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01/30/2006
Booze barred from bar; was bias to blame?
The owners of a new gay bar in Jackson, TN, are claiming that they were recently denied a zoning exception that would've allowed them to serve alcohol, primarily because the liquor they were planning to purvey was intended for homosexual mouths. The special exception was required of the bar because it is located within 500 feet of a residential area, but the owners, Chris Sullivan and Gene Stewart, think homophobia had more to do with the city's refusal than did proximity to neighbors.
Officials with the Jackson Board of Zoning Appeals, however, are all like, What? Huh? Crazy! It's Absurd! No way. Rules are rules. Homophobia? Absolutely not. That's Just Silly.
So was the hooch denial merely procedural, or was dirty rotten anti-gay sentiment to blame? Well, of that we can't be entirely sure. What we do know, however, is that all this booze talk has made the morning coffee we're currently sipping seem much less exciting than it did an hour ago. That being the case, and despite the fact that this is NYC and nobody's ever less than 500 feet from 24 different residences, nobody's gonna be denying your humble scribe of the right to add a double shot of Bailey's to his hooch-deprived java. At first it may not seem like this coffee accoutrement will help our TN friend's plight, though when you really stop and think about it, it seems even less likely to provide any benefit. However, it will make writing about this and various other situations a much more pleasant experience, and we're sure they would want that for us.
We promise to keep you updated on the TN duo's situation as it develops, unless, of course, the Bailey's turns to Kahlua, the Kahlua to Stoli, the Stoli to SoCo shots, and the SoCo shots to a nappy on the floor, in which case, all bets are off.
Bar owners: Board blocked beer sales out of anti-gay bias [Jackson Sun]
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