USC, Columbia police urge judge to deny liquor license to 5 Points bar Group Therapy
USC and the Columbia Police Department urged an administrative judge Wednesday to deny a liquor license to the iconic Group Therapy bar in Five Points, owned by legendary former Gamecock quarterback Steve Taneyhill.
University and police officials argued the number of students served at the bar and the number of police calls to the location make it unsuitable for a license.
A coalition of Five Points neighborhoods, led by state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, is challenging Group Therapy’s liquor license in an administrative law court. Judge Shirley Robinson has said she will consider whether the bar was contributing to chaos in Five Points and sapping public resources.
Marc Shook, the dean of students at USC, testified that the university asks students who end up hospitalized with alcohol issues where they took their last drink. In the last two years, four students have ended up in the hospital after visiting Group Therapy.
Shook argued Group Therapy came to the university’s attention because it targeted students with promotions, including a drink called the “Nerd,” which Shook described as “a mixed drink of multiple alcohols that includes the childhood candy ‘Nerds’ to make it more digestible.”
“No one at USC is going to be happy if it goes out of business,” Shook said. “We don’t want to pick on a notable alumnus. But based on data supplied by police, this is an entity engaging in unsafe business practices, and is not safe for our students.”
Group Therapy attorney Bakari Sellers challenged Shook’s testimony, arguing the university’s data did not indicate if any of the students Shook referenced were underage. Sellers also said that while the college’s survey of first-year students indicated 42 percent drank in bars, the school had no indication of how many went to Group Therapy.
Sellers also pointed out that USC has begun selling alcohol itself at university sporting events, including Monday’s women’s basketball victory over Connecticut. He said he found it hard to square USC’s professed concern about underage drinking with its decision to make alcohol available at venues that include a large number of students.
“They want to make $1 million a year,” Sellers said. “They have a profit motive to sell beer to students.”
Columbia Police Chief Skip Holbrook testified that he was opposing Group Therapy’s license because of the number of calls officers received to the business.
In a 12-month period from 2018 to 2019, Holbrook said Columbia police had 38 calls for service to Group Therapy. As a result, 16 charges were filed from calls to the bar itself, and another 16 from calls to the 2100 block of Greene Street that included Group Therapy, ranging from reported fake IDs to possession of cocaine, Holbrook said.
Sellers tried to have those incident reports excluded from Judge Shirley Robinson’s consideration, since Holbrook couldn’t personally vouch for the veracity of any of them, or whether any of the accused were ever convicted. Of the cocaine charge, Sellers said “he could have been found not guilty because it was baking soda.”
But speaking for the neighbors behind the challenge, attorney Chris Kenney from Harpootlian’s law firm argued the testimony goes toward the suitability of the business for the neighborhood, which has led to other bars having their licenses suspended. He argued testimony the day before established that the bar’s efforts to combat underage drinking were inconsistently applied, and that further criteria handed down by Robinson wouldn’t fare much better.
Sellers countered that many neighbors are concerned about issues related to drinking by college students in Five Points in general. But Taneyhill’s Group Therapy was approved for a late-night permit as recently as last summer, when the police department attested the bar and its owner “have a reputation for peace and good order.”
Robinson’s order will focus on the suitability argument and not questions about whether Group Therapy serves enough food to qualify for a liquor license. Harpootlian had challenged the liquor licenses of other bars by saying they don’t serve enough food to qualify under South Carolina law for a liquor license.
The state law says businesses must be “primarily and substantially” involved in preparing and serving food to qualify for a liquor license. Robinson said Tuesday that the S.C. Department of Revenue had already decided Group Therapy met that standard.
She said her decision will be issued within 30 days of Wednesday’s hearing.
Speaking after the hearing, DOR attorney Patrick McCabe said the agency is challenging Group Therapy’s suitability because of a September incident where a DJ performing at the bar was caught smoking marijuana in an employee section of the bar by State Law Enforcement Division agents. The DOR would leave other concerns to the neighbors filing their own complaint.
“We want to be impartial on that,” McCabe said. “The neighborhood knows that best. The department only becomes aware of an issue if it’s referred to us by SLED.”
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 6:05 PM.
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