Illegal business: City ‘protects’ public from popular ‘juke joint’

The people of Bessemer, Ala., are finally free of the dangers of an old man and his friends playing the blues in an old back-yard garage each Saturday night. Police raided the “juke joint” known as Gip’s Place Saturday night, shutting down one of the last of the old-style musical roadhouses still surviving today. I know I’ll sleep better with this terrible threat gone.

Police are only saying that Henry Gipson’s place was an “illegal business,” but this strikes at the core of business licensing. Why does a man need permission from a city or state to transact business with willing customers. His place was known far and wide as a great place to listen to the blues, one of the last remaining places to hear authentic blues in a raw setting. A couple of years ago, NPR called Gip’s place “a blues lover’s dream.” And here’s a three-minute piece about Gipson put together by a local photographer.

But after letting Gipson run his informal performance space every Saturday night for decades, the city of Bessemer decided this weekend to shut him down, according to a post on the Facebook page for Gip’s Place.

“Bessemer Police Department arrived at Gip’s Place Saturday night, May 4th, at 10:15 p.m. and made Gip Gipson shut down his historical backyard blues parties,” the statement said. “Of course, Gip is very upset over the actions that the city he calls home and has heavily supported has taken this action against him.

“We are asking that everyone who has ever visited Gip’s backyard parties to please attend this Tuesday night’s Bessemer City Council meeting at Bessemer City Hall. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. with pre-council at 6 p.m. Gip is requesting that all his friends boycott the city of Bessemer until this is resolved. If you want to have dinner prior to the meeting, choose somewhere other than Bessemer. If you cannot attend the meeting we encourage you to write, email or call Bessemer Mayor Kenneth Gulley.”

Gipson makes a sympathetic character for many reasons. He’s a well-meaning older gentleman who was once beaten by klansmen, according to a story he told in the video linked above. He’s a talented musician and he appears to be a bluesman right out of central casting. (I couldn’t even understand him without the video’s subtitles.) It’s easy to support such a man in his fight against City Hall.

The real question is why anyone needs City Hall’s permission to conduct business, whether you’re a little guy such as Gipson or a multi-national corporation.

Under current legal practices, the state (and its individual units such as cities and counties) can tell people such as Gipson — or you or me — what we can do and when we can do it on our own property. It’s so ingrained in people to accept that these orders are legitimate that it’s hard for most people to ask themselves why.

Why does Gipson need anybody’s permission to operate Gip’s Place? Why does a coffee shop or book store or art gallery need permission — and a license — to transact business with their own customers on their own property?

We typically hear that licensing is about paying for city services that are provided to the businesses, such as police and fire protection. Even if you believe it’s legitimate to force everyone to subscribe to such services, there are ways to do it that don’t require giving cities the power to decide who can do business and who can’t.

Other property owners have rights, too, but those rights are best protected by private covenants between affected property owners, not by politicians cutting back-room deals about who can operate and when.

I support Henry Gipson’s efforts to get the city off his back, but I’d feel the same way no matter who it was. These city licensing laws are allegedly to protect the public, but I can’t figure out why we’re better off being “protected” from Gip’s Place.