by Earl Williamson
As previously reported, the complaints relative to Kirkwood Bar & Grill's application for an alcohol permit centered first on public safety issues and secondly on quality of life.
During the three and one-half months the establishment had a temporary alcohol permit, there were felony arrests, gunfire, repeated fights, evidence of on-site crack-cocaine use, and multiple 911 calls to levels well above those before and since the temporary permit. In addition to the obvious public safety issues, quality of life for the residents of the complex was severely impacted by a "restaurant" operating as an active, noisy, and sometimes violent bar until as late as 3:00 am.
In addition, the business owner misrepresented himself and his business to the Kirkwood Neighbors Organization, Neighborhood Planning Unit-O, his condominium association, and in information given to the Atlanta Police Department on his application for alcohol permit. During the time the applicant held a temporary permit, he had many 2-for-1 drink specials (illegal), frequent free drink promotions and alcohol giveaways (both illegal) and unpermitted live entertainment.
We challenge anyone to make something racial about the community's well justified opposition to this alcohol permit application. In the same complex as the applicant are successful businesses operated and owned by African Americans, Asians, gays, lesbians, whites, females and males. In the larger Kirkwood Business District are two of the oldest African American-owned businesses of Atlanta-in-Dekalb — and — a successful Pakistani-owned and operated service station
and convenience store and several white-owned businesses. Kirkwood spends its GREEN dollars at all of these businesses because they provide good service, reliable product and share together in the greater neighborhood.
It is no coincidence that the applicant's garage door was racially tagged — 25 miles away — on the same day he was notified officially that the Mayor had remanded his alcohol application back to the License Review Board for re-hearing. It is consistent with his actions throughout the process of neighborhood, NPU-O, and City oversight over his alcohol permit application that he once again has elected to play the "race card" rather than respond to the very real and concrete reasons Kirkwood and NPU-O denied his application to begin with.
Mr. Williamson, a registered nurse, is chairman of NPU-O, which represents the interests of the Edgewood, Kirkwood and East Lake communities.
I saw in a previous article that the Zone said it would take days to get a record of the 911 calls. In my experience, it takes minutes. Tell 'em to get on it.
I would also say that I'm deeply disappointed in The Patch for posting a defamatory article. "It is no coincidence" is a deeply troubling statement when accompanied with the rest of the paragraph. It is deeply offensive and irresponsible to conjecture that the business owner vandalized his own home with a racial slur in a public forum. Many are now legitimating this idea as fact (or probably), which creates a mob mentality about the situation. No black person would ever spray-paint the N-word on their own house. Trust me. Individual acts of prejudice and racial aggression result in spray-painting hate speech on someone's garage. We can stop this behavior by not supporting it hands-down. It will only reproduce if we blame the victim. It is societal-wide racism and white supremacist ideologies that support and protect these types of individual acts of aggression that are the real problem here. Those who believe that he did this to himself are engaging in this racism, and should be called out on their bs.
As far as the statement "No black person would ever spray paint the N-word on their own house," this in itself belies your ignorance. There have been many documented cases of staged "racist attacks" a la Tawana Brawley that are much worse than this. P.S. Since reading your post a few days ago, I have been keeping track on a notepad of people wandering out into the street as I drive.. Seriously- from midtown all the way to Roswell Road in Sandy Springs. The ratio was almost exactly- you guessed it- 10 to 1. I'll be damned.
I think the sensationalism and sensitivity around race and racism make it hard to see things as they truly are, and it might be helpful to you to explore the many ways that racism in this country happens daily and negatively affects people's lives. For example, using the jaywalking example, studies have shown black men are arrested at greater rates, not because they are actually doing anything worse, but because they are targeted for arrest. In fact, white youth are much more likely than black youth to use illegal drugs, yet black youth are exponentially more likely to be arrested for it. Also, everyone jaywalks, yet only some get arrested. Visit East Atlanta, Decatur or Midtown any evening if you'd like to see whites crossing against the light or in the middle of the road :)
A nightclub is not a restaurant, and this place was operating as a nightclub. I went by there just now and you'll find silver foil on all the windows, TVs up above the doors and (when I just went by there) the doors were open and there was music blaring. Want to live next to that? There are still units available. As to the tagging, I would like to know who did it too and have that person held accountable, especially if they're a Kirkwood resident. I really hope the cops do an honest investigation and find out.
All I will say is you should learn a little about this issue, learn about the case and the KB&G under Mr. Johnson, before throwing these charges, because every claimed case of racism that turns out not to be that hurts the next person who makes the claim. It's the "boy cries wolf" syndrome.
So Although I will probably be run out of town by folks with pitchforks and torches...it seems to reflect my long held belief that 95% of our problems stem from stupid people having kids that they cant or won't take care of. Not all children are angels from heaven - wait, maybe they are, but their parents can sure screw them up with their apathy. I guess we're officially off the subject.
As for the legalization of abortion being a factor? I'm no social scientist so I don't know. I don't even know how one would quantify it. But it is an interesting observation.