The Library bar in Five Points will lose its liquor license today unless its owners pay the nearly $20,000 they owe in back taxes.
Less than 24 hours after Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott called for his business to be shut down, Justin Kershner got a call from the South Carolina Department of Revenue, telling him that he owed tens of thousands of dollars.
At a press conference Thursday evening in front of the bar, Kershner said he doesn’t have the money to pay what he owes.
“I’ve got $52 in my wallet,” he said. “If anyone else wants to pitch in, I’ll take donations.”
Kershner said he had made a verbal agreement with someone in the Department of Revenue, saying he could break his payments up into three installments instead of paying all at once. Kershner said he had never missed or been late on a payment in the four and half years he and his wife have owned the bar.
Kershner said he was planning to make one of those payments Thursday.
According to Kershner, the representative from the Department of Revenue told him someone contacted the department regarding Kershner’s liquor license. Upon further investigation, the Department found that the Kershners’ payment plan was never officially written up.
The Department of Revenue and Richland County Sheriff’s Department did not respond to requests for comment.
Lott said Wednesday that violence in the popular entertainment district was tied to the bar and that gang activity was happening inside.
Anne Kershner said that the sheriff’s department never informed them that gang members were frequenting the bar and that had they known, she and her husband would have no way to identify them.
“It’s almost as if they were setting us up for failure,” she said.
She said that they never had any problems with authorities when they first opened, when she said the clientele was mostly white. She said that once the mainly attracted black customers, other bar owners and local authorities began to see the establishment in a different light.
She said that if The Library is shut down, Five Points’ struggle with loitering would worsen.
But how the Kershners are viewed by fellow business owners is not their biggest concern, they said.
Justin Kershner said they have gone from being recognized by students and teachers at their children’s school to being known as the bar owners who harbor gang members.
“We live week to week, sometimes day to day. I’m not asking for anyone to feel sorry for us,” Anne Kershner said. “I just want to debunk this incorrect image that I think a lot of people have.”
The Kershners said they would be open to working with authorities to help keep the bar open. If there are gang members at the bar, they said, police should come get them, rather than shut it down and push gang activity into the streets.
“Closing us is not the solution,” Anne Kershner said. “It is the beginning of the end of Five Points.”