Local Bar Owner Defends Complaints and Reopens

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – “Someone said it was the hip hop culture that was causing all of the problems here and I certainly don’t understand how hip hop culture and local ordinances and laws have anything to do with each other,” says Torrey Feldman who is an attorney and patron of The Blue Light, a bar that opened in August just downstairs from Songbirds in Chattanooga.

The owner, Brian Joyce, is facing a number of beer board infractions based on complaints by some neighboring business owners. The complaints include selling beer on the street. But Joyce says there was confusion over open container rules on the cobble-stoned Station Street. And complaints of operating a disorderly bar. But Joyce strongly denies this as the reported fight took place away from his property, not in the bar.

“There have been concerns from some people that we’re operating an establishment that is not safe and I completely reject that argument,” says Joyce.

Joyce has concerns that the mounting complaints have less to do with the stated infractions but are possibly motivated by other factors.

“I have seen some of the citations,” says Feldman. “And it sounds like people are more concerned with the kind of music or the kind of people that the kind of music would bring more so than they are actually concerned about the establishment itself.”

“If that’s how they feel about it, I think that’s bad optics for the city,” says Joyce.

Following the infractions, Joyce voluntarily closed his bar over the weekend. He said this cost him tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue but he wanted “cooler heads to prevail” following the complaints made to the beer board.

“The beer board has been very fair to me and the fact of the matter is all bars and establishments in this city, they have to operate by certain standards and procedures according to the law and that’s the biggest concern for everybody,” says Joyce.

Joyce says he will reopen his bar this weekend.