Statesboro City Council members will hold a public hearing Tuesday morning to hear evidence as to whether the alcohol license issued to Karen Pittman Brown for the operation of Primetime Lounge, 608C Northside Drive W., should be suspended or revoked.
Council will consider a motion on the status of the license after the hearing.
During a hearing Dec. 12 before Bulloch County Superior Court Judge John R. Turner, Brown and Primetime Lounge co-owner Eurl Kittles each took the stand and testified that they submitted a lease agreement to the Georgia Department of Revenue, signed by Brown and listing her as the owner, to obtain a license to sell alcohol. Kittles cited a record of multiple driving offenses as the reason for Brown being on the lease, as he feared his record would prevent him from getting the license.
However, Mark Anderson, a partner with Bulloch Properties LLC, from which Kittles leases the building that houses Primetime Lounge, testified that he had never met Brown. Anderson added that the signature purporting to be his on the lease agreement was not his.
On Dec. 20, Turner signed a consent order calling for the hearing on Primetime’s alcohol license before City Council on Tuesday.
Primetime Lounge, along with Platinum Lounge at 2 Proctor St., has been closed since Nov. 13, three days after a fatal shooting outside Primetime and an incident of shots being fired outside Platinum.
Johnnie L. Benton, 25, of Rincon, was shot and killed outside the establishment and another Rincon man, Jamal Heard, 21, was wounded in the early November incident.
A highlight of the City Council consent agenda is an alcohol license application by Clarence Saxby “Bo” Chambliss Jr., the son of U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga. The application indicates that the younger Chambliss and William Jenkins Stembler, the chairman and CEO of Georgia Theatre Company, are business partners seeking the license for Mellow Mushroom, 1098 Bermuda Run Road.
Bo Chambliss is the president of Georgia Theatre Company and co-owns a Mellow Mushroom restaurant in Pooler with Stembler.
Another alcohol license application on the consent agenda is by Casey Lynn Scarborough for Wild Wing Café, 57 Aspen Heights Drive.
