SC: Columbia’s getting sued over where bars can open, so it might change the law
By Jeff Wilkinson
May 24, 2018
COLUMBIA – The city of Columbia could eliminate its law requiring 400 feet between bars, effectively killing a lawsuit filed against the city and four bars in Five Points.
The move to eliminate the law, which is rarely enforced, is included in a draft agenda for the June 4 planning commission meeting. The planning commission makes recommendations on actions regarding zoning laws to Columbia City Council.
The suit against the city and the bars — The Cotton Gin, Latitude 22, Pinch and Lucky’s — was filed by Columbia attorney Dick Harpootlian on behalf of Bruce DuBose, owner of Sylvan & DeBose Jewelers. The four bars are adjacent to each other in the 600 block of Harden Street, just steps from the jewelry store.
Mayor Steve Benjamin told The State he requested the law be repealed because it was out-of-date and rarely if ever enforced in any of the city’s three entertainment districts — Five Points, the Vista or Main Street.
“Other approaches have been under consideration,” he said, without elaborating. “We have entertainment districts, and those districts will have a new set of rules. This rule is antiquated.”
Harpootlian said he would “flood” the City Council chamber where planning commission meetings are held with residents of surrounding neighborhoods who want the law enforced. Enforcement would chip away at what he called an unhealthy concentration of bars in Five Points.
“If they want to amend the law, that’s fine, we’ll work with them,” he said. But eliminating the law “is just a cover-up for not enforcing it for 18 years. If they had, we wouldn’t have a problem in Five Points, which is 30 bars in a 1-square-mile area.”
The lawsuit is the latest volley in an ongoing battle by some residents of neighborhoods adjoining the entertainment and shopping district against the growing number of college bars in Five Points.
Many of those bars, neighbors claim, make their money by selling as much liquor as possible as quickly and cheaply as possible to USC undergrads, many of whom are underage and using fake ID cards. The result is increasing debauchery in the district and the surrounding neighborhoods, including violence, vandalism and lewd behavior.
The neighbors claim the proliferation of bars in the district is fueled by an ever-growing USC undergraduate population.
Harpootlian, representing the neighbors and now the jewelry store owner, has succeeded in blocking a liquor license for one bar, Five Points Roost, and is awaiting a ruling from a state administrative law judge on another, Rooftop Bar.
Harpootlian, the former head of the S.C. Democratic Party and rumored to be a potential candidate for the S.C. Senate, argued against the licenses for the two bars on three fronts — not selling enough food to qualify for a license under the state Constitution, creating a nuisance and not properly disclosing the bars’ owners.
Also, City Council recently rewrote the city’s laws on extended-hours permits for bars — which make the permits more expensive and has stiffer penalties for bars that violate the rules.
At-large City Councilman Howard Duvall said the city should allow the new ordinance time to work before changing any other laws.
“I wouldn’t want to muddy the water,” he said.