Famous 5 Points bar Group Therapy now targeted by USC, police in liquor challenge

The University of South Carolina and the Columbia Police Department have joined the list of those opposing the liquor license renewal of legendary Five Points dive bar Group Therapy.

USC and Columbia police joined with Five Points neighbors and state Sen. Dick Harpootlian in opposing a liquor license renewal for the bar, which is now owned by Gamecock football legend Steve Taneyhill. The challenge does not affect beer and wine sales.

Police cited the number of times they have responded in and around the bar as the reason for the challenge.

“Data shows this establishment has been a constant drain on law enforcement services,” Chief Skip Holbrook said.

A USC spokesman said the university joined the challenge at the behest of police.

“The university’s opposition is primarily based on multiple public safety incidents at the location as well as concerns shared directly by state regulatory and law enforcement agencies,” the university said in a statement.

Documents submitted by police to the S.C. Department of Revenue show officers were called to the bar at 2107 Greene St. 43 times in the past 12 months.

They note frequent fights, overcrowded sidewalks, civil disturbances, loud noise and pedestrians illegally in the streets around the bar.

“The entire area surrounding the business is a significant law enforcement problem.”

However, former state Rep. Bakari Selllers, Taneyhill’s attorney, said Group Therapy is a “productive partner with law enforcement.”

He noted that the challenge to the license is based on the amount of food sold at the establishment and not incidents or disturbances that occur outside of it.

“The police department is piggybacking on what they hope to be a good news story for them,” he said.

He added that the police and the university “should focus on ensuring the safety of their student body instead of shutting down small businesses that provide a service.”

Five Points landlords and bar owners have begun pulling out of the village near the University of South Carolina as state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, representing residents near Five Points, challenges their liquor licenses in court.

Harpootlian is representing University Hill and Wales Garden residents who say drunken, rowdy students, many under-aged, are trashing their yards, endangering themselves and others and causing mayhem, generally. The neighbors blame a dozen or so college bars, which generally open only at night, cater to USC students and advertise and serve the cheapest booze.

The neighbors so far have challenged the liquor license renewals of eight bars, resulting in four closings, three voluntarily.

Harpootlian, who also lives near Five Points, and the residents are challenging the licenses of the college bars as the licenses come up for renewal. The basis for their challenge in part is a lack of food sales.

According to South Carolina law, only hotels and restaurants that “primarily and substantially” sell food are allowed liquor licenses. Most college bars get the vast majority of their revenue from alcohol sales, not food.

One college bar, Cover 3, withdrew its request for a license renewal during a contentious hearing in May that focused in part on food sales.

Until that case, the S.C. Department of Revenue had not considered food sales when issuing licenses. However, after a meeting between Gov. Henry McMaster, Harpootlian and revenue Director Hartley Powell, the department said it would consider food sales in the Cover 3 case.

Manager Connor Hobbs had testified that the bar, which didn’t open until 8 p.m. and usually stayed open until 2 a.m., took in $1.4 million in gross sales in 34 months and had only $8,500 in food sales, mostly Chick-fil-A sandwiches purchased from a nearby Five Points store and resold for $5. That’s a percentage of 0.06 in food sales.

In addition to Cover 3, Five Points Roost, at 800 Harden St., closed in August 2018 when a state administrative law judge denied a liquor license renewal for a variety of reasons, including a lack of food sales.

Two other college bars, The Horseshoe and The Barn, didn’t apply for a new liquor license last year. And the owner of Cotton Gin in the former Five Points Theater has said the building is up for sale.

But Group Therapy is bit different from the other college bars.

First, it has been a fixture in the Five Points area near USC since 1978.

It opens six days a week at 4 p.m. — or earlier on Saturday and Sunday during football season — while the other bars open late and often only three nights a week, Sellers said.

The bar has a full kitchen that is staffed and open during all business hours, Sellers said. And it has a loyal following of older happy hour regulars.

The band Hootie and the Blowfish even named its recent tour after the bar.

“They are not fly-by-night,” Sellers said. “Group Therapy has been there for a long time and will be there for a long time in the future.”

But Chris Kenney, an attorney with Harpootlian’s firm who is handling the challenge, said the large late-night crowds at the bar add to the general mayhem in the village

“The atmosphere in Five Points is such that it is not suitable to have that concentration of bars,” he said, adding “there are some specific public safety issues that warrant denying the license,” referring to the Columbia Police Department data.

And he said after Taneyhill purchased the bar in 2016, Group Therapy changed.

“A lot of people feel nostalgic about Group Therapy,” Kenney said. “But it has a new owner, a new crowd and a new business model.

“This is not your mom and dad’s Group Therapy,” he said.

This story was originally published January 14, 2020 at 5:30 AM.