Month: December 2017

Open plastic containers of alcohol could soon be allowed on Main, but before that happens, the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC), along with the South Main Association (SMA) wants feedback on the city’s proposal.

Sponsored by Memphis City Council member Martavius Jones, the amendment to the city’s current open container ordinance would make it legal to walk the length of Main from E.H. Crump to A.W. Willis with open beer, wine, or liquor in a plastic container.

Currently, open alcoholic beverages are only allowed on Beale Street and on Main inside restaurants, bars, and on certain patios.

Jones believes the change will spark economic development and increase the vibrancy of Downtown, while specifically increasing foot-traffic and activity during events on South Main, like Trolley Nights.

The council took the first of three votes on the amendment on Dec. 5.

Opinions on the proposal can be sent to either DMC president, Jennifer Oswalt or SMA president, Cathy Weaver, who will share the feedback with the council and city administration ahead of the final vote set for Jan. 9.

Just City, the Memphis-based criminal justice reform advocacy group, has helped launch another standalone group…in Nashville.

On Wednesday, Just City announced the formal organization of the Nashville Community Bail Fund. The Memphis group helped to start the bail fund program in Nashville in June 2016. Since then, it has freed more than 100 people, 97 percent of whom have returned to court, according to Just City.

“Nearly all of the people we have freed were charged with low-level offenses and were being detained for one reason and one reason alone – they and their families lacked the resources to pay bail,” said Gicola Lane, who will continue in her role as Nashville bail reform advocate and manager of the fund. “Almost without exception, they have returned to court and answered to the charges against them. The current system is not fair to them or to the broader Nashville community, and it must change.”

[pullquote-1]The Nashville bail fund was one of the first community-based bail funds in the South “and exists to challenge the wealth-based system of pre-trial detention used by the vast majority of criminal justice systems.”

“We will continue to seek community-based solutions to the problems presented by the criminal justice system, and we have no doubt that the fund and its leadership will relentlessly pursue bail reform for the Nashville community,” said Daniel Kiel, Just City’s board chairman.

A former data entry clerk at a medical office here was indicted  for stealing checks from the company, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Wwdnesday.

Gloria Harris, 55, the former clerk at Crescent Medical Corporation in Whitehaven allegedly stole $292,500 by depositing checks made out to the company into bank accounts she fraudulently opened in Crescent’s name.

Harris is also said to have used other people’s Social Security Numbers to open those accounts, as well as to update her apartment lease.

Each fraudulent use of a person’s SSN, carries the maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and three years supervised release. Harris faces up to 30 years’ imprisonment, a $1 million fine, and five years supervised release.

The case, investigated by the U.S. Secret Service Economic Crimes Task Force, is set to be prosecuted by assistant U.S. Attorney General for Western Tennessee, Carroll L. Andre III.

Meanwhile, about 25 miles north of Memphis in Atoka, Tennessee, a former employee at a bank there was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison Wednesday after she admitted in August to having had a connection to the embezzlement of over $800,000 from the bank.

The former branch administrator at the InSouth bank in Atoka, Lauren McDivitt, 41, pled guilty to embezzling $888,470 between 2006 and 2016.

In court, it was revealed that McDivitt created fraudulent withdrawal tickets to make it seem as if customers were withdrawing money from their accounts. To cover her tracks, McDivitt created fake email accounts for those customers to send monthly statements to. Finally, she mailed the customers fraudulent monthly statements that reflected interest accrued instead of the unauthorized withdrawals.

U.S. Attorney General for Western Tennessee, Michael Dunavant said the financial fraud and embezzlement is “disturbing and far-reaching.”

“The abuse of her position of trust and authority as a small town bank manager for her personal gain had a significant negative impact on the employees and customers of InSouth Bank, as well as the whole Atoka and Tipton County communities,” Dunavant said. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office places high priority on protecting the security, deposits, and assets of financial institutions, and this sentence demonstrates that commitment.”

McDivitt will be required to pay restitution of close to $950,000 to InSouth Bank, as well as serve three years of supervised release after her 33-month incarceration period.

Facebook – Beacon Center

Memphis knows pork, the barbecue kind, and it knows pork, the government kind.

From water slides to restaurants, the Beacon Center, a Nashville-based free market think tank, found plenty of “corporate welfare,” “excessive handouts,” and more in its annual “Pork Report” issued Tuesday.

While the center’s “Pork of the Year” award went to the statewide Tennessee Department of Economic Development, the group found much to criticize in Memphis.

“This year’s Pork Report shows that the city of Memphis sure knows how to squander taxpayers’ hard-earned money,” said Beacon CEO Justin Owen. “Whether it is the government getting in the restaurant business, and failing badly, or continuing to waste money on film incentives, which many cities have stopped because of their terrible return on investment, Bluff City continues to be ground zero for government waste.”

In Memphis, the Beacon Center researchers hammered on the FedEx Forum, the Riverfront Bar & Grill, the Memphis Film & Tape Commission, and the UrbanArts Commission. 
Facebook – Beacon Center

The report said the hike to hotel taxes here, which would give $4.2 million to the Memphis/Shelby County Sports Authority Board to pay for and maintain the Forum, could hinder tourism, instead of helping it.

“Ultimately, that’s going to drive tourism away and, at the end of the day, the local taxpayers will be the ones eventually on the hook for this,” said Beacon’s president and CEO Justin Owen.

The Riverfront Bar & Grill was the name of the restaurant and bar inside the $43 million Beale Street Landing. The building is still being paid for by Memphis taxpayers, but the original management of the restaurant was first hired and overseen by the Riverfront Development Corp.

Earlier this year, the restaurant was taken over by Deni and Patrick Reilly, owners of The Majestic Grill. The Reillys rebranded it as The Front Porch with a new menu, staff, and design. It was meant as a pop-up concept for the space. The Front Porch closed for the season in mid-November, according to its Facebook page.

As for the original Riverfront Bar & Grill, Owen said “running a restaurant and bar should not be the role of any government at any level.” For proof, the center said the original restaurant lost $90,000 in its first year in business and had to close temporarily last winter.

“Restaurants have a notoriously high failure rate, and it looks like government-run restaurants fare even worse,” the report said. “It wouldn’t be surprising if we report next year that the Riverfront Bar & Grill’s goose has been cooked.”

[pullquote-1]Beacon’s criticism of the Film & Tape Commission was largely aimed at the state’s film commission. A 2013  audit of the Tennessee Film, Entertainment, and Music Commission found “significant problems” with the oversight of its incentive program. A 2016 audit found that the group had improved but still needed a bit of work.

Still, Beacon noted that this year “Memphis taxpayers will be footing a $175,000 bill to incentivize filmmakers to bring their sets into the city.”

UrbanArt was faulted for hiring a Los Angeles artist for the $700,000 “I Am A Man” project.

“Not only did the state outsource taxpayer dollars to an out-of-state artist, but such extravagant expenses will almost assuredly incentivize future artists interested in state-commissioned works to disregard any concerns for the costs,” the report said.

The report gave numerous other “excruciating” examples of what it called “government waste” from across the state. But it said, “nothing compares to the debacle of the TV show ‘Nashville.’”

[pullquote-2]After ABC cancelled the show last season, “it seemed there was finally light at the end of the money put tunnel,” the report said.

“But a cancellation, poor ratings, and the show’s relocation to a barely watched cable channel were still not enough to dam up the floodgates of taxpayer handouts,” it said. “Tennesseans ended up forking over nearly $11 million to float the fifth season of Nashville on CMT, with $8.5 million coming from the state’s film program, $1 million from a direct grant from the city of Nashville, and $1 million from the Convention and Visitors Bureau and the city’s Event and Marketing Fund.”

The state economic development agency won Beacon’s “Pork of the Year” award thanks to the Industrial Machinery Tax Credit.

“From 2011 to 2014, we have spent nearly $67 million per year for a whopping 55 jobs,” the report said. “Even if the program’s main goal isn’t to create jobs as some have said, it is not the role of government to buy equipment for private companies.”

Visit here to read the report in full.

The Malco Paradiso theater in East Memphis

IMAX will soon return to Memphis with a new opening this week at the Paradiso Cinema Grill.

The “immersive” theater experience will open at the East Memphis movie house on Thursday at 7 p.m. with the release of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” When it opens, Paradiso’s will be only IMAX theater in Memphis.

The Pink Palace Museum opened its Crew Training International IMAX in January 1995. The museum closed it in January 2014 and remodeled the space into the CTI 3D Giant Theater that’s now open.

“IMAX’s cutting-edge projection system, which delivers crystal-clear images, coupled with IMAX’s customized theatre geometry and powerful digital sound system, create a unique environment that will make audiences feel as if they are in the movie,” company officials described the experience in a news release. “IMAX grabs your senses. You don’t just hear the powerful sound system, you feel it all around you. Visually, there is no frame. IMAX’s custom theatre design creates a picture that is higher, wider and closer – filling your peripheral view.”

IMAX and Memphis-based Malco Theaters Inc. announced in September that they would team up on two IMAX theaters, one in Memphis and a second at the Malco Razorback Cinema Grill in Fayetteville, Ark. They are the first IMAX theaters for the 102-year-old Malco, which operates 350 movie screens across 34 locations.

“We looked at all of our options regarding a large format solution and came to the conclusion that no one has a better combination of quality, full immersion cinema, and brand awareness than IMAX,” said Stephen Lightman, Malco’s president and CEO.