Last weekend the south Logan County church community rallied for a mass prayer meeting to try and ask God to stop pole dancing at the Tenn-Tucky State Line Tavern just outside of Adairville.
And while they were appealing to a higher authority, the decision to grant or deny an entertainment license for the dancing now lies in the hands of a more temporal authority - county judge/executive Logan Chick.
When bar owner Sheila Haley applied to an entertainment license to pay the ladies who will be dancing on her stage a couple weeks ago, the first step in the process was a background check.
Chick said this week that Logan County Attorney Joe Ross completed the check and it came back just fine.
“Now we’re going to go down and visit the establishment,” Chick said. “I don’t know if that’s something I have to do or not, but it’s something I always do with these entertainment permits. I want to see what I am permitting, even if I’m not required to.”
Chick said he expected to travel down to the state line bar on Thursday, along with Ross and Logan County Sheriff Wallace Whittaker.
Once the trio check out the tavern, Chick said he would set a date to hold a public hearing. He said he would likely decide on the date Monday.
“The hearing will have to be advertised for seven days before we can have it though,” Chick said.
Which means the hearing could be as soon as Tuesday, April 17.
Approximately 300 people showed up to the prayer meeting on Saturday - and those were mostly just the ones who are against the bar having pole dancing.
At the meeting, Chick will hear from the community before deciding whether to grant or deny the entertainment license.
“Even if she doesn’t have the license, that won’t keep her from having pole dancing,” Chick said.
Haley had initially inquired about Logan County’s ordinances for adult entertainment, but decided against having nude dancing in her bar.
Instead, she opted to just have clothed dancers performing on her stage.
Legally, she cannot pay the dancers without an entertainment license. But that hasn’t stopped dancers from making use of the stage without being compensated.
The Tenn-Tucky State Line Tavern is an interesting business from a legal perspective. Over half of the building sits in Tennessee. The bar is licensed to sell alcohol in Tennessee and all of those transactions take place on that side of the room.
Haley built her dancing stage in the Kentucky portion of the building, which is why she has petitioned Logan County for an entertainment license.
The bar has two doors - one in Tennessee and one in Kentucky - but Kentucky entrance has been locked and not used for years.
Because of that, Chick said that if Logan County got a call about something illegal happening on the Kentucky side of the bar with regard to the dancing, county police could not enter the establishment until they were met by Tennessee authorities to enter into the building on the other side of the state line.
“It’s an interesting situation,” Chick said. “She’s not paying any taxes in Kentucky right now. All her taxes are paid in Tennessee.”
Chick said that if Haley is granted an entertainment license, he believes she would have to start paying taxes in Kentucky based on what she paid her dancers and any income made from that portion of the business.
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