Wednesday, May 26, 2010

City Discrimination

Two recent news stories. Park 6 might lose its liquor license for various problems in and around the club. And the city is considering an ordinance that would allow a local commission the power to investigate and punish perpetrators of housing discrimination. Unrelated stories?

Not in my book. To the best of my knowledge, the owner of Park 6, Thomas Holmes, has not committed or been accused of any crime or misdemeanor. Again, to the best of my knowledge, Holmes has taken many steps to protect his customers and the public. He checks his customers for weapons and he employs security guards. Even so, some of his customers have caused problems repeatedly such that the police are frequently called to the club. His customers are almost all young and black.

Holmes may lose his liquor license. His crime? He serves alcohol to young black people. Again, Holmes has not been accused of any alcohol related offense such as serving after hours, serving minors etc... No, he serves black people. And here is what nobody is willing to say publicly - large numbers of young black people are more likely to cause problems or commit serious crimes than say, the octogenarians bingo convention, or even the club or bar that has mostly white customers.

So Holmes' problems with the city result directly from his decision to serve young black people. By going after Holmes, the city is in effect enforcing a blacks only prohibition policy. Yes, the city essentially has a separate and unequal alcohol policy.

Now to the other story. The city is preparing to hammer anyone who they find guilty of housing discrimination. As a landlord, this is scary stuff. We need to be careful about who resides in our homes. I recently rejected a woman who wanted to rent an apartment from me. We had a bad feeling, confirmed by people who knew her. We rejected her, officially because she had pets. She has since died of a drug overdose. I remember thinking I was glad she was white, insofar as I would not likely be accused of racial discrimination.

Anyway, leave the discrimination business to the city. If you do it like the city does, you might wind up in jail or with a crippling fine.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a great post.

Anonymous said...

The mayor has been waging a quiet war against Park 6 for several months. He tried to get Barrett to not hold a fundraiser there.

Anonymous said...

Mayor Dickert deals with blacks in a different manner.

Blog staff said...

City Hall is out of control. They have forgotten that they should be working for the people and not setting their own personal law that they feel public should be govern by.
I a quite upset at how the committee that issue out liquor license hold minority businesses to a different standard. Must hire either Metro or city police, must by cameras for out doors and indoors, must tell people what kind of food the must serve and how man times a patron can go to the bath room. Next they will be tell Black owned bar what kind of paper to wipe their a-- with.
Unfortunate, Africa American clubs are owned by a family and do not make a great deal of money. The requirement that are placed on them many times will put them out of business.
Lastly look at the percentage of Black bars that been closed by the city in comparison to white. By percentage you can easily see it support me feeling that the is targeting minority businesses and it has nothing to do with pull the race card.
Prove me wrong
Lumpy