Copyright AL.com
A troubled bar that Mobile authorities claimed had become a public safety nuisance was officially shuttered on Tuesday after the City Council voted to revoke its business license. The bar’s owner claimed the crowds came for his popular chicken wings that he boasted are the best not just in Mobile, but on the planet. The council voted 5-0, with two council members abstaining, on the license revocation for Phat Tuesday Sports Bar on St. Stephen’s Road. The decision came after public hearings and multiple comments and concerns raised by police and neighbors about large gatherings in nearby parking lots, shootings, fights, drugs, domestic disputes and other problems connected to the bar and its late-night hours. “This recommendation was not made lightly,” said Rob Lasky, the executive director of public safety with the City of Mobile. “It may not be popular. But my job requires me to make tough decisions and difficult recommendations. I need to prioritize public safety.” The bar had been the subject of 100 police calls over the past year, with tensions peaking around Aug. 31, when a Mobile police officer was nearly shot in the head during a confrontation at the bar. Police say the issues at Phat Tuesday date back to 2022 and primarily involve large crowds spilling out into adjacent parking lots. The bar’s owner, Richard Johnson, declined to comment after the council’s vote. But ahead of the vote, he told the council that he had been a successful business owner in Mobile for the past 15 years and blamed the police for harassing him. He has also said that he is not responsible for the large crowds loitering in the nearby parking lots. Johnson also claims he typically draws a small crowd inside the bar. “I got 16 cameras around my building and if anything happens in the vicinity of the building, you have those cameras,” Johnson said. “But a lieutenant had to come and sit in front of my building. He wasn’t called. He was harassing my business.” Johnson said he was willing to compromise, acknowledging he would be willing to alter the hours at Phat Tuesday. Authorities and neighbors have complained that the bar is open into the early morning hours on weekends – sometimes as long as 6 a.m. on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Authorities have said that most of the 100 calls to Phat Tuesday over the past year occurred between 1 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. Johnson said that weekend nights are the only nights he draws a large crowd. He said it had to do with having “the best chicken wings on the planet.” “They are going to come and get those chicken wings,” Johnson said. “I don’t care where they are. They are just loitering outside my place.” Council members largely did not comment ahead of the vote. The two abstentions came from Council President C.J. Small and Councilman Cory Penn. They both expressed concerns about receiving conflicting messages over the placement of “No parking” signs in the neighborhoods adjacent to the bar. Small, after the council meeting, said he wasn’t ready to vote on the fate of the business license without receiving all of the information about nearby parking. Penn also said he was concerned with the conflicting information about parking restrictions near Phat Tuesday. “Public safety is very important not only for the businesses but the community at-large,” Small said. “That is what the council has to look at. Every business owners should take it into consideration.” Small said that Johnson gave the council “no direction” on what kind of compromises he was willing to work on. “He should have come down here with more of a description on what he would have done to save his business,” Small said. It is the first time in years that the council has revoked a business license for an establishment that had come under scrutiny by Mobile police. There had been some hesitation about closing it because it had long been a Black-owned and operated bar and Johnson had a reputation for supporting local organizations. Brenda Perryman, who lives behind the bar, said she is thankful for the council’s actions. “I hate that he lost his license, but we need peace,” she said. “My house is directly behind his club and it’s always something that was going on. If he is closed, there will be no traffic or people fighting in front of our house, or parking in our driveway where we cannot move.”
