by Dana Wilbourn
posted July 3, 2008
The Chattanooga Beer Board on Thursday decided to study the process by which beer sales are licensed for the annual Riverbend Festival.
Board Chairman Kathy Jones said she feels it is important to impose penalties that make sense for special events like Riverbend. If the holder of a special event license is cited before the board, the event is over and the people involved may have left town. Perhaps, she said, the board can investigate what other cities are doing.
Sgt. Mark Haskins with the Chattanooga Police Department said Knoxville does not allow beer drinkers to wander from the point of purchase. An area is designated for beer sales and consumers must drink the beer before leaving the immediate area of the vendor. This would eliminate the problem of someone purchasing a beer and passing it off to underage drinkers, he said.
Ms. Jones said, “Trust me, that is not how they do it in New Orleans.”
Board member Phillip Sallee made a motion to set up a committee to study the licensing process for Riverbend. The motion failed for lack of a second, but the board agreed that, rather than have a committee, the full board would conduct a meeting, perhaps with Riverbend officials, to review the whole process.
Mr. Sallee said he attended the training session that Riverbend officials gave for vendors selling beer at Riverbend. Although the vendors were at the training session, the individual workers selling the beer were not.
Board member Christopher Keene expressed concern that a lot of people enjoy criticizing Riverbend. Mr. Keene said that Riverbend is good for Chattanooga and he hates hearing all the criticism directed toward the organizers.
“Wouldn’t it be better,” Mr. Sallee said, “to have all the individual vendors apply for licenses and take all responsibility away from Friends of the Festival?”
Other business before the board included a violation by Ziggy’s at 607 S. Cherokee Blvd. for litter or debris in or around the premises on June 23.
Ken Hall, owner of a building next door (and separated by a side street) to Ziggy’s, has lodged several complaints with the police about trash in his parking lot when his clients come to work in the mornings.
On June 23, there was a large crowd of noisy patrons in Ziggy’s parking lot drinking beer, listening to a concert, and playing some kind of a ballgame, he said. An employee of Mr. Hall, a cleaning woman, was inside Mr. Hall’s building and felt she could not safely leave the building because of the drunken state of the people outside Ziggy’s and overflowing into Mr. Hall’s parking lot, he said.
Sgt. Haskins told the board that this is probably the fourth or fifth complaint he has handled relative to Ziggy’s and Mr. Hall. He has tried, in the past, to mediate between the parties. This time, he cited Ziggy’s to come before the board.
Ralph Zigner, owner of Ziggy’s, told the board that he hires someone four days a week to clean up his lot and Mr. Hall’s parking lot. The bartender for Ziggy’s testified that he cleans Mr. Hall’s parking lot nightly when he closes the bar around 3 a.m. The bar clients are gone by that time, he said, and any debris found the next morning should not be attributed to Ziggy’s.
Mr. Zigner said he was sitting in his car in Ziggy’s parking lot on the occasion of an earlier complaint when Sgt. Haskins called him on his cell phone and said that there is a report of broken glass in Ziggy’s parking lot. “I told him, I’m sitting in my car in the lot right now, and there is no broken glass.”
Mr. Zigner told the board that he has operated Ziggy’s for almost 30 years and previous owners of Mr. Hall’s building never complained. He also told the board that he has his employees block the entrance of Mr. Hall’s parking lot with their cars so that his patrons do not use the lot for overflow parking.
A motion was made to place Ziggy’s on 90-day probation to see if both parties involved can agree to handle the situation. The motion passed and both parties are to meet back with the board on Oct. 2.
The Blues Spot at 901 Dodson Ave. was cited before the board for an incident on June 1. Officer C.W. Joel, CPD, testified that he was outside the establishment on that night investigating a shooting. When he went inside to ask to speak to the owner, he spotted two open bottles of liquor behind the bar. The bar has a consumer beer permit but not an alcoholic beverage license.
Owner Sandra Smith testified that she was not there at the time, but was told that a customer placed the bottles behind the bar.
James Davis was working the bar that night and testified that he went outside to check on the report of a shooting. He said that there were no liquor bottles behind the bar before he went outside, nor does he sell liquor at the bar. He said that customers were probably afraid to take the liquor outside because of the police presence.
Officer Joel said that there were two customers sitting at a table when he entered the bar, and both had ice cold beers in front of them. He said Mr. Davis was behind the bar with a broom.
Board members said that it is the responsibility of the owner and his employees to ensure that alcohol is not behind the bar or served in the bar. A motion was made to suspend the license for The Blues Spot for three days, starting next Thursday. The motion passed.
Applications were approved for the following businesses for carry-out or consumer licenses:
Amin A. Ali (Carry-out)
ABC Convenience Store #4
2601 Harrison Pike
Raul Carrillo (Consumer)
Casa Raul Authentic Restaurant
3450 Cummings Hhighway. Suitte #118
Katie Diane Jenkins (Consumer)
Jazzi’s
3029 Rossville Blvd.
Amanda Landreth Niel and Erick Davis Neil (Consumer and Carry-out)
Easy Bistro & Bar (formerly Easy Seafood Co.)
203 Broad St.
Javier Coastaneda Valdez (Consumer)
Tornado Latin Music Restaurant & Lounge
5709 Lee Highway
A special event license was approved for Pete Waddington, owner of Northshore Grill to serve beer at Thundercreek, 7720 Lee Highway, on July 12.
Dana Wilbourn
dbwilbourn@yahoo.com
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