Asylum Manager Fined for Illegal Alcohol Sales

The manager of the now-defunct Asylum agreed to pay a $2,000 fine and serve six months on probation on Thursday following his June 2013 arrest for selling liquor without a license.

Couri Antonio Williams was initially charged with operating a business outside allowed hours of operation, selling alcohol without a license, not having a business license, storing alcohol without a license and failure to display a license.

But  he agreed to a plea deal for having no liquor license and serving alcohol outside allowed hours of operation, according CBS Atlanta.

"It's time that those who will not abide by the law know beyond any shadow of a doubt that they are not wanted in the city of Atlanta," Stephanie Ramage, the mayor's citizen advocate, said in court, CBS Atlanta said.

In June, Ramage said the Williams went to the Midway Pub — which is across the street from the Asylum and invited her and several others at her table to an after-hours party.

"The party, he said, was going to get started at 3 o'clock and $10 would buy us all the beer we could drink," Ramage said at the June meeting of the East Atlanta Community Association.

At 3 a.m., she said people began filing into the bar and counted roughly 200 people partying it up, even though last pour in the city is 2:30 a.m.

Atlanta police, who flanked Ramage as she debriefed East Atlanta residents, arrested Williams the next morning.

The Asylum building's owner Abe Asher, subsequently evicted the bar's owners Mike Comastro and Brian Michael Sawyer, for non payment of rent.

Williams is no stranger to the criminal justice system.

In 2004, he pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon and no contest on a marijuana possesion charge. He was arrested on other charges in 2003 and 2011, according to DeKalb County records.