City Beer Board members on Thursday discussed a number of issues with the new beer regulatory setup imposed recently.
Assistant City Attorney Harolda Bryson presided over the meeting in the absence of Assistant City Attorney Kathryn McDonald. After hearing many questions, she responded that several things need to be ironed out.
Since the procedure for issuing a beer license to businesses and the way that violations are heard and penalties are decided all changed in June, many glitches in the new process have become known. At a previous meeting, Calandra Smith from the Hamilton County Coalition brought up that there was a potential problem since many of the current beer board members or their relatives are also holders of permits to sell beer. That problem surfaced at this meeting. There was one violation that could not be heard because there was no voting quorum when two members abstained due to a conflict of interest.
And the brother of one board member is the Beer Board’s administrative hearing officer. A legal recommendation, which is voluntary, has been given to that beer board member to abstain from voting on cases where his brother recommended the penalty. The new procedure for penalizing violations of the beer code is that the case is first heard by the hearing officer who in a separate meeting makes a recommendation for revoking a license or suspending it and for how long. The case is later referred to the beer board which has the final say by accepting or denying the recommendation or deciding on their own different penalty.
One board member is co-owner of a lounge which has a beer license that was cited to the beer board. In this case the board agreed with the hearing officer and dismissed the case without a penalty, but the question several meetings ago was if it would be awkward for the board to penalize one of their own members.
Another problem is how the city will know if people who sell or serve beer have been professionally trained, which is a requirement for those jobs. Before the procedures changed, applications for beer licenses were done in person and they could be asked about their employees and referred to the qualifying agency for training. If a person holds a TABC permit, they are not required to go through Chattanooga Beer Board training, but it all needs to be documented. Beer Board Staff Manager Bertha Lawrence suggested adding questions to the online applications to indicate which employees have been trained, the date it was done and what agency did the training. Then the certificates could be downloaded.
Board Member Brooke Barclift raised other issues with the current processes. Applications are now first given to Chattanooga’s Regulatory Bureau and, if all the paperwork is in order, that bureau approves the application. Ms. Barclift noted that now the beer board members come to meetings and just hear the chairman reading “the name of the business has been approved by Regulatory.”
Brooke Barclift said her family owns a restaurant, and she told the board that her husband had been given a citation and notice to appear at the Thursday beer board meeting. Yet, when he arrived, his case was not on the agenda. It had been removed because the administrative hearing officer would not be present. Yet, that had never been communicated to Mr. Barclift.
“It is an abuse of someone’s time,” she told the board. “People have things to do, so what do we do to fix that? An agenda is created for each meeting, but people have to search for it and assume they are scheduled if they are sent a notice to appear."
Board Member J.W. Cole, who came to the meeting because of a citation at his business, said he had not been given a notice about a meeting with the hearing officer and that there is confusion among permit holders about the procedure and their rights.
And at the Thursday meeting, the city discovered that a problem with new software that is being used had been sending notices to businesses that they needed to reapply for a new permit because it did not credit the business with a 30-day grace period to renew a beer permit they obtained in 2024. This grace period has been in effect since 2024 aimed at keeping small businesses operating. This clerical issue is in the process of being fixed, said Chris Anderson, senior advisor to the mayor, and the order has been extended to April 19.
Also, the way that the city of Chattanooga deals with businesses which violate laws pertaining to selling beer has been changed. It has now become a two-part process that will take two meetings, two weeks apart, and two hearings, to come to a decision about if there was actually a violation and what the punishments should be.
The meeting of the Chattanooga Beer Board on Thursday was the first where this procedure was implemented. At the Feb. 6 meeting, the violation of The Dream, 2308 Glass St., was passed to the beer board’s assigned administrative hearing officer Trevor Atchley. He heard the violation of chronically operating a disorderly place. The incident when the citation was given occurred on Dec. 15, 2024.This was the third time that the business had been cited and one of those previous times was also for running a disorderly place in March 2024.
The recommendation of the administrative hearing officer for the latest violation from Dec. 15 had already resulted in the bar losing its liquor license for three weeks. The recommendation from the beer hearing officer and passed by the board, for the same violation, resulted in the recommendation to suspend The Dream’s beer license for just five days.
The process now is for the beer board to review the recommendation before they vote to sustain it or to revise it. On Thursday, the new procedure was implemented for the first time, and the members of the beer board voted to sustain the recommended punishment. Choosing the exact days that the punishment will be implemented is dictated by the beer board, and because The Dream is not open seven days per week, Beer Board Member Ron Smith proposed and the board voted to suspend the beer license for the business on Feb. 27, 28, and March 1, 2 and 6 - the days that the business is open.
During the time of the meeting when citizens are allowed to speak, Calandra Smith, assistant director of the Hamilton County Coalition, informed the board about concerns that have been directed to her about the current operation of the city beer board. The composition of the board now consists of a couple of members who also hold active beer licenses themselves, and another member who is the brother of the beer board’s administrative hearing officer.
People have asked her if there is a conflict of interest for a beer board member to also hold a beer permit themselves. And if one of the holders of a beer permit are cited to the board for a violation, how would that affect the voting process of one board member voting on another board member. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest?” she asked. City Assistant Attorney McDonald answered that a member could not vote or sit with the board to discuss it if they are involved in the charge of a violation.
A problem could have been taken place today, she said, for example. On one vote , there were three abstentions, said Ms. Smith. Two of the beer permit holders declined to vote because of a conflict of interest and Zach Atchley, who is the brother of the administrative hearing officer, also abstained, and could possibly recuse himself from all violation votes that pass through the administrative hearing officer first. Attorney McDonald said as long as there are five votes, action can be taken. If one remaining member had to recuse themselves, possibly due to an absence, which sometimes happens, then the vote would have had to be postponed because there would not be a quorum.
Conflicts are dealt with on a case-by-case basis, said Attorney McDonald.