The online coverage and outrage began with the following listing on www.urbanjacksonville.info:
Quote
As some of you may have read in the comments TSI has been closed for now, they will reopen soon. Brendon Clark, the promotions and booking manager posted this message:
***TSI will be closed as of last night till an undeterminable time***
This includes the Wet Hot American Summer Party and The Art & Music Mixer
We want to be sure to put the actual events out there to clear up any speculation and assumption. Last night (Friday) at 10:30pm, just as the first band was scheduled to take the stage, TSI was subjected to a random raid. These are common.
JSO’s Drug Abatement Response Team aka D.A.R.T. along with several code inspectors entered the nightclub, ordered all customers to line up and exit the building. They randomly checked ID’s of those leaving. One individual presented a false ID to the officer, was then searched and was in possession of a small amount of Marijuana. He then admitted that he was in fact only 19 and was arrested thereafter. The building was then posted with a “D.A.R.T.†posting declaring the building condemned.
The building received this posting because of the fact that drugs (though a small amount and on a customer) were found in the building. The building in general was also in violation of city codes, which can be repaired.
AS FOR NOW….
TSI will remain closed until these issues are resolved.
We sincerely apologize to all of you who came out last night to see the bands and to say farewell to Roy. We are also sorry if this put a damper on your party schedule. We recommend that you all throw your own personal Wet Hot American Summer Parties.
Brendon also asked me to tack this on about the City’s DART program:
The Jacksonville “Drug Abatement Response Team (DART) was established to combat illegal drugs in Jacksonville by supplementing the traditional approach to solving the drug problem. This program is a partnership between the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and numerous governmental agencies to focus on the property where drug activity flourishes. By working with landlords/property owners, strategies are developed and resources are brought to bear to reduce drug activity. Actions include bringing the property up to code, because blighted properties foster illegal activities.
This is a very broad definition of what the DART program was created for. There was no evidence of “flourishing drug activity†beyond the isolated incident mentioned above. Silly city. Way to embarrass a downtown institution who brings hundreds of thousands of dollars into the downtown economy over a nickel bag. COJ FAIL!
That is insane.
Those brownshirts!
You kind of have a point as the "Long Shoreman" bar up on Pearl St has open drug dealing
Quote from: stephendare on July 18, 2008, 04:28:52 PM
It would be no exaggeration to say that the DART stormtroopering of TSI on Bay Street was an outrage.
Especially with the outcome that out of hundreds of people who were there, the best the team could come up with was a lousy half joint of slackass pot.
The total cost of this nonsense to the Club, and the two very decent guys that own it will be in the neighborhood of 60k in lost sales and approximately 20k in related expenses for 'redesign' and implementation.
And on the basis of what?
Time to call the lawyers. They can fight back if they're willing.
Quote from: Downtown Dweller on July 22, 2008, 04:29:23 PM
You kind of have a point as the "Long Shoreman" bar up on Pearl St has open drug dealing
The "Home of the Old Timers and Longshoremen" sells smack?
The City is becoming more and more retarded and its seems the citizens of Jacksonville are having to suffer for it.
Three shootings over the weekend, innocent citizens are dropping like flys from gunshots and the damn police dept. wants to target a harmless bar.
Kind of makes me happy that the City is broke. Imagine what kind of nonsense these guys would try to pull if they actually had a budget to do so.
I can't wait to start voting all of these morons out of office.
Ay! TSI is not a harmless bar. It's one of those "Drug hardened alcohol consuming underaged drinking illegal gun carrying homosexual rampant counterfeiting money laundering gang fighting atheist type Indy bars" according to D.A.R.T....The worst of the worst. I feel so much safer now.
GIVE ME A BREAK.
Look Sherlock: If every bar in jacksonville was like TSI, there would be far fewer problems. i just want to know what was D.A.R.T thinking. :-\
i can't wait for their re-opening bash! if they wanted to, they could charge $10 for admission instead of $5 to help recoup some of the bills. i'm sure it'll be a great time, so i wouldn't mind paying!