6 more Five Points bars to face court challenges
A group of neighbors who oppose the high concentration of late-night college bars in Columbia’s Five Points are opposing the liquor license renewals of six more bars, and more may follow.
The action comes on the heels of one bar, Five Points Roost, being denied a license in April because of a high number of violations at the business through the years.
On Wednesday, S.C. Administrative Law Judge Deborah Durden approved a license for the Rooftop Bar, owned by the same partnership as The Roost. But the license was granted with heavy conditions, such as opening at 11:30 a.m., serving lunch, not advertising alcoholic drinks and not serving drinks that cost less than $3.
The new bars being challenged are Five Points Saloon, The Barn, Cover 3, Group Therapy, The Horseshoe and Lucky’s.
“We want to scrutinize everything,” said attorney Dick Harpootlian, who is representing a group of about 12 neighbors. “We want to open their books. We want to see how much food they are selling.”
Harpootlian said other bars will also be challenged, unless they qualify as bona fide restaurants. The liquor licenses of all Richland County bars, restaurants and retail outlets are up for renewal this month.
“We don’t have a problem with Yesterday’s,” he said. “We don’t have a problem with Delaney’s or Jake’s. A substantial portion of their business is food.”
Central to the neighbors’ argument is a tenet in state law that requires only establishments that “primarily and substantially engage in the preparation and service of meals” are eligible for a liquor license. Many Five Points bars, particularly late-night college bars, do not serve much food.
The decision on whether Five Points college bars can have licenses without selling a significant amount of food has ramifications statewide. Issues decided in those cases, including what defines a bar and the required ratio of food-to-alcohol sales, could affect more than 1,000 bars across the Palmetto State.
The dozen or so neighbors opposing the license renewal claim those bars and others have resulted in rowdy, drunken behavior, encouraged underage drinking and caused general mayhem in the urban village near the University of South Carolina.
They and several Five Points merchants claim that Five Points is “out of balance” with too many bars that don’t open until 9 or 10 p.m. and have licenses to stay open past the normal 2 a.m. closing time.
Mike Montgomery, attorney for the owners of Rooftop Bar and former owners of the Roost, said protesting liquor licenses is not the right platform for addressing the concentration of bars in the village.
“Alcoholic beverage licensing is not how you zone property to determine what type of businesses are going to be at a location,” he said.
He added that the new order on Rooftop Bar didn’t clarify how much food had to be sold to meet state law.
The issue “could certainly be addressed (by the General Assembly) in a manner that would be easier to understand and easier to administer,” he said.
Harpootlian, a Wales Garden resident who is running for state senate and is representing the neighbors for free, said the licenses are being challenged based on the law and zoning. He is also representing a longtime Five Points jeweler who is challenging four late-night college bars on the 600 block of Harden Street, saying they are nuisances and violate a city ordinance requiring bars to be 400 feet apart.
“If they are violating the law on the food issue, that is not zoning,” he said. “If they are serving underage kids, that is not zoning. Zoning is a way to deal with this. And we’re trying to get the city to enforce their zoning laws.”
In addition to challenging individual licenses, the neighbors pressured Columbia City Council to make it more difficult to get a late-night permit, resulting in fewer bars now staying open past 2 a.m.
This story was originally published September 6, 2018 at 5:24 PM.