Recent

statements and actions attributed to Fayetteville

officials have one local business owner seething.

Business

at The Market, a teen club that opened in

mid-April, is down significantly since City

Manager Joe Morton was quoted in The Fayette

Daily News as saying that several arrests had

taken place at the club in recent weeks,

according to Taylor Williams, owner of The

Market.

The

article appeared under the headline

"Drinking, loitering arrests made at teen

club." A second headline said,

"Fayetteville officials say five nabbed for

drinking under age."

After

the article was published, Williams delivered a

written statement to The Citizen entitled,

"City Manager is Lying." He went on to

challenge specific statements in the article.

Williams

said that he met with Morton last week, and

Morton claimed he did not say what was attributed

to him in the article. Morton stated that a few

arrests had taken place in the area near the

club, according to Williams.

But

Williams went on to say that Cindy Morley of the

Fayette Daily News, who wrote the article,

disputed Morton's recollection and said that she

would never have interviewed him and written that

story had he not made the statements she cited.

The

city cannot officially confirm what may or may

not have been said at the workshop. Minutes are

not taken at City Council workshops and the

meetings are not tape recorded, according to city

clerk Judy Stephens.

Alleging

that his business has been unfairly singled out

for police attention, Williams has pulled police

reports in an attempt to clarify what has been

going on.

Only

one arrest has taken place at The Market in six

weeks, Williams said. A 14-year-old girl was

arrested for underage drinking, and Williams said

the youth was not even supposed to be at the

club.

Police

arrested five youths for underage drinking at the

Exxon station across the street from the club,

but Williams said they were not customers of his

at any time that night and were simply hanging

out in the gas station parking lot.

An

off-duty officer Williams had hired to provide

security at The Market saw them and walked across

the street to make the arrest, he said.

"They had a 22-year-old buying alcohol for

them," he added.

One

event that has caused considerable concern to

Williams is what he called "Operation

Market," when nearly a dozen police officers

and two K9 units descended on the club the

weekend of May 5-6. He thinks the reasoning

behind even having such an operation is faulty,

and says it was done simply to generate arrests.

"We're

a new business. We haven't had any arrests. Why

do this?" he said. "If they [city

officials] want to get a point across to me, why

use other people's kids to do it, give them

arrest records and ruin their lives?"

Williams

gave The Citizen a copy of a memo from Major H.L.

Simmons to Police Chief Johnny Roberts, dated May

8 and referred to by Simmons as an

"after-action report" concerning

"Operation The Market."

The

report states that the aforementioned teenage

girl was the only one arrested for underage

drinking during the operation, and an

investigation revealed that she had become drunk

at home while her parents were at church.

Williams

said that he has been investigating police

activity at other establishments in Fayetteville,

such as the bowling alley and the movie theaters

in town. On the night of "Operation

Market," a drug arrest took place at the

bowling alley, Williams said, which makes him

wonder even more why he has gotten so much police

attention.

Morton

was quoted in the Fayette Daily News as saying

the city had written several letters to Williams

concerning activities at The Market, but Williams

says that simply is not true. He presented a

single letter from Morton, dated May 8 and

received May 11, after Morton's interview with

Morley had taken place. He claims that is the

only letter he has received from the city.

Williams

said he has taken significant steps to ensure

order in his establishment, and he wants the

public to know that no alcohol and drug use is

taking place there. He hires his own security

people to watch over the club, above and beyond

anything required by the city, he said.

He

also alleges recent problems with the city over

his parking and crowds, even though the club's

parking capacity has been known to city officials

since he first started trying to open the club.

"I'm required to have 39 parking spaces, and

I have 42," he said. "They've known all

along my capacity is about 1,000. I don't know

why that's a problem now."

He

suspects that part of it has to do with cars

parked in other areas near his club, which he has

no control over. He added that he thinks many

people have no idea what is going on at The

Market - which he says is just good, clean

fun for teenagers - and panic when they see

the size of the crowd.

As

far as noise complaints, Williams says they are

ridiculous. He notes that during "Operation

Market," when a large number of officers

were present, none of them mentioned the noise,

yet he has gotten complaints from the city since

then.

The

notoriety from these events has had a major

effect on business at The Market. Williams said

that the crowds the weekend of May 12-13 were

down 200 Friday night and even more Saturday.

"Instead of a normal Saturday crowd of 450,

we had 85 kids," he said.

Last

weekend was still slow, with Friday business down

30 percent and a total of 100 customers Saturday.

"I've

been getting 40 calls a day from people asking if

I'm still open," said Williams. "I'm

repairing damage that should never have been

done."

Williams

said that if Morton was indeed misquoted, then he

should be as upset as anyone else and say so. He

added that he does not wish to pursue legal

action against anyone, but he expects someone to

be responsible for the events that he feels have

unfairly caused him to lose a large amount of

business.

Morton

said Tuesday he would try to meet with Williams

this week and further address his concerns as

well as those of the city.

Acknowledging

that the headline of the Fayette Daily News story

was not consistent with what he said in the story

or what actually happened, he said that while he

understood the incidents did not take place at

Williams' facility, there was "a

relationship" between the crowds at The

Market and the groups of people at the

neighboring establishments.

Morton

said that he was not involved with

"Operation Market," which was a police

operation, but he suggested that it could have

been motivated by the number of complaints that

have been coming in recently, mostly from

residents in the neighborhood. Indeed, the

proximity of residential neighborhoods to The

Market is part of the problem, he said.

"This

is a unique facility," said Morton.

"It's in the Main Street district. People

live a couple of houses from there."

The

bowling alley and movie theaters are not

compatible situations in that regard, Morton

said, because they are in completely different

zoning districts, with no residential zoning next

to them.

Williams

has doen everything he is required to as far as

codes and other requirements to do business in

his location, Morton said. "The use is

permitted but not really compatible with what's

around there right now, with the high number of

kids there," he added. "We've just

never had to deal with this before."

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