Mayor, alderman take issue with bar restaurant owners
Published 8:54 am Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Mayor George Flaggs Jr. and North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield took issue Monday with claims by several restaurant and bar owners that they did not know the board was going to get resort status pulled from their businesses.
Their comments came at the board meeting Monday as they prepared to amend the early closing resolution to change the time of Sunday alcohol sales from beginning at 1 p.m. to 11 a.m.
Flaggs began the meeting asking several times if anyone sitting in the boardroom wanted to discuss the new closing hours. He had no takers.
The board approved a resolution Dec. 10 asking the Mississippi Department of Revenue to pull resort status from the Beechwood Inn on East Clay Street, Monsour’s at the Biscuit Company and KC’s River Town Grille — formerly the Upper End — on Washington Street and LD’s Kitchen on Mulberry Street, requiring the businesses to stop selling alcohol after 2 a.m. The resolution, which was approved Dec. 19 by state Revenue officials, takes effect Friday.
The city’s four casinos, DiamondJacks, Ameristar, Riverwalk and Lady Luck were not affected.
The business owners claimed in a Dec. 24 article in The Vicksburg Post they were not notified of the board’s Dec. 10 vote and were unable to give their opinions on the resolution.
“I’m making it emphatically clear,” Flaggs said. “I talked to the very people that splattered my name all over the paper. I talked to them prior to (introducing the resolution), as I do with anything. I had them in my office, I went to their establishment. I talked to them and told them what we were contemplating.”
“I haven’t even been contacted by any of those people that would be directly or indirectly affected by these hours,” Mayfield said. He turned toward Flaggs and South Ward Alderman Willis Thompson, “I don’t know if anybody has contacted any one of you guys requesting a meeting with us.”
Flaggs said the status change, which he called “last call,” didn’t mean the businesses have to close at 2 a.m.
“It means you can’t serve liquor beyond 2 o’clock,” he said, adding the correction to the resolution approved Monday allows restaurants to sell alcohol with meals after 11 a.m. on Sunday.
The resolution, he said, was done at the request of Police Chief Walter Armstrong as a safety measure. “He needed another safety tool in order to make the City of Vicksburg safe, and I agreed with him,” he said.
“I just don’t know how anybody could get mixed up I didn’t talk to them,” Flaggs said. “Everything I do as relates to my politics in the city of Vicksburg, I tell everybody. I don’t keep politics secret. I believe in being honest and transparent. If you don’t want honesty and transparency, I’m not your guy. I don’t take politics personal.”
Mayfield recalled talking with the mayor earlier in 2014 about pulling the resort status on the businesses.
He said he was only able to talk to one business owner but did not name him.
“I sat down with him, and asked that individual ‘if this would affect your business, then you tell me now, because I don’t want do anything that’s going to hurt anybody’s business in the city.’
“I was told he didn’t have a problem. Then I pick up the paper and it’s a different story. For some reason, the board has been made the villain in this.”
Mayfield said the board was up front with its plans to pass the resolution.
“We did not hide anything, and I don’t appreciate the fact — I take it personal — when people say we’re doing things behind the door that we hurt somebody’s business in the city, because that did not happen,” he said.
“You (the business owners) had the opportunity to speak and make sure this board was aware of how you felt,” he said.
“I know for a fact that practically everybody in the city knew what was proposed, and for somebody to say they didn’t, they are lying,” Mayfield said. “They knew what was proposed and they had the opportunity to speak to this board. Not one single person that is affected by this has contacted me, not one.”