billiards and brews sports bar knoxville tn

Darrell Griffin said he was afraid to enter the overcrowded bar when he responded to a service call after completing a 10-day quarantine. 'Not a soul was wearing a mask and I certainly wasn't going to expose myself to that again.' Matt Gentry said the employee called the police and asked them to come cite him, hoping that customers he suspected were in a biker gang would see an officer and leave the bar.

27 in the bar's parking lot.ĭashboard camera footage shown during the hearing showed officers responding to a large fight at the bar and citing the bar on another occasion at an employee's request. Police mentioned reports of vehicles being broken into, fights and a fatal shooting that occurred after 2 a.m. John Coward said calls to Billiards and Brews increased since the COVID-19 curfew as people flocked there because others closed for the night. Police report disorderly conduct, increased calls for service to the barĭuring the hearing, Knoxville Police Sgt. Lawhorn, like Paul's Oasis owner Paul Osterbrink, refused to answer questions 55 times, asserting a Fifth Amendment right that does not exist when an individual is appearing as a representative for a corporation. 'I don't think I can emphasize enough that this is the reason we are here today,' she said, adding that permit holders are required to uphold certain responsibilities under a state of emergency.Īrguments from the city and the bar's attorney, Rick Owens, closely mirrored those the two attorneys made last week at the hearing over Paul's Oasis' beer permit.Īttorneys locked horns again over permittee responsibilities, the pandemic regulations' wording and whether the beer board should rule ahead of a municipal court hearing on the bars' citations. This month, the state reached 10,000 deaths from the virus, 500 of them from Knox County.

During her opening arguments at Billiards and Brews' beer permit hearing Tuesday, city attorney Alyson Dyer cited grim milestones in the state and county's fight against COVID-19.

Billiards and brews sports bar knoxville tn