
Music City can continue its crackdown on home music studios thanks to a new ruling from the Davidson County Chancery Court in Tennessee upholding a Nashville law that prohibits home business owners from serving clients on site.
The law has been a burden on the city's numerous home studio owners who, thanks to the Nashville Metro government's ban on client visits, are technically unable to charge musicians to record in their home studios. Most studio owners are able to fly under the radar. Those who are reported to Metro can have their businesses upended overnight.
That would include Lij Shaw, a Grammy Award-winning music producer profiled by Reason in April.
For years, Shaw ran his Toy Box Studio recording business out of his Nashville home without incident. In 2015, he was hit with a cease and desist letter from Metro, which demanded that he stop receiving clients at his home, shut down his promotional YouTube channel, and strip information about his business from his website or else be fined.
In 2017, Shaw and Pat Raynor, whose home salon business also ran afoul of Nashville's client ban, sued the Nashville Metro government. The two were represented by the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, and the Beacon Center, a Tennessee free market think tank.
Their lawsuit argued that because Nashville couldn't show any actual harm Shaw or Raynor caused by receiving clients at their home, the city had no legitimate government interest in enforcing its ban on client visits. That ban, their lawsuit argued, was therefore irrational and violated the Tennessee Constitution's protection of one's right to earn a living.
In an opinion published Tuesday, however, Chancellor Anne Martin agreed with Nashville's argument that because one could imagine potential harms coming from allowing home businesses to service clients on-site, the Metro government's rules were rational, and therefore constitutional.
Shaw and Raynor's businesses, Martin wrote, "are like any others in that if the public is allowed to come to their residences as customers, it could disturb the residential nature of their neighborhoods, as well as foment a potential host of other problems."
"The ruling is tantamount to one that concludes that facts cannot override imaginary harms when it comes to economic rights," says Braden Boucek, an attorney with the Beacon Center. "Under our constitutional structure where the government is one of powers few and enumerated, that's not how it's supposed to be."
"Lij and Pat have a constitutional right to use their homes to earn an honest living," Institute for Justice attorney Keith Diggs said in a statement. "Today's ruling ignores Nashville's admission that Lij and Pat never threatened public health or safety. We will keep fighting for Lij and Pat until this unconstitutional law is overturned."
The Institute for Justice and the Beacon Center plan on appealing Tuesday's ruling. Until then, Nashville's music producers and other home businesses will have to hope and pray that code enforcement doesn't choose to single them out next.
#1: Gatlin To: Deckard (#0)
Let me go check and see how the judicial system works.
HmmmThe system worked in Music City as it was desogmed tp.
God Bless America
Salute,
Gatlin
Gatlin posted on 2019-10-04 06:00:42 Reply Private Reply
#2: A K A Stone To: Gatlin (#1)
I see why people think you are a suck ass.
A K A Stone posted on 2019-10-04 06:48:37 Reply Private Reply
#3: Gatlin To: A K A Stone (#2)
Th article showed the judicial system worked.
I showed the article showed this.
The only problem you have is that you are too fucking dumb to understand anything about the intelligence of a six-year-old.
The judicial system worked in Music City as it was designed to.
Salute,
Gatlin
Gatlin posted on 2019-10-04 06:57:16 Reply Private Reply
#4: A K A Stone To: Gatlin (#3)
Lets burn down the bridges ok.
You just posted an article on how the system works. You posted nothing about the specifics of the case. The courts get it wrong all the time. Just like you get stocks wrong all the time. Did the system work on Obamacare?
A K A Stone posted on 2019-10-04 07:01:24 Reply Private Reply
#5: Gatlin To: A K A Stone (#4)
And I will never judge things on what a reporter tells me. You however do, and no doubt will continue to do. Thats your limited intelligence problem not mine. A persons second-hand information is really a poor thing to make decision of right and wrong on. Cant you possibly see that?
There you do again with another of your damned exaggerations. Courts do not get it wrong ALL the time. Courts do sometimes get it wrong. And that is the reason we have appellate courts that are the part of the judicial system responsible for hearing and reviewing appeals from legal cases that have already been heard in a trial-level or other lower court. No, Stone not ALL the time. Cite me the court case of which you speak.You seem to hate our judicial system or, am I reading your posts the wrong way?
Salute,
Gatlin
Gatlin posted on 2019-10-04 07:49:55 Reply Private Reply
#6: goldilucky To: Deckard (#0)
goldilucky posted on 2019-10-04 15:49:53 Reply Private Reply
#7: Deckard To: Gatlin, A K A Stone (#5)
You seem to love that musicians are being told they can't create music in their own homes yes, I am reading your posts the right way.
Deckard posted on 2019-10-04 16:25:09 Reply Private Reply
#8: Deckard To: goldilucky (#6)
You nailed it. Can't have someone exercising their first amendment rights by creating music in their own homes thereby eliminating the big boys.
constitutioncenter.org/sp...ngforYourRights_final.pdf
Thanks for that link - I'll be reading the rest later.
Deckard posted on 2019-10-04 16:30:45 Reply Private Reply
#9: goldilucky To: Deckard (#8)
goldilucky posted on 2019-10-04 16:34:57 Reply Private Reply
#10: jeremiad To: Deckard (#0)
I remember when my Dad and his friends would have literally chased the bureaucrats from power with such over reaching regulations. We are left with mewling bitches, seeking the teat of acceptance. Those left with the spark of individualism, are stamped into submission by the avalanche of lemmings.
jeremiad posted on 2019-10-09 08:44:01 Reply Private Reply