Petitioners Seek to 'Save Lonnie's Western Room' [Updated]

News came today

that a Nashville investment group is currently in talks to buy "nearly an acre in the center of Printers Alley," with plans to build a boutique hotel in the area.

"The four targeted parcels," reports The Tennessean, "include the former Utopia Hotel building — which features Downtown Cleaners and strip club Brass Stables as tenants — and the vacant space above the businesses. It also includes the buildings that house Lonnie's Western Room and Fiddle & Steel Guitar Bar on the Printers Alley side and the buildings that are home to Taste of Italy Pizza, Santorini Greek Restaurant and Kebab Gyros on the Fourth Avenue side."

This comes as worrisome news for some supporters of the 25-year-old karaoke establishment Lonnie's Western Room, which is housed in Printers Alley. So worrisome, in fact, that they've started an online petition to "Save Lonnie's Western Room" on Whitehouse.gov. "Everyone who has spent significant amounts of time in Nashville has warm memories at Lonnie's," says the author of the petition. "Don't deprive the next generation of such a culturally rich yet unrefined Nashvillian and American experience."

So wait — why file the petition on Whitehouse.gov, rather than, you know, a more general petition-platform site like Change.org? It isn't really clear, although maybe the petition-writers hope to have Printers Alley preserved as a historic overlay district. Or maybe they're just looking for exposure. Anyhow, the petition currently has more than 200 signatures; in order to get an official response from the Obama Administration, the petition must reach 100,000 signatures by Aug. 15.

Update: The petition appears to have been pulled from Whitehouse.gov "because it is in violation of our Terms of Participation."