Update: After the story aired, a court hearing was held and the padlock was taken off the restaurant on Monday. The business is scheduled to reopen this week serving food only.
Members of the Franklin Beer Board voted to suspend Tin Roof II's beer permit. The bar was padlocked and labeled as a "public nuisance" Wednesday due to the high number of calls for service related to the establishment.
The board voted to suspend its permit to serve beer for 30 days with a $3,000 fine. They will reevaluate under the conditions that the business will hire more security, and close at 11 p.m. or when Nashville bars are expected to close.
Law enforcement has 162 calls related to the bar and restaurant according to a notice of violation document. Of those calls, 137 of them were made from May through the end of August, and they included 18 DUIs, aggravated assaults, disorderly conduct, and rape.
Tin Roof II's co-owner Jason Sheer said he was shocked when his business was padlocked, "We will stop at nothing in order to get our business back open, and our people back to work."
According to police, a patron at Tin Roof II posted a video of a sex act at the bar on social media in September. During the meeting, a member of the Franklin Police Department recalled a time he found a couple engaged in a sex act in a parked vehicle in the lot.
Franklin Alderman Beverly Burger said it's gotten out of hand. "It’s something that Franklin frankly is not happy about. We don’t want that kind of behavior, and those kinds of problems in our community. It's not healthy for any community, and it’s a sad situation."
Sheer blames Nashville's strict COVID-19 regulations including an 11p.m. curfew. When customers leave those bars, they travel to Franklin to keep the party going. "Moving forward now that we have been told we are a nuisance, we want to fix that desperately."
For the past 15 years, he said they've never had these problems. "Families come in there, kids, people meet there, those people are married, they now have kids," Sheer said.
The alderman believes all of this should have been corrected sooner. "It’s not something we take delight in at all, and I believe we have responded correctly," Burger said.
On Monday, Tin Roof II will be in court regarding their liquor license and the public nuisance situation. If their business is forced to close for good, around 40 people will be unemployed.
Read More: Tin Roof 2 in Cool Springs padlocked, deemed 'public nuisance'
