Opinion ID: 1094766
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: whether the pines club constituted a nuisance for the purposes of issuing an injunction against its operation?

Text: As a general rule, a nuisance is a wrong arising from the unreasonable, unwarrantable, or unlawful use by a person of his own property or from his own improper, indecent, or unlawful personal conduct working an obstruction or injury to a right of another or of the public producing such material annoyance, inconvenience, discomfort, or hurt that the law will presume a consequent damage. Young v. Weaver, 202 Miss. 291, 32 So.2d 202 (1947). A defense exists where there is an adequate remedy at law. Proby v. State Ex Rel. West, 498 So.2d 792 (Miss. 1986); Paramount-Richards Theatres v. City of Hattiesburg, 210 Miss. 271, 49 So.2d 574 (1951). However, a chancery court's authority to suppress a public nuisance by injunctive process is an additional remedy separate from criminal law. The mere fact that the public nuisance may also be a violation of criminal law, thus presenting an adequate remedy at law, does not reduce this authority of the chancery court to abate the public nuisance. State v. Myers, 146 So.2d 334 (Miss. 1962). A case close on point to the case sub judice is Proby v. State Ex Rel. West, 498 So.2d 792 (Miss. 1986), which involved the appeal of a chancery court order permanently enjoining the operation of a Biloxi establishment known as the Little Apple. The chancellor declared the Little Apple a nuisance and posted a $20,000 bond to insure compliance. There, we found no error in the chancellor's decree. Id. at 793. At the Little Apple, various illegal and obnoxious activities continually occurred in and near the lounge. There were frequent incidents involving fights, aggravated assaults, stabbings, gambling, shootings, and other disorderly conduct. Police officers testified that they had made hundreds of visits to the Little Apple over a two-year period and that on most of those visits they had observed the use of marijuana in and around the lounge. Indeed, during an undercover investigation one officer repeatedly purchased narcotics there himself... . Finally, an ABC raid in May 1983 uncovered 59 bottles of liquor, resulting in Proby's conviction for illegal possession of liquor. Id. at 793. In Green v. State Ex Rel. Chatham, 56 So.2d 12 (Miss. 1952), the State closed down Fred Green's Cafe in Oakland, Mississippi, because its operation constituted a nuisance. The residents and neighbors of Green's cafe/dance hall were disturbed by the loud and boisterous noises and music blaring from the establishment at all hours of the night and even on the Sabbath morning, and from the stench of urine found around the establishment's vicinity due to its lack of proper sanitary facilities. The Court found that Green continued to operate said place to the detriment of the welfare, morals, health and well being of the citizens of Oakland and surrounding territory. Id. 56 So.2d at 13. The Court felt that the situation was a continuing one and c[ould] not be effectively controlled unless the [establishment was] declared ... to be nuisance and abated as such. Id. The Court abated the nuisance because it interfered with, disturbed and unreasonably intruded upon the rights of others. Id. at 14. The Bosarges, notwithstanding Proby and Green, argue that an adequate remedy at law exists in their situation, such as punitive delicensing measures by the ABC. The phrase their defense in terms of not being a den of narcotics activity or being so obnoxious as to bother nearby neighbors. Like the Bosarges, Mr. Proby also sought to convince this Court that an adequate remedy at law existed so as to preclude the granting of an injunction. However, in Proby, we held that since [t]he record show[ed] that the continual intervention of the Biloxi Police Department did not suffice to curtail the various obnoxious activities at the lounge, ... the city had little choice but to seek an injunction. Proby, 498 So.2d at 794. Where a city is powerless to stop repeated violations of the law or to secure peace, the city has the right and power to bring suit in chancery for abatement of nuisance. Paramount-Richards Theatres v. City of Hattiesburg, 210 Miss. 271, 49 So.2d 574 (1951). In Paramount-Richards, we held that [u]nder many circumstances, injunctions will lie to prevent repeated and continuous violations of a penal statute... . The court found from all the facts that the operation of the picture shows in defiance of the [Sunday] law was a nuisance, and that the situation would grow worse unless enjoined. [Because the theater owners did not comply, 185 arrests were made during five Sundays.] Id. at 579. Likewise, in the case at bar, the State had little choice but to seek an injunction. Police officers and the ABC had repeatedly visited the Pines. There were various automobile accidents at that location, usually involving minors and alcohol. The Pines either deliberately or recklessly served alcohol to those under the age of twenty-one. The Pines was the site of various fights, assaults, one rape, burglaries, and juvenile problems. Traffic control devices were repeatedly installed and routinely torn down around the establishment. The Bosarges failed in curbing the obnoxious activities and sheer havoc stemming from the Pines. Albeit legal, the Bosarges made a decision to admit those teenagers between the ages of eighteen to twenty with full knowledge that minors were required to have proper supervision. They failed miserably at maintaining supervisory control over both the minors in the ages of eighteen to twenty, and even those below the age of eighteen that managed to cross their threshold. It is arguable that Mr. Bosarge had a perverse incentive to fail since Ronald Bosarge testified that he needed every patron he could get in order to meet his large overhead. Only five persons worked crowds of over two hundred. The employment practice was to place two persons usually at the door, one at the bar, leaving only two to frequent and monitor the tables. Due to either their foolishness, negligence or wilful disobedience to the law, the Bosarges repeatedly broke the law, and created a haven for reckless teenage behavior. This created an atmosphere that endangered not only their inebriated under age patrons, but also those who were involved in vehicular accidents with these youngsters. The obnoxious activities continued, and the Pines could not contain the problems. No effort was made in the years the Pines was open, and there was no reason to believe that things would improve in the future. It appeared that the situation could only have grown worse. Thus, the State was left no choice but to file for a permanent injunction, which the chancellor, according to Proby and Paramount-Richards, properly granted. Requesting the State to repeatedly arrest Pines bartenders and under age patrons is out of the question, when it was the Pines' lax standards that induced the very nuisance sought to be abated. Furthermore, the argument that the Pines did not also have problems involving the narcotics trade, as in Proby, does not demand that the Pines receive less severe treatment. At the point of closure, narcotics was one of the few vices not occurring at the Pines. Considering the mountain of evidence about disruptions, disturbances, numerous misdemeanors and felonies, and repeated alcohol-related problems at the Pines, there was more than ample evidence on which to grant a permanent injunction against its operation. The Bosarges next attempt to persuade this Court that the problems occurring around the Pines cannot be linked to them. In Green, Fred Green also tried to convince this Court that an adequate remedy at law existed because prosecutions could be had for offenses committed in and around his cafe, and that Green had no control over, and was not responsible for, the conduct of persons on the outside of the cafe. This Court, in Green, answered the challenge by noting that: the proof, however, showed that the annoyance to the public complained of was caused by the patrons of the cafe who were attracted there by the music of the juke box and by the frivolity permitted in and around the cafe, ... and that loud and boisterous conduct was indulged in by those whom appellant [Green] permitted to assemble in and around the cafe. Green, 56 So.2d at 15. In the same vein, this Court now answers the Bosarges, by also noting in Green that [a] public dance hall is not a nuisance per se, but it may become a nuisance by reason of surrounding circumstances. It may become a nuisance by the manner in which it is conducted, and by the conduct of the persons assembling in and around it. Whether or not it is a nuisance is a question of fact. Id. at 16. The proof in this case shows that teenagers as young as fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen were frequently attracted to the Pines. The Pines openly advertised that eighteen or over could enter. The Pines practice of serving a pitcher of beer to a table, and then letting patrons at that table, regardless of age, have free reign in consuming that pitcher was common knowledge to patrons, parents and law enforcement. During the summer of 1991 sting, five bartenders were arrested for serving alcohol to minors. During ten of the twelve different occasions when law enforcement checked the Pines, employees were observed serving alcohol to minors. The Pines was known as the place to go if one was under age and wanted to drink. We must agree with the chancellor. It was the frivolity and loose restrictions on alcohol that attracted these young patrons to the Pines. The Bosarges encouraged this nuisance by lax supervisory standards. Thus, it is inconsistent for the Bosarges to argue that there is no link between their operation of the Pines and the conduct of their patrons, and that an adequate remedy at law existed for the conduct of their patrons, when it was their practices which indulged young people to drink in the first place. The Bosarges request that this Court reconsider the issuance of the injunction arguing that they should not be held responsible for accidents occurring outside of the Pines premises. Yet, most of the accidents involved teenagers whose vehicles were struck while exiting from the Pines onto the highway. During the investigation of the William Elliot incident, his friends confessed that they had been at the Pines and after consuming alcohol, they decided to go hood surfing on vehicles while traveling upon the highway. The Bosarges cannot blind themselves to the natural progression of events that accrue from minors frequenting their establishment, consuming alcohol, and then leaving the bar to enter the world of the general public. Although these minors do have an element of self-control, and perhaps their parents should have closely monitored their activities instead of relying on bar owners to do their parenting for them, nonetheless, the Pines is linked to virtually all of the juvenile problems happening in and around the Pines premises. Moreover, the Bosarges' attempt to distinguish Green and other nuisance cases involving the intrusion upon the rights of neighbors from this case because the Pines has no immediate neighbors surrounding its premises is rejected by this Court. In Green we looked at the following language when determining what constitutes a nuisance: No doubt a nuisance is public if it affects the entire community or neighborhood, or any considerable number of persons. Furthermore, ... it seems to be sufficient to constitute acts or conditions a public nuisance if injury and annoyance are occasioned to such part of the public as come in contact therewith. Green, 56 So.2d at 15. Likewise, in the case at bar, it is not necessary to have immediate neighbors. If the nuisance affects the entire community or neighborhood or any considerable number of persons, such is sufficient. The Pines would be hard pressed to deny that an inebriated minor who drives home from the Pines is not a threat to the entire community or neighborhood or any considerable number of persons traveling upon the highways. The chancellor even noted: This place is located upon a heavily-traveled highway, one of the main routes from the south part of the United States to the north part  you can go from Gulfport to Chicago  and it connects with the main east/west I-10. There have been numerous accidents that have occurred at the Pines involving Pines patrons and such part of the public that came in contact with them. Injury has accrued to members of the general community due to the negligence of the Bosarges in eradicating under age drinking at the Pines. This issue is without merit.