Phil Campbell – Memphis Flyer

In 1997, former Flyer reporter Phil Campbell wrote a cover story titled “Cheaper by the Hour,” which detailed the operations of local hourly rate motels three years after a zoning ordinance was passed to try and relocate the motels.

“But three years after the zoning ordinance was passed, the hourly rate motels have not moved from their old locations in the commercial districts,” Campbell wrote. “The council has been told by the courts that it simply cannot shut down independent motels that charge by the hour, and the motel owners do not appear ready to give up their current locations. The motels persist as the most accessible place in Memphis to both buy and have cheap sex, and they continue to blight declining neighborhoods.”

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Campbell spent the night at the Bellevue Inn, located at 1250 South Bellevue, and described his interactions with prostitutes as they repeatedly approached him and asked if he’d like some company.

“Before I reach my room, a woman jumps out of a parked van and asks in a wooden voice, ‘Can I come, too?’ Her eyes are unfocused, strung out. I tell her maybe later. It is only 7:30. Business is still slow,” writes Campbell.

According to Memphis City Council Chairman Jim Strickland, a mechanism was set to combat existing hourly rate motels when ownership transfers. There isn’t much the council can do, however, about m otels that have been charging hourly rates for years and haven’t changed owners.

“Any transfer of ownership of a hotel has to come before the city council, even if the name of the hotel isn’t changing, even if the employees aren’t changing,” he said. “If the ownership is changing, they have to file an application and come before the city council. Through that process, the rates are verified, and they cannot be hourly rates. All of the new owners have to come in. Their testimony is recorded, saying it’s not an hourly rate motel.”

By having the transfers of ownership come before the council, any crimes that occurred at the motel over the previous one to two years can be reviewed by councilmembers.

“If there’s a prostitution arrest there, that’s a red flag,” Strickland said. “If an owner comes in, testifies to us that it’s not going to be an hourly rate motel, and it turns into one, we can file suit to shut them down. But in my six-and-a-half years on the council, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a complaint that something we approved ended up being an hourly rate motel.”

Last year, a year-long Memphis Police Department investigation from the Organized Crime Unit called “Operation Bed Bug” temporarily closed seven local motels that had been declared public nuisances by District Attorney Amy Weirich.

The Bellevue Inn, the same motel that Campbell visited in his story, was one of the seven.

“It’s a quality of life issue. No matter where you live, what religion you are, what race you are, what gender you are — you want nice, clean, safe neighborhoods,” Strickland said. “We all want those same things. Prostitution violates that quality of life standard that we all want.”

In the January 23, 1997, issue of the Memphis Flyer, Phil Campbell detailed a struggle between a tree and a writer’s statue in Oxford, Mississippi.

The proposed statue would be a tribute to William Faulkner, the Nobel Prize-winning author from Oxford, who penned Southern classics such as The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, among many others. The writer was born in New Albany and bought a home in Oxford for his family in 1930 that he called “Rowan Oak.” Despite this, however, the town had not done much to pay homage to him, according to the article.

“Even Square Books, the town’s popular bookstore, displays more photos of one-time Oxford resident John Grisham than it does of Faulkner,” the story read.

The statue was set to be built with $70,000 raised by businesses and the Oxford Board of Aldermen, one that would show Faulkner “standing with dignity, with a pipe in his mouth, looking off into the distance, sporting his signature tweed coat and baggy britches.”

Faulkner’s oldest-living relative at the time, his nephew Jimmy Faulkner, gave his approval for the project until Oxford residents became upset with how the project began to unfold.

The William Faulkner statue in Oxford sits in front of City Hall.

On the plot in front of Oxford City Hall, where the statue was to be raised, sat a magnolia tree. The mayor during that time, John Leslie, privately told the city’s electric department to cut down the tree because “the board of aldermen hoped to pass an ordinance creating a ‘tree board’ that would effectively have prevented the tree from being removed,” Campbell wrote.

Residents wrote letters against the mayor’s actions and two dozen showed up to the tree stump on one particular day, even laying a wreath on the dead tree. The Faulkner family pulled its support of the project after the writer’s daughter, who lived in Virginia, spoke out against the tree being cut down. The nephew originally believed the project had the daughter’s blessing but ended up speaking out against it, even going in front of the board of aldermen.

“Jimmy Faulkner appeared before the board of alderman, with dozens of other people in tow, to protest the mayor’s decision the week after the tree was felled. His presence made a strong statement, given the family’s affection for privacy and general apathy for politics,” the story read.

Some people felt “manipulated,” and the convoluted situation surrounding the fallen tree involved many parties. Joseph Blotner, who wrote a biography on Faulkner, was quoted in the article in favor of the statue.

“In ‘Go Down, Moses’ and other works, Faulkner deplores the disappearance of the big woods in the Delta,” he said in the story. “However, there are many, many magnolia trees in and around Oxford. There is only one native son that brought honor to his town, his state, and his country.”

Despite the controversy, the statue went up as planned. The bronze statue now sits in front of City Hall in Oxford, depicting Faulkner on a bench with his legs crossed and holding a pipe.