People Kill Me

As someone who studies politics professionally (somewhat), I should no longer be shocked at the ignorance of people. However, I routinely am. The case in point in today's post is the city of Kingsport and its denial of a beer permit to the new Club Lime Light.

Club Lime Light has apparently been open since August. For those of you familiar with the Model City, it is located on Stone Drive across from Putt-Putt in the building that used to house Gator's Shuck and Jive and about 400 other restaurants that have came and gone, usually in 1-3 months time. The location has obviously been permitted to serve beer before, but the city has recently denied the latest request. Why, you ask? Because the new owners, the Swafford family, have a history in Kingsport

The Swaffords have been enterprising people since I was in high school in 1992. The first establishment they owned (at least in my recollection) was Sarge's Place. It was located in the Riverview section of town and was notable for its advertisement in the Dobyns-Bennett High School basketball program. The tagline they used? "You don't need no teeth to eat my beef." That in and of itself was criminal, but since the place was a restaurant and not a club, it went unpunished.

From then on, the Swaffords owned a few places in the same building. The most recent was Club 229 (229 is the telephone prefix/exchange for Eastman Chemical Company, located a couple of block from the club), a nightclub/restaurant that had its beer license pulled earlier this year due to the high number of calls received by police. According to the Kingsport Times-News, the club had "33 complaints over three years concerning the Swaffords' former business; including two reports of shots fired, five shootings, one rape, seven assaults, seven disturbances and three reports of disorderly conduct. " Clearly a pinnacle of virtue in the community.

When the Swaffords applied to get a beer permit for their new club, they were rejected, and rightly so. Anyone who has lax security that allows these things to happen should not be allowed to distribute alcohol. Of course, the Swaffords are challenging the decision in court on the grounds that the city is discriminating on the basis of race. They claim that they have increased security by hiring a former KPD officer to be Chief of Security (i.e. Mr. Worf from Star Trek), but the KPD says the joint is being managed the way Club 229 was. There is nothing to prove this claim, and the city denied the permit on the track record of the owner which, in my opinion, is valid grounds for denial.

While none of this is shocking so far, with the possible exception that the city actually did something right, the most disturbing part comes from the comments section of the Kingsport Times-News website. A number of posters are decrying the city's actions because, as they put it, there is no guarantee that the Swaffords will misbehave again. This is patently absurd. Everyone deserves a second chance to a degree, but these people have a long history of mismanagement and poor customer safety. Their businesses have been magnets for crime. The people leaving comments believe that the city should not take any prior history into account. This, coupled with the asinine claims of racial discrimination, are downright scary. When the judge throws out the lawsuit for lack of evidence, I wonder what direction the Swafford's will go?