By Susan Adler Thorp
In the many years I’ve observed and written about local business, government, and politics, seldom have I seen a more unfair process than what’s been going on with The Station, the wine and liquor emporium that has been trying to open its doors at 870 South White Station in East Memphis for more than a year.
No matter how hard Ethan Edwards has tried to bring a new retail experience to Memphis, no matter how hard he has tried to follow the archaic and good-old-boy rules that govern the city and state’s liquor retail industry, no matter how many times his requests for a liquor license have been dismissed or ignored by the Tennessee Alcohol and Beverage Commission (TABC), he is still fighting to open The Station in a city desperate for new business and economic growth.
The Memphis Alcohol Commission gave Edwards a Certificate of Compliance in September 2024, confirming that The Station met all local requirements. Mayor Paul Young signed that certificate. Edwards moved to complete construction of The Station. Then after months of inaction regarding multiple license requests from the TABC, Edwards filed a complaint with a Davidson County court asking the court to compel the TABC to do its job. Over the past 15 months Edwards has invested more than $1 million in opening a new 25,000 square-foot retail store unlike any other in Memphis. Yet his saga drags on.
The common denominator standing between Edwards and opening his store? Namely, Josh Hammond, the owner of Buster’s, by most accounts the city’s leading wine and liquor business. Hammond says he’s just fighting to uphold the law — a 57-year-old city ordinance that requires a liquor store to be at least 1,500 feet from a church, school, park, or library. Hammond argues that The Station is less than 1,500 feet from Woodland Presbyterian Church and School on Park Avenue. In a recent news story, Hammond said he checked the footage with Google Maps. Edwards hired one of the city’s leading engineering firms to measure the distance between The Station and Woodland. The Reaves Firm came up with 1,559.37 feet.
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
When Edwards was ready for his state liquor license in February, guess who lobbied the TABC, which then withheld The Station’s application. Yep, Hammond, long an active member of the Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association (TWSRA) who knows his way around Nashville, including the TABC and its staff. A month later, Hammond sued the owner of The Station, the Memphis Alcohol Commission and the City of Memphis. Forget the 1,500-foot rule. This time Hammond and his legal team argued that the Memphis Alcohol Commission violated the state’s Sunshine Law and the local court agreed, giving the TABC in Nashville yet another reason not to give The Station a liquor license.
Hammond doesn’t seem to welcome competition. Just ask Mary and Doug Ketchum who moved to Memphis in 2016 and bought Kimbrough Wine & Spirits in Midtown. In 2017, Hammond, along with the TWSRA, sued the Ketchums, citing an obscure state law requiring that one must be a Tennessee resident for two years before owning a liquor store. Three years later, and struggling to pay their legal bills, the Ketchums won their case against Hammond when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Tennessee law unconstitutional because it violated interstate commerce protections of the U.S. Constitution.
From a business protectionist point of view, it’s understandable that Hammond is fighting Edwards and claiming The Station is within 1,500 feet of Woodland. What Hammond isn’t saying is that The Station is almost midway between his Buster’s store on Highland and his Buster’s store on Poplar/I-240. And during the past 13 years when more than a dozen new wine and liquor stores opened in Memphis within 1,500 feet of a church or school, we didn’t hear a peep from Hammond.
Nor has he mentioned that when Buster’s opened in its current location on Highland in 1970, it was within 1,500 feet of two churches: The Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Redeemer on the northeast corner of Highland and Central, and the Church of Christ, Scientist on the southeast corner of Highland and Central. Both churches operated at Highland and Central since the mid-1950s – long before Buster’s moved to its Highland location two years after the 1,500-foot ordinance was passed in 1968.
It’s Who You Know
So, it’s back to the drawing board for Edwards who apparently is getting an education in politics and government he never wanted. Edwards appears before the Memphis Alcohol Commission again on January 7, seeking another Certificate of Compliance so he can return to Nashville and try again for the liquor license that The Station needs to open. It’s hard to imagine what Hammond and his legal team will come up with next. Based on recent history, smart money says he’ll come up with something to try and stop The Station from competing with Buster’s.
And why not? He’s got the powerful TWRSA behind him and it’s a good bet that folks at the TABC know Hammond and his TWRSA colleagues. Maybe even on a first name basis. According to the TWRSA website, Hammond now serves as the group’s legislative chairman and his brother, Morgan Hammond, sits on the board of directors.
Welcome to the cynical side of politics and government, folks, where what you know is not nearly as important as who you know.
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Susan Adler Thorp is a veteran Memphis journalist. She was former City Hall reporter and political columnist for The Commercial Appeal and is a regular panelist on ABC24’s This Week. She is the owner of Susan Adler Thorp Communications, which advises clients on communication strategies and effective media coverage.
Note: The Smart City Memphis Facebook page has 72 comments on this post: https://www.facebook.com/smartcitymemphis
Well researched article!
Memphians who normally purchase liquor & wine at Busters should boycott Hammond’s stores. There are plenty of others. If he can’t play fair, he should have to suffer just like his opponents are.
Susan,
My father often provided a respectful and contrary stance to your commentary. Today will be no different.
I am utterly shocked by your position, given the scope of your entire career in calling out city government failures, negligence, and corruption.
You are 100% correct that there’s some ‘good ole boy’ politics at play. As that is precisely what I have been doing for the last ten months trying to expose it. Yet, you and other journalists refuse to report what is really going on here.
You’re also misreporting numerous facts in your commentary.
FALSE~!
The Daily Memphian corrected my recent comment that had been taken out of context regarding when we turned this same building down in 2019. At that time, a professional survey was not necessary to tell us what we already knew that this location was not compliant.
Meanwhile, we submitted two professional surveys on The Station location to the Memphis Alcohol Commission.
• The first was submitted on March 17 and was ignored. Hence the lawsuit filed on April 8.
• The second survey was submitted on May 7, after which the MAC finally granted us a special hearing. One commissioner even called for a “full investigation” into the matter due to the faulty survey containing obvious and dubious errors.
Yet again, you and other journalists refuse to report on the origins of the faulty survey or what is truly happening here.
By the way, it does not take a civil engineer or a rocket scientist to examine these surveys as Google Maps is also a very effective tool for measuring distances. Just ask Mr. Edwards how he used digital phone maps in connection with his original faulty survey. You’ll find that fascinating.
FALSE~!
To suggest the Hammonds targeted the Ketchums for competitive reasons is blatantly false. The original defendant was Total Wine & Spirits, not the Ketchums, who became involved later as the case progressed.
The TWSRA, comprised of over 200 liquor stores and more than 20 board members from across the state, originally filed a lawsuit against the TABC and Total Wine & Spirits (a $2 billion out-of-state company) over a liquor store application in Knoxville that did not meet the state’s two-year residency requirement.
That law was recognized in 17 states at the time and was not obscure, as you suggest. The Ketchums became involved later as the case advanced through the courts because they, too, had not met the residency requirement.
Meanwhile, our family has faced more competition over the past 71 years than most could imagine from new stores opening, to wine in grocery stores, direct shipment, club mail order, and more.
We have always been strong supporters of the TWSRA, fighting for our industry while remaining friendly competitors, and we take no shame in protecting our business interests, just as any business would.
TRUE. YOU ARE CORRECT ON LOCATION~!
A major factor in our decision to invest several million dollars in our new East Memphis location was knowing this White Station location was off-limits. Does anyone seriously believe Mr. Edwards was the first person to consider a liquor store in this area?
Everyone in our industry has known for nearly sixty years that this quarter-mile stretch of Park Avenue is off-limits due to Woodland School & Woodland Church on one end and Marquette Park on the other that disqualifies the entire Eastgate shopping area.
Our family turned down this same building (adjacent bay now Gold’s Gym) in 2019 and informed the property owners of the compliance issue with Woodland. We have supporting email correspondence documenting the offer from our agent.
The real question you should be asking, Susan, is how a faulty survey with obvious and dubious errors made its way through the Permits Office for a non-compliant location, then advanced with a “recommendation of approval” to the Memphis Alcohol Commission where it was approved in secrecy during a closed-door meeting that was neither announced nor open to the public. And yes, resulted in violating of the TN Open Meetings Act or “Sunshine” law.
As everything surrounding this application has been nothing but shady.
FALSE~!
This is the first time our family has encountered such sheer negligence, failure, and possible corruption within the Permits Office related to a store obtaining approval for a location that is out of compliance. And that’s because we had already done our homework and knew this very building was not compliant.
By the way, did you know the month prior to The Station’s application, I emailed the Permit’s Director, copied the Mayor’s Office and two city councilmen, as to why Agenda & Minutes for the last eight months were not posted online? So, how was anybody to know what’s going on down there. Something else that you and other journalists are not reporting.
FALSE~!
We opened at the corner of Poplar and Highland in the spring of 1968, while our current building was being erected and later opened in 1970. Our store, like many others at the time, was grandfathered in before the distance provisions were enacted later that same year.
To suggest that our family broke the law way back then is an extraordinarily bold claim coming from a respected journalist like yourself. While also eschewing the law as ‘archaic’ after the fact simply because I’m calling it out.
In closing, while you should take this post down for all the misrepresentations, my father would ask that you leave it so our voice can also be heard.
Lastly, you should have checked my FB DM to you in September. As you would know a lot more about what’s really going on here. But again, nobody wants to report. Shame really.
Josh Hammond – aka Rommy Hammond’s son
For those interested in our side of the issue, more information is available on my Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Joshua.P.Hammond
Unlike others involved, I do not have a high-powered marketing firm feeding narratives to media outlets that continue to misreport the facts, malign my character, and tarnish our brand in the process.
Note: The Smart City Memphis Facebook page has 72 comments about this issue: https://www.facebook.com/smartcitymemphis