Owner of Macon bar says sheriff was wrong to revoke alcohol license. Judge disagrees
A lawsuit accusing Sheriff David Davis of wrongly revoking a Macon bar’s alcohol license after a fatal shooting has been dismissed.
Davis had temporarily pulled Tim Obelgoner’s alcohol license for The Thirsty Turtle in 2020 after a shooting injured six and killed one person at the venue. Obelgoner had violated the alcohol ordinance by failing to install cameras at his business, Davis said at the time of the revocation. It caused Obelgoner to file a suit in federal court in 2022, arguing that the revocation violated his rights to a hearing and drove him out of business.
But Judge Tillman E. Self said in a ruling Thursday that Obelgoner should have sued in state court earlier in an effort to get his license back, not in federal court, long after the revocation.
Obelgoner can’t “pass up each opportunity for state-law relief and then expect a federal claim to save its case,” Self said in his decision, ruling in favor of Davis.
Though the lawsuit references the first time Obelgoner was stripped of his alcohol license, the Thirsty Turtle’s license was stripped a second time in 2021 after two people died in a shooting. The order did not address the second suspension.
Why was the Thirsty Turtle’s alcohol license revoked?
Davis revoked the Thirsty Turtle’s liquor license after a fight outside the bar that occurred in the early morning hours of Nov. 27, 2020, leaving 22-year-old Jhacaya Mann dead.
The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office responded to the incident and had done a brief investigation when Davis sought county attorney Michael McNeil’s advice as to the “mechanics of instituting a temporary suspension” of the bar’s alcohol license, court records show.
The Code of Ordinances allows the sheriff to temporarily revoke a license if he determines that “the factors considered ... create a particular and severe risk of injury or death to any person or to any member of the public at large,” according to court records.
McNeil told Davis to propose a suspension notice, which he served to the Thirsty Turtle before suspending its license for 90 days, stripping the bar of its ability to sell alcohol until Feb. 26, 2021, according to court records.
During that time, Obelgoner tried to dispute the revocation via his legal team, arguing that a written report had to be made about issues at the bar. The sheriff’s office made the report and provided it to then-Mayor Robert Reichert, court records say.
However, the Thirsty Turtle remained closed and Obelgoner did not speak to the sheriff in regards to the suspension, court records say. He also didn’t request a hearing over the issue in front of the Macon-Bibb County Commission, nor did he file a lawsuit in Bibb County Superior Court to request an injunction, which Georgia law permits, Self said.
“The Court can reach no other conclusion than Philex (the company that Obelgoner owns) simply, for whatever reason, accepted the temporary decision without any sort of formal protest short of a letter from its counsel to the county attorney,” Self said.
As a result, Obelgoner couldn’t prove that his right to due process was violated by Davis. Self also ruled that the sheriff was acting within the scope of his employment by pulling the license.
