The Madison County Commission unanimously said no today to a bar outside the Huntsville city limits in the fast-growing northwest side of the county. The unanimous vote against a license for the Uptowner lounge came after commissioners from the area objected and Sheriff Kevin Turner said his deputies are stretched thin now.
A Madison County commissioner said a group of investors had planned to open the bar modeled after a gentleman’s club they had opened in Birmingham where dancers are topless.
The bar would have been located just east of Research Park Boulevard near the Huntsville city limits and close to a fast-growing area of condominiums, apartments and retail shopping. “This is not a restaurant application,” County Attorney Jeff Rich said, “this is a true lounge application.”
“It’s not our job as law enforcement to tell you whether you can or cannot put the establishment there,” Turner said. “But we can get up and express our concerns.... We’re soon to be the second-largest city and county in the state, and the concern we have is not only manpower to handle the calls.... The other concern we have is the particular place the lounge would be placed. Less than half-a-mile up the highway you have Westminster Christian Academy, which is a private campus where the kids will be out there in the afternoon and at night for sports activities. A lot of people go to those events.
“The other direction is Highway 53 and Research Park Boulevard where we are already having problems with the businesses with all the loitering and the traffic that’s going on there,” Turner said. “Myself and HPD both are doing details trying to limit the amount of people that’s congregating at that intersection.”
Turner said the new lounge would be near Dan Tibbs and Blake Bottom roads, both basically rural two-lane roads, and he said the expected crowds and the limits on law enforcement resources would make it a challenge. “We’re definitely not here to say, no, don’t put the lounge there,” Turner said, “but to express our concern as a law enforcement agency.”
County officials also said the bar’s license application provided no evidence the applicants had notified nearby landowners as required, and they had provided no floor plan except to say the bar would be similar to the floor plan of another club operated by the same group in a different city. Commissioner Violet Edwards later identified the other club as the Furnace, a gentleman’s club in Birmingham.
County Commissioner Phil Vandiver moved to deny the license, and Edwards seconded the motion. The lounge would have been located in Edwards’ district and across Research Park Boulevard from Vandiver’s district. Vandiver said the big issue with lounges in the county is the county has no zoning. Without that, he said, anyone who could fit a lounge within the current rules - no less than 500 feet from a church or school - could put a bar too close to neighborhoods for residents’ comfort. Edwards agreed that she didn’t want to open the door to clubs around the county.
The Link LonkDecember 10, 2020 at 05:58AM
https://www.al.com/business/2020/12/gentlemans-club-in-rural-madison-county-forget-about-it.html
Gentleman’s club near school in Madison County? Forget about it - AL.com
https://news.google.com/search?q=forget&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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