Salemtown Neighbors Votes to Support Erica Gilmore's Bill to Prohibit the Sale of Single-Serve 40s

On the same day that the K & M Market at the corner of 7th and Garfield (where the store owner was shot 8 days ago by a suspect still on the lam) reopened to peddle its primary product of single serve beers, Salemtown Neighbors Neighborhood Association voted unanimously to support Council Member Erica Gilmore's bill to prohibit the sale of single-serve 40 ounce bottles of malt liquor. That bill was deferred by CM Gilmore indefinitely in November, although she spoke of plans to bring a revised version back up for consideration.

The K & M Market's primary product ain't Chicklets. It seems to be single-serve beer, which some here in the neighborhood believe is being sold to underaged drinkers. At the very least, the Market has become a place where thugs loiter and harass pedestrians and where some other illegal activity has been witnessed.

I did some searching around the Metro Planning website tonight, and I found out some rather interesting details about the three properties at 7th and Garfield across which the market sits. While the current use of the land is for a convenience store, all three properties are zoned "R6," which entails "medium density residential, requiring a minimum 6,000 square foot lot and intended for single and two-family dwellings." Yet, there are no occupied residential dwellings that I can see around the K & M Market.

Another interesting detail is that all three properties are owned by Kenny Norman, who was once the Juvenile Court Clerk described by the Nashville Scene as having "a reputation—deserved, by most accounts—for being an inaccessible, politically driven and incompetent administrator." But Mr. Norman--whose mailing address is in Goodlettsville--looks locked into a slew of very influential power brokers. His sister is Circuit Trial Judge Barbara Haynes, whose husband is State Senator Joe Haynes from Goodlettsville. Their son, Scott Haynes, is an attorney with Boult Cummings, served as co-chair of Kenny Norman's campaign, and has connections with former mayoral candidate and Congressman Bob Clement.

Some here in Salemtown have expressed the wish to see the Market either stop selling 40s or be closed down as it has been more of a nuisance and danger to the neighborhood, but I have to wonder if that could ever happen with the current owner of the properties.


UPDATE: Contrast the Planning Department's online information that the owner of the land on which the three properties sit is Kenny Norman with this 2005 Enclave post reporting that the Nashville City Paper listed the old building as a "New Business" owned by Abdoalfath Alkaifi. In that same post, I also linked a 2004 Tennessean story that the building was raided for illegal gambling and I referred to neighborhood sources who told me that alcohol was being sold in back of the "New Business" before a beer permit had been approved.

MEDIA ALERT: Local Fox News to Look at Dangerous 7th & Garfield Market Tonight at 9:00

Salemtown Neighbors President Freddie O'Connell will be interviewed on the 9:00 report about K&M Market, where a shooting occurred two weeks ago and where they sell single serve 40 ounce beers (and not much else).


UPDATE: Well, the piece (now viewable on the Fox website) was less about the market and more about the partnership between police and the neighborhood association to prevent and to fight crime. When it aired on TV, the anchor referred to the shooting at the K & M Market after the end of the video. It's was a good, positive piece about Salemtown and the association, but I would have liked to hear more about solving the problems caused by the market. That one small reference to it at 9:00 was the first time the mainstream media has even acknowledged the recent crime. And there was no reference to what the market might provide that attracts a criminal element.

Owner Kenny Norman Defends His Blighted, Scandalous Market Property as a Family Legacy

One of my neighbors crossed paths with Kenny Norman (owner of the K & M Market property at 7th & Garfield and member of one of the more influential families in Middle Tennessee) at last weekend's community meeting. She gave Mr. Norman an earful about the sorry condition of his market, the loitering that occurs there on a daily basis, and other crimes on the property like the shooting of the business owner there a few weeks ago. She encouraged him either to upgrade and to have the market offer more than single-serve beer or to sell to someone else who might develop the property into something more supportive of our quality of life.

Mr. Norman blamed any crime that happens at his store on MDHA's Section 8 duplexes that sit behind and across the street from his store. I met at least one of the residents in those duplexes last summer; she was kind enough to me some vegetables out of her garden she was growing behind her unit. She told me that she had a picket fence put up around her front yard in order to discourage outsiders--who were driving into Salemtown to buy beer at the market--from loitering in her front yard afterwards. She seemed as alarmed as I was about what was going on at Mr. Norman's property.

Mr. Norman also told my neighbor on Saturday that the property has been in his family a long time and that he promised relatives that he would keep it under the family name. Keep in mind that Mr. Norman is a member of an influential family in Tennessee, including his sister Circuit Trial Judge Barbara Haynes, her husband State Senator Joe Haynes from Goodlettsville, and their son, Scott Haynes, an attorney with connections to Bob Clement. I am bound to ask at this point, why would a family want such a damnable crime-magnet of a property associated with their name if it weren't for the money? It seems to me that they could garner even more influence if they would tear down the blight and put something more beneficial to the community in its place.

In the meantime, a report crossed the Salemtown e-mail list yesterday that a man of either African or Middle Eastern descent wearing a white skull cap and driving a red hatchback attempted to solicit a young girl for sex in front of the K & M Market last Thursday before driving away. Does Mr. Norman care that child predators may be associated with the legacy of his Salemtown property?


01/01/2019 UPDATE: the property, still owned by Mr. Norman, is being gentrified 10 years later. But the old structure, which straddles 3 parcels according to Metro's property maps, has not been torn down. Instead, it has received a makeover.

The owner has rebranded the building "The Local Distro," and I found a website which says it will open January 2019 as "Market | Eats | Wine." The building is like a zombie; it won't die. If those walls could talk, though, the stories they could tell.