Cayce City Council Meeting August 29, 2006 + 5:30 pm
By John Murray

Getting started

Cayce Mayor Avery B. Wilkerson Jr. called the meeting to order shortly after 5:30 pm. All members of council, Mayor Wilkerson, Mayor Pro-tem Richard Myers, James Jenkins, Kenneth Jumper, and Robert Malpass, were present.

Continuation of Hearing on Appeal

of Denial of Business License-Boulevard Café

The meeting started without any invocation or pledge of allegiance, and in fact, council went straight into the continuation of the Boulevard Café's hearing. The café's business license recently came up for renewal, and the city chose not renew it because the café was deemed a nuisance to the city and to its surrounding neighborhood. Mayor Wilkerson noted that the previous session, which took place June 6, was adjourned during the cross-examination phase. That being said, the next scheduled witness, Mrs. Angie Charbonneau was called to the stand.

Charbonneau, a resident of 1012 Wisteria Dr., lives directly behind the Boulevard Café. She appeared before council to give testimony regarding the noise problem that the café posed to the neighborhood. Since it moved into the neighborhood, Charbonneau said the café was always keeping her family up at night. The noise was at its worst on the weekends, she said, usually between the hours of 9 pm and 3 am on Fridays and Saturdays. She testified that oftentimes she had to call the police three to five times on those nights because of noise, fights, and other nuisances. All of this made it hard for her family to sleep on the weekends, and the lack of sleep on Saturday nights made it especially difficult to go to church on Sunday mornings.

She said, however, that the café's owner was courteous and apologetic when he found out about the problems. She said that the problems had decreased about 50% since the last meeting in June.

Charbonneau was not the only witness the city called to support its decision to deny the license. Members of the police department, including Master of Public Safety Officer Studemeyer took the stand. The testimony of every individual who took the stand only reaffirmed the city's original decision to deny the café's license renewal application.

In the end, council voted unanimously to uphold the previous decision to deny the café's application for renewal. City Manager John C. Sharpe said the city attorney will soon file his opinion on the results of the hearing. He went on to say that the café can appeal the opinion within ten days. He added that they could also operate until the end of the calendar year without a license. However at that point, Sharpe said, the café would then be forced to close.