DENIAL Of License For Restaurant - Pub In Wicksburg

Rickey Stokes

Viewed: 3989

Posted by: RStokes
[email protected]
334-790-1729
Date: Mar 13 2023 5:51 PM

HOUSTON COUNTY:     This past Thursday and today it would have been better for D-4 Houston County Commissioner James Ivey to have remained silent then to open his mouth.

The issue was a new business going into the property where Teaser’s was located in Wicksburg, Highway 84 West and Highway 123.

A number of years ago three persons were killed in the Teaser’s building. Teaser’s was a strip club. By the laws passed by the Alabama Legislature, once closed, Teaser’s can never open as a strip club.

The new owner wants to open a business, in what was described, to resemble Applebee’s in Dothan. It is a restaurant/pub atmosphere where food and alcohol is sold. In addition to the Applebee’s style pub there will be games such as cornhole and ping pong.

Houston County Commissioner D-4 James Ivey, who also serves as a Captain with Houston County Sheriff Department, asked if the applicant/owner traveled outside the country and how many times a year would he travel outside of the country. When answered the Commissioner wanted to know who would manage the business.

If D-4 Commissioner James Ivey was referring to the owner having to always be at the business rather than having management in place, that was a S-T-U-P-I-D question. Ivey, as Captain of Houston County Sheriff Department is assigned to manage the Sheriff 911 Center and the Houston County Jail. Ivey could not dispatch and operate the technology if someone held a gun to his head and demanded he do so. Captain Ivey is never in dispatch and it operates better without him then if he was there.

Also D-4 Commissioner Ivey is never at the Houston County Jail. But the jail operates.

So to ask such non-sense questions was a indication that D-4 Commissioner James Ivey does not know how to manage.

D-2 Commissioner Tracy Adams eluded to the same. Adams who is an employee and not in management, Adams apparently does not know that businesses have managers. In fact the schools that D-2 Commissioner Tracy Adams works, the School Superintendent is not located. Yet he is in command, but he has people in place to manage.

The only person on the Houston County Commission was the preacher, D-1 Commissioner Curtis Harvey, that made sense. This is not the same as Teaser’s. by law can not be, a business like Applebee’s, and almost every business in Dothan sells alcohol.

When the votes were lacking and the commissioners were puzzled, the applicant attorney, Dustin Fowler, saw the vote was going against the applicant. Attorney Dustin Fowler, a bulldog, asked was the National Peanut Festival Parade going to be canceled since a Capital Murder occurred a second was injured. Quickly Fowler answered his own question by saying NO. Fowler told the commissioners this was not a Teaser’s. Totally different and ownership was different.

Mr. Kenneth Hardy who owns Hardy Family Restaurant in Wicksburg, spoke to the commission in opposition. Hardy said after 70 years Wicksburg finally got rid of the alcohol and the school and churches were growing.

Attorney Fowler countered the remarks of Hardy in saying that Hardy was afraid this restaurant/pub would hurt his business and that was why he was against it. Fowler also said that D-4 Commissioner James Ivey was against it because he held his campaign kick off at Hardy’s Family Restaurant.

Chairman Brandon Shoupe was stern with Fowler on throwing accusations as to why someone was not in favor. Shoupe received a $ 1,000.00 campaign donation from Hardy in the Chairman race of 2022.

The vote came. D-1 Commissioner Curtis Harvey voted AGAINST the denial of the license request while D-2 Commissioner Tracy Adams, D-3 Commissioner Ricky Herring and D-4 Commissioner James Ivey voted in favor of denying the license to the restaurant/pub.

The Chairman of the Houston County Commission can not make a motion and can only vote in the event of a tie. So he did not vote.

Shoupe Donation HARDY by Rickey Stokes on Scribd

<- back