Shut up and drink, Lilburn bar patrons told

[Sequoia]

Lilburn has never wanted to be seen as River City, or as a haven for "American Idol" wannabes. Earlier, the city outlawed pool —- the game that spelled trouble in the musical "The Music Man" —- in its watering holes. Now it's also barring karaoke and just about any other party game from places that serve alcohol. Dave Metcalf, a patron of the Sports Fan Bar & Grill, wonders if the Gwinnett city is banning good times.

"Our intention was always to just have alcohol in restaurants," Bolton said. "We don't want to have dance clubs, party clubs or bars. If it means being made fun of because we don't allow karaoke, that's fine, too."

Lilburn permits liquor licenses only for establishments in which 50 percent of sales comes from food. Bolton suspects the Sports Fan might not meet that standard, but proving that would be difficult. It is much easier to ban activities common to bars: card games, pool, video games, trivia nights and, yes, karaoke. That means Sports Fan owner Richard Tao will not be able to offer poker, trivia contests or karaoke nights —- the backbone of his business.

"Evidently they don't even want to encourage singing and laughter," Puglise said of Lilburn officials. "They want their citizens to be somber when they eat their meals." "I like to sit down and have a beer as much as anybody else," the mayor said. "But we can show studies that show that bars and honky-tonks lead to more crime."

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/printedition/2007/03/06/gwxlilburn0306a.html

[annabanana]

1. "honky-tonks" ??

He actually said "honky-tonks"?

How old IS this guy?

[Sequoia]

2. Guess he's stuck on that Rolling Stones song about

those honky-tonk wimin.

[Der Blaue Engel]

3. I liked this story better when it was 1984 and it was called Footloose

:shrug:

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. LOL

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Now if my memory is correct,

when I lived in a dry town that had only "private clubs", there were always fights, etc, going on, and public drunkenness was common. And then we voted the town wet, bars came in--and the fights, etc, went by the wayside.

Wonder what this council would do if someone opened a non-alcoholic bar (like an old fashioned soda shop) and wanted to have darts, karaoke, etc--I guess they would be out of luck.....and just think---what if the local church wanted to do these things!!!!!

[tenshi816]

5. My family lived in Lilburn when I was a teenager.

I'm kind of amazed that there's any kind of alcohol served there at all! That sure wasn't the case back in the day - the sheer thought of it would've got the fundies up in arms. As it was, my stepfather had to go to the next county to buy his beer.

At my Lilburn high school, we weren't even allowed to have our prom off of school premises because the school board was afraid we'd have it someplace out of the county where we might get our hands on alcohol. Of course, that made us all the more determined to get drunk on prom night, whether it was from spiked punch at the prom or from going out afterwards and drinking.

Doesn't seem like the powers that be have learned very much since then.

[muntrv]

6. Welcome to Lilburn. Where the fun always ends.

Mayor Bolton=:dunce:

[devilgrrl]

7. "state-operated lottery games still will be permitted"

and "We're going to start keno next month."

:woohoo:



:sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm: