Judge Denies Latest Motion By Twelve25 In Lawsuit Against City Of Tuscaloosa

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court Judge Brad Almond on Wednesday denied a motion for expedited discovery in a second lawsuit filed by Twelve25 against the City of Tuscaloosa regarding its occupancy ordinance.

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As Patch previously reported, Twelve25 voluntarily dropped its first lawsuit against the City of Tuscaloosa after United States District Court Judge Annemarie Carney Axon ruled that the city was within its right to enforce new occupancy requirements on the bar and restaurant on The Strip.

But following the dismissal, the business owners made good on their promise to refile the lawsuit in circuit court.

Indeed, the owners of Twelve25 initially requested a temporary restraining order against the city regarding the ordinance. The new ordinance was passed by the City Council on March 7 and Twelve25 was issued a new occupancy certificate setting its maximum occupancy at 287 — a number that the bar's owners argued would cause irreparable damage to the establishment.

This is regardless of if the restaurant is in operation or if tables and chairs have been moved to open floor space when it functions primarily as a bar.

It also came in the wake of afatal shooting on Grace Street in January that left 23-year-old Jamea Harris dead and former Alabama basketball player Darius Miles and his childhood friend Michael Davis charged with capital murder. The two groups involved in the shooting had been patrons at Twelve25 the evening of the shooting.

The owners of the bar, CMB Holdings Group LLC, claim the business was unduly targeted by the Tuscaloosa City Council when it adopted the new ordinance, which they claim intentionally took aim at the bar's dual-occupancy limits — one for during the day when it operates as a restaurant and another for when it exclusively operates as a bar at night.

In the motion filed on Wednesday, attorneys representing the city requested Almond deny the motion to expedite discovery in the case, as attorneys for Twelve25 requested the city's collective response time to its discovery request be bumped up to a week from today, May 3.

According to court documents obtained by Patch, the set deadline was May 26, which is 45 days after the initial complaint was filed and the summons served.

"Not only should discovery not be expedited (as requested by Twelve25), but no discovery should take place at all, unless and until the Court determines that Twelve25 has stated a viable cause of action," the attorneys representing Tuscaloosa argued in Wednesday's filing. "It has not stated a claim."

Issues presented Wednesday by attorneys representing the City of Tuscaloosa had a two-fold focus, the primary point being the owner of Twelve25 expressing that the business would be a gastropub, operating as restaurant during daylight hours and a bar at night. The other being the business's handling of the ordinance once it was handed down.

Court transcripts show that Twelve25's owner Jay Jarrett admitted to being asked by Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox if the intention was to operate the business mainly as a bar, as opposed to functioning primarily as a restaurant. This was in 2019 when the establishment first sought a license to operate as a gastropub.

During the initial court proceedings as the business owners requested a temporary restraining order against the city's enforcement of its gastropub ordinance, Jarrett said he had been asked by city officials to explain the business model for Twelve25 before receiving a license.

When asked by attorney Wilson Green if Jarrett ever told the Council he planned to turn the establishment into a bar at night, the business owner responded: "No. I wouldn't say that I told them."

Still, Curtis Seal — an attorney representing Twelve25 — argued during the 10-hour hearing in March that Maddox and city officials capitalized on the shooting and focused on the business as a racially motivated tactic to show the city doing something about gun violence.

"So as all good politicians do after a tragedy, Mayor Maddox seizes on it, and he starts to play the blame game," Seal said. "And he's quoted in a news article, in 1819 News, where he expresses an intent to attack establishments like Twelve25. And there's what he said, and I think the important part here is that it is bolded and underlined. He says, we're not tolerating this, and we've never tolerated it. ... [N]ot only are those statements false, they are politically motivated, and I believe they're driven by a racist animus."

The other issue focused on by Green during the proceedings centered on Twelve25's complaint, which Patch previously reported, that claimed the city rushed to enforce the ordinance, while failing to properly advertise the ordinance changes. CMB Holdings Group said this prompted its request for the temporary restraining order to block the city from enforcing the measure, along with requesting compensatory damages approved by the court.

After the ordinance was passed on March 7, Jarrett said in the initial hearing his business was closed from March 10 through March 20, with the ordinance going into effect on March 13.

Jarrett explained he put up placards regarding the changes, but when under cross examination he said "When I posted it in my establishment, I had no idea about a 13th date. The 13th date was news to me when the council and them shared it with me. But the 10th date, when [the city fire marshal] e-mailed it to me, when he told me it was ... I asked him specifically, when is it effective? He said, immediately."

An exchange mentioned from the federal proceedings in March, though, provide some of the most compelling insight into the dynamics of the case as Judge Axon dissected the argument. She then denied the request for a temporary restraining order.

"So you've known since March 10th about this new ordinance, at least since March 10th, and it's affect [sic] on your occupancy level," Judge Axon said. "It is March 23rd. You waited until after the bar reopened to file a [temporary restraining order]. You filed it in state court, which I get ... But I would challenge ... you to state under oath that you never considered that this would be immediately removed."

And the aforementioned quote from the federal judge figured prominently into the city's defense in Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court. Ultimately, Judge Almond denied the motion from Twelve25 to expedite the discovery phase of the litigation.

Attorneys for the City of Tuscaloosa are now likely to file motions for the court to consider the validity in of Twelve25's claims in an effort to dismiss the civil suit.

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