Doraville is threatening to fine companies that illegally supply alcohol to an embattled strip club.
According to emails obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the city informed 13 companies that they will be prosecuted if they ship alcohol to Oasis Goodtime Emporium. The city and strip club have been locked in a legal battle for years.
In late February, the Georgia Department of Revenue denied Oasis’s state alcohol license for 2022, and the city bans sexually oriented businesses from serving alcohol. Oasis has been fined multiple times by the city after various busts, and it seems the city is trying to cut the club’s booze off at the source.
“It is illegal for a distributor to sell alcoholic beverages to an unlicensed establishment such as Oasis,” the city said in a statement to the AJC.
Eric Coffelt, an attorney representing Oasis, said the state’s denial was preliminary, and the fight isn’t over yet.
“Oasis will, as it always has, continue to fight for its right to exist and on behalf of the hundreds of Georgia residents who depend upon that business to provide for their families,” Coffelt told the AJC.
Oasis, which formed in the early 1990s off Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, was annexed into Doraville in 2013, and conflict began almost immediately. The club’s owners claimed the city was trying to shut them down, prompting multiple lawsuits. So far, Doraville has been victorious in court.
Last summer, more than 150 Oasis employees attended a City Council meeting to plea with city leaders to end the legal battle and let the business continue to operate. They argue a strip club without alcohol sales is unsustainable and will cost them their jobs.
That meeting came weeks after a DeKalb County Superior Court judge ordered Oasis to pay a $1.89 million contempt fee to Doraville. In addition, the judge ruled the city could shut down the strip club if it continues to violate the city’s alcohol code.
The city isn’t bending on its municipal laws and previously said the club has violated nearly 200 court orders between 2016 and 2018.
“We understand that times are tough for a lot of people, but our job as elected leaders is to represent our community and do what is best for them,” Mayor Joseph Geierman said in a prior statement to the AJC. “In this case, that means enforcing our court-upheld laws against an alcohol-fueled strip club that has become a nuisance, not just to the surrounding area, but our entire city.”
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