Five Points store owner sues city, 4 late-night college bars. Here's why.
A Five Points jewelry store owner is suing four late-night college bars, saying they are nuisances that are hurting other businesses in the entertainment and shopping district near the University of South Carolina.
Bruce DuBose, owner of Sylvan & DuBose Jewelers at 622 Harden St., also claims the cluster of bars in the 600 block of Harden Street violates a city ordinance requiring bars to be 400 feet apart, which is a football field and a third.
DuBose says the concentration of late-night bars is driving off other retailers, causing trash and vandalism in the area, and is lowering property values.
"The proliferation and congregation of drinking places is ruining his business and driving other types of businesses out of Five Points. And, most importantly, the city is not enforcing its laws," said DuBose's attorney, Dick Harpootlian. "City government has abandoned any effort to enforce the law in Five Points. Five Points has become the Dodge City of our municipality."
This is the second legal action by Harpootlian to rein in the spread of late-night college bars in Five Points.
On behalf of neighbors in the University Hill neighborhood, he has successfully blocked a liquor license for the Five Points Roost and will challenge the license of Rooftop Bar in a hearing on Monday. The neighbors claim the bars do not serve a sufficient amount of food to qualify for a liquor license under South Carolina law, and the students who congregate there after hours are a nuisance, engaging in drunken, lewd and violent behavior in public.
This latest suit is aimed at a cluster of bars on the 600 block of Harden Street: Pinch, Latitude 22, Cotton Gin and Lucky's.
A spokeswoman for the city of Columbia said the legal department had yet to receive the suit and could not comment.
Joe McCullough, attorney for Cotton Gin, said he had informally seen a copy of the suit.
"We are reviewing," he said. "The substance of the suit and the ordinance it's based upon are parts of our city ordinances that I am quite familiar with. . . . The 400-foot (rule) is unconstitutional or pre-empted by state law."
Efforts to reach the owners or representatives of Pinch, Latitude 22 and Lucky's were unsuccessful Friday afternoon.
The suit, filed Friday, claims that: "As the number of drinking places has increased, DuBose has suffered, and continues to encounter, frequent instances of public urination upon his retail premises, numerous acts of vandalism, and has encountered a notable decrease in the retail value for establishments not engaged in the service of alcoholic beverages."
It adds: "The concentration of bars in the community is a matter of great public importance to the citizens of Columbia, SC and members of the Five Points Community who are negatively affected by the proliferation of highly concentrated areas of public drinking places."
The lawsuit includes a number of advertisements and Facebook posts from the bars, which Harpootlian said advocate heavy drinking, such as:
▪ “Wasted Wednesdaysss” at Cotton Gin, with the Facebook post: “If you didn’t get the Blackout memo it’s about that time, doors are open and we’ll be drowning the memory of this game all night.”
▪ Cotton Gin advertised "it's time to beat the clock, 50 cent liquor starts at 10. "
▪ "What I do when I am black out drunk is none of my business," also by Cotton Gin.
DuBose wants the bars shut down because they are acting primarily as drinking establishments, and state law requires that all establishments with liquor licenses be "primarily and substantially" engaged in the preparation and service of food.
The rulings in the Roost case, Monday's Rooftop hearing and now Dubose's lawsuit could have ramifications for more than 1,000 bars across South Carolina, according to a USC study commissioned by the S.C. Restaurant and Lodging Association.
This story was originally published May 11, 2018 at 5:13 PM with the headline "Five Points store owner sues city, 4 late-night college bars. Here's why.."