GRAYSON, Ga.,None — The owner of a controversial bar in Northeast Atlanta says someone sprayed a racial slur and graffiti on the garage door of his home near Grayson.
David Johnson said this is just the latest in a series of slurs and threats he's received in the last few days. The spray painted message uses a racial slur then reads "Leave Kirkwood."
"They drove 38 miles to my private residence, where my family lives. It's intimate, it's full of hate," Johnson said.
Johnson's Kirkwood Bar and Grill on Hosea L. Williams Drive has been shut down for weeks as Johnson fights City Hall and area residents over a liquor license.
Residents in the Kirkwood Station Condo complex where the business is located said Johnson has turned the neighborhood bar into a nightclub that is open all hours of the night and is attracting crime. The residents have organized and are fighting Johnson's efforts to get a permanent license.
Johnson denies the charges and believes it's someone from the area that is now targeting him with the spray paint and telephone threats he played for Channel 2's Tony Thomas.
One message said in part "leave Kirkwood or die!" The other included racial slurs and said, "What do we have to do to get you to leave, go away!"
"This has turned from a neighborhood spat to something that is dynamically serious," Johnson said as he looked at the red spray painted message he says turned up early Friday.
"I don't know that when this person drove here was that there motive to spray paint my garage. What if they wanted to set my house on fire, what if I opened my garage and wanted to go to the store in the middle of the night," Johnson said.
Johnson said he reported the graffiti to Gwinnett County Police.
Thomas called members of the Kirkwood Station Homeowners Association for comment. A representative sent an email in reply that read in part, "No one in the Kirkwood Station knows anything about or supports in any way what was written and the fight over the license was never, EVER, about race."
"For me it only renews my dedication to making sure that project is successful," Johnson said.
As for the liquor license, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has sent the issue back to the city's license review board for another hearing. The same board approved the license application earlier this year. No date has been set for another hearing.
Thomas was e-mailed another statement on Saturday:
As previously reported, the complaints relative to Kirkwood Bar & Grill's application for an alcohol permit centered first on public safety issues and secondly on quality of life. During the three and one half months the establishment had a temporary alcohol permit, there were felony arrests, gunfire, repeated fights, evidence of on-site crack cocaine use, and multiple 911 calls to levels well above those before and since the temporary permit. In addition to the obvious public safety issues, quality of life for the residents of the complex was severely impacted by a "restaurant" operating as an active, noisy, and sometimes violent bar until as late as 3:00 a.m.
We challenge anyone to make something racial about the community's well justified opposition to this alcohol permit application. In the same complex as the applicant are successful businesses operated and owned by African-Americans, Asians, gays, lesbians, whites, females and males. In the larger Kirkwood Business District are two of the oldest African-American owned businesses of Atlanta in Dekalb (Stocks Funeral Home and Lankfords Barber Shop), a successful Pakastani owned-and-operated service station and convenience store and several white-owned businesses. Kirkwood spends it's GREEN dollars at all of these businesses because they provide good service, reliable product and share together in the greater neighborhood.
WSBTV
