It’s not about the music

When the state Office of Alcohol and Beverage Control raided Chelsea’s Café in January, owner David Remmetter originally was told his restaurant wasn’t supposed to have live entertainment and charge a cover after 10 p.m. They gave him yet-to-be-determined citations and told him to show up for court in March.

“He’s trying to scheme a way to have a bar in a place that zoning and local rules don’t allow; that’s not valid,” ATC Commissioner Murphy Painter said in January. “It doesn’t matter how much food is served.”

Remmetter—whose food sales were “barely more” than his liquor sales, according to Painter—then began serving food until 2 a.m. He pleaded no contest in court, agreed to pay $2,000 in fines, and the ATC suspended his restaurant license for one year—but suspended that suspension so long as Remmetter took steps to get rezoning from the Metro Council.

The state’s cornering of a popular venue like Chelsea’s Café has already led to several patrons writing their local councilmember. Councilmember Tara Wicker wants Remmetter to be able to maintain his restaurant status.

“I just really believe that him having to get new zoning when he’s already in compliance doesn’t make sense to me. We’re trying to figure out the rationale behind the attempt to get rezoning,” she said. “Everyone loves Chelsea’s Café; it’s family-friendly, and a jewel of the community that we want to maintain.”

Letters, e-mails and new “Save Chelsea’s” Facebook groups included phrases like, “…support for allowing Chelsea’s to rezone itself to continue operating as it has been in our community for years,” and “… serves as an anchor for the community along the Perkins corridor.”

Remmetter, who is taking this personally, says the ATC restrictions are “just the tip of the iceberg,” adding that a few restaurant owners in town are uniting to fight the different interpretations of ATC regulations.

“Our government is way off, from the national level to the city level,” Remmetter says. “People are fed up with the government. We need to shake hands, not start putting each other away, or you start having government coming in here and making up their own laws.”