Midtown Music Hall can keep its Chattanooga beer license, judge rules

Midtown Music Hall in Chattanooga

Chattanooga's continued argument that the city's beer board can revoke a downtown nightclub's beer sales permit found no reprieve from a local judge.

On Monday, Chancellor Jeffrey Atherton stood by his original Jan. 23 ruling that the beer board did not have the authority to revoke Midtown Music Hall's beer permit because state law requires at least two violations within 12 months of each other.

City Attorney Ken Fritz argued that the two-violation requirement applied to "responsible vendors" a separate category of beer permit holders created with a 2006 Tennessee Legislature act.

"That's not even part of what is the basis of the complaint," Atherton told Fritz just before his ruling Monday.