On Friday, September 18, 2026, the City of Franklin’s Beer Board spent 3 and a half hours on 2 bars. Both faced the same kind of case: an undercover police operation from 2024 and a year of police call logs. Both were represented by the same attorney. They walked out with very different results.
Tin Roof 2 received a $2,500 fine and a beer permit suspension that takes effect October 10. Its owners told reporters they will close for good on October 9.
Kimbro’s Pickin’ Parlor faced a proposed $5,000 fine and a suspension. The board declined both. Instead, it directed the bar and the City to meet and work toward an agreement on expectations, which reporting said could include additional training. A proposal is due back at the board’s November 10 meeting.
The Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) was not the one acting here. A local beer board was. That is the part worth understanding. Most hospitality businesses spend their attention on the state license and treat the city beer permit as paperwork.
What happened in Franklin
Williamson Source reported the notices of violation from the board’s agenda packet. The City alleged that Tin Roof 2 sold alcohol to visibly intoxicated patrons and allowed intoxicated customers to remain on the premises. It also alleged the business had become a public nuisance or a nuisance to law enforcement. Franklin police said they responded to 95 calls for service at the bar between August 1, 2025, and August 1, 2026. The calls included reports of assault, theft, welfare checks, collisions, and intoxicated persons. The board had suspended the same permit once before, in October 2020.
Kimbro’s drew 41 calls for service in the same 12 months, including auto theft, welfare checks, unwanted subjects, and parking problems. The notice also cited a July 2024 undercover operation in which an officer testified to 9 instances of patrons allegedly being served while visibly intoxicated. Bartenders at both bars were charged after the 2024 operations.
The bars’ attorney told the board the case was an abuse of process. He said both venues have been singled out since a 2020 drunk-driving crash that killed a Brentwood police officer. Kimbro’s general manager said the staff’s own calls to police were being counted against the business. The police chief said the department’s focus is preventing impaired driving.
This post does not take a side on the facts. It is about the process, and what it shows other businesses.
Who actually controls a beer permit
In Tennessee, beer and liquor run on 2 separate tracks.
A beer permit comes from the city or county where the business sits. Tennessee Code Annotated Section 57-5-108 lets the local beer board revoke or suspend a permit it issued, or impose a civil penalty. Section 57-5-106 lets cities add their own rules by ordinance. Franklin did. Its municipal code lists grounds for action against a permit. One of them is making or allowing a business to become a public nuisance or a nuisance to law enforcement. The City has cited that ground in past cases.
The liquor-by-the-drink license comes from the TABC under a different chapter of the same title. The TABC has its own rules. One is Section 57-4-203(c)(1), which makes it unlawful for a licensee to sell or furnish alcohol to a visibly intoxicated person. The beer statute has a matching rule at Section 57-5-301(a). A permit holder or employee may not make or permit a sale to a person who is visibly intoxicated.
So the same incident can be a beer board matter, a TABC matter, or both. In 2020, according to reporting at the time, the TABC suspended Tin Roof 2’s liquor license. The Franklin Beer Board suspended its beer permit the same week. Neither agency needs the other to act.
Four things the Franklin hearings show
1. Calls for service were central to the City’s case.
The undercover operations were one part of the City’s case. The other was numbers: 95 calls at one bar, 41 at the other, each tied to the address over a 12-month window. The call types ranged widely, and some were the kind of calls any busy venue generates, like parking complaints and welfare checks. Kimbro’s manager pointed out that some were calls the bar’s own staff placed.
That is the trap. Calling the police when something goes wrong is the right thing to do, and no one should stop doing it. But a business should know that every call to its address may end up in a count, and a count can become a nuisance allegation. A venue that keeps its own incident log has a record to put next to the City’s numbers. That log should show dates, what happened, who called, and how staff responded. A venue without one has only the City’s numbers.
2. An old undercover operation can come back as part of a pattern.
Both notices cited undercover operations from 2024. The hearing was in September 2026. Bartenders were charged at the time, and the bars’ attorney noted that no arrests came out of the July 2024 visit to Kimbro’s. Two years later, the same operation was cited again, alongside the call logs, in a permit hearing.
A resolved citation does not by itself open a new case. But if police or the TABC visit and something comes of it, that visit may surface again. It may be cited later, next to newer allegations, to show a pattern. Anything a business did in response is worth writing down at the time, because it may need to be shown later. That includes retraining, discipline, or a policy change.
3. The beer permit and the liquor license are different fights.
A beer board can act on the beer permit. It does not control the liquor license, and a suspension by one is not automatically a suspension by the other. A business that satisfies the beer board may still hear from the TABC about the same night. The reverse is also true.
Tin Roof 2’s owners asked the board for 30 days to wind down because, according to WSMV, their TABC licenses expire October 9. The board set the suspension for October 10. The 2 dates line up because the owners asked for it. The 2 agencies do not coordinate their calendars.
4. A plan can be the outcome.
The City asked the board for a $5,000 fine and a suspension at Kimbro’s. The board chose a third path: a meeting between the bar and the City to agree on expectations, with a proposal due back on November 10. Reporting noted that the notice itself listed reprimands and conditions on the permit among the board’s options, alongside suspension, revocation, and civil penalties.
A business facing a hearing may not get that outcome by waiting for it. The board has to hear a reason to choose it. Kimbro’s brought 20 years of history, employees who spoke, and a packed room. What a business brings to that hearing, and how early it starts preparing, may shape which option the board reaches for.
What the statute gives a permit holder
Section 57-5-108 has several provisions that may matter to a business in this position. A few of them:
- When a board imposes a suspension or revocation, it may offer a civil penalty as an alternative, within limits the statute sets. If it does, the permit holder has 7 days to pay before the suspension or revocation takes effect.
- A city may accept payment of a civil penalty at any time, but the statute treats that payment as an admission of the violation charged.
- A board’s order may be reviewed by a court through a statutory writ of certiorari. That covers a suspension, a revocation, or a civil penalty. The court hears the case fresh in place of an appeal.
- A revocation applies to that permit holder at that location. Permanent revocation is limited to permit holders with at least 2 violations in a 12-month period. After a revocation becomes final, the statute generally bars a new permit for the same premises for a year.
How those provisions apply depends on the city’s own ordinance and the facts of the case. They are listed here so a business knows they exist, and knows to ask about them before a hearing rather than after.
What to do before it is your name on the agenda
Most businesses will never see a show-cause hearing. The ones that do are usually the busy ones in busy districts, where calls for service pile up whether or not anything is wrong inside. A few habits may lower the odds, and they help a great deal if a hearing comes anyway:
- Keep an incident log, and keep it current. Every fight, every ejection, every medical call, every police contact, with what staff did about it.
- Keep alcohol service training records where you can find them. Who was trained, when, and on what. If a bartender is charged, the question that follows is what the business did next.
- Write down the alcohol service policy and the security plan, and update them when something changes.
- Read the city’s beer ordinance along with the state statute. The grounds for action, the hearing process, and the penalties may all sit in the municipal code.
- Know your beer board and your police department before there is a problem. The Kimbro’s outcome was a meeting with the City to agree on expectations, and that is easier to reach with people who already know you.
Two dates to watch. October 10 is when the Tin Roof 2 suspension takes effect. November 10 is when Kimbro’s and the City bring their proposal back to the board. Whatever it contains will be the clearest signal yet of what Franklin expects from the businesses it licenses.
Where BevLaw Group fits
A beer board hearing touches licensing, but it turns on records, employment practices, written policies, and regulatory defense. And it arrives on a schedule the business did not pick.
That mix is what BevLaw Group handles for hospitality businesses. Document review, employment guidance, regulatory questions, contracts, and ongoing advice as the rules change, on one flat monthly fee you can plan around. Your operation deserves a legal partner, not just a licensing attorney.
Maybe a notice from your beer board or the TABC is already on your desk. Maybe you would rather never receive one. Either way, it is a conversation worth having now.