JASPER, Tenn. – When a special three-night concert event took place in a remote area of Marion County in early August, the county sheriff’s department got repeated complaint calls about the loud music.
At the Marion County Commission’s August meeting last week, County Mayor David Jackson said the event’s promoter had contacted him to see if any permits were required.
“When we realized it was out in the county, the answer was no,” he said. “There’s no permits required.”
Organizers did get a beer permit, but no county officials knew when the event was to take place.
Jackson asked the board if the county needed to develop some type of permit so county officials and law enforcement are aware of what’s happening, and when and where events are taking place.
“So, I just want to throw that out there to you all to see if you want to do something or leave it as be,” he told the board.
After some research, County Attorney Billy Gouger found that Marion’s ability to regulate or permit activities such as the three-day event Jackson described is limited because there is no county-wide zoning.
“[In] unincorporated areas of the county, there is simply not a whole lot of legal authority for the county to be involved,” he said.
Since there was a special event beer license issued for this particular gathering, Gouger suggested the beer permit could be tied to some sort of notification to county officials.
“It wouldn’t necessarily be a permit, per se, but it would be a notification or notice to those office holders that some event was going to take place,” Gouger said.
He said that change could be communicated through Marion’s beer board when that type of license is approved.
“I don’t know what else you could do as far as regulating that type of activity in the unincorporated areas of the county,” Gouger said.
Only a few special event beer permits are granted in a given year in Marion County, officials said.
Commissioner Donald Blansett asked if the procedural changes would require action by the board.
“Not really,” Gouger said. “[The board] couldn’t actually regulate that. You could ask the beer board to make that part of their approval process.”
“Don’t ask them,” Blansett said. “Tell them.”
Commissioner Mack Reeves asked what could be done about events that didn’t get a beer permit.
“Not much we can do,” Gouger said.
Officials said Marion County Clerk Dwight Minter would make the appropriate changes to the special event beer permitting process, so the county mayor’s office and law enforcement would be notified about them and when those events would take place.
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.