But I think in the end, we're going to have a pretty good policy come out of this and things will turn out for the better," he said in a phone interview. "This is an issue that has gone beyond just our family and into the community … and we hope incidents like this won't happen again."

Elks Club Manager Lynn Nelson said he believes some good has come out of the situation. "We're pretty pleased about the way that it's heading and at this time, I'm really optimistic that this will work out," he said.

Both Yadias and Nelson said they were pleased to resolve the matter without going to court.

The Yapias family, longtime Evanston residents with ties to Salt Lake City, called the Elks Lodge in Evanston a few weeks ago to see about renting the banquet hall to celebrate the Yapias patriarch's retirement.

Leo Yapias retired earlier this year from the Union Pacific after 24 years of railroad service.

But Nelson, club manager and past exalted ruler of the Evanston lodge, denied the family's request. He cited past problems with large Hispanic functions that he said raised safety and financial concerns for the lodge.

Nelson told the Associated Press last week that on one occasion when a Latino group rented the lodge, it caused more than $500 damage. He said the building was hammered, pop was spilled, a mirror was broken, and the lodge's neon sign was broken when kids threw rocks at it.

"I've been the club manager for nine years, and we've probably done 80 or 90 Spanish functions in that period of time," Nelson said in a phone interview Monday.

"This just wasn't something that we just said out of the blue that we're not going to do anymore," he said. "It just got worse and worse and financially, we decided we didn't want to do these events anymore because of the damage to the building."

Tony Yapias, who is director of the Utah Office of Hispanic Affairs, and his brother Jim met with Nelson and Elks Club board members Friday in Evanston to work out their differences.

As a result of the meeting, the Elks Club will revise its contract policy and then will forward the policy to the Yapias family for its review.

"The bottom line is that they've agreed to work on a new policy … then get our opinion and input, which we'll review and then send back," Yapias said.

Nelson said he is in the process of drafting a new contract policy that the Elks House Committee will review before it is sent to the Yapias family, perhaps as early as next week. He said a local attorney is helping the lodge draft the new policy.

The approximately 445-member club, which Nelson said currently includes eight or nine Hispanic members, will also try to recruit additional Latino members.

"They have had some difficulty getting Latinos involved, and we recommended a few names and we're going to encourage Latinos living in Evanston to get more involved in the Elks Club," Yapias said.

"That way, we believe it will help the organization and help the community in a larger sense," he said.

"And we hope we can get some Latinos to work with the club on such events … to say this is our event and it's up to us to keep the place clean, to basically oversee events so they can become more integrated and accepted in the community," he said.

Both sides lauded the fact that they were able to sit down and work out their differences without going to court.

"The other action we could have probably taken was legal action, but we didn't," Yapias said. "That would have been a blatant way to bring this out, but as members of the community, we have a responsibility to find a way to work this out without a lawsuit."

Nelson said as a private club, the lodge "has some rights and I suppose we could have held a hard line on that, and we probably would have been okay, but that's not our intent. We never looked at this as (discrimination), we closed it down for financial reasons and we're now heading in a direction that I think will be okay."

Tony Yapias said the family celebrated Leo Yapias' retirement and birthday Sept. 13 at his home in Evanston.

The two sides also agreed to hold some sort of Hispanic celebration at the lodge at the end of October. "Kind of just to say look, this is what we've been able to accomplish … there were problems before, but now this is what we've done," Tony Yapias said.

"I feel this was an unfortunate event … but it is bringing attention to other issues that I think small communities like Evanston should start looking at," he said. "This should be a wake-up call for all of us that we need to work together."