Several companies offering boozy tours of Nashville on converted buses, faux boats and tractors are suing the Metro government in an effort to reverse new regulations imposed earlier this year on the so-called transpotainment industry.
The latest lawsuit, filed Monday in Davidson County Chancery Court by the business behind the Nashville Party Barge vehicles, argues that the Metropolitan Transportation Licensing Commission improperly capped the company’s operating permits at four (compared to the asked-for eight) in an “arbitrary and capricious denial.”
The litigation follows a months-long process in which the Metropolitan Transportation Licensing Commission, at Mayor John Cooper’s urging and armed with new authorities granted by the state legislature and Metro Council, began issuing permits and limiting the number of entertainment vehicles allowed on Nashville streets.
The city also instituted a new insurance requirement that some operators have described as either difficult or impossible to comply with, plus requirements that vehicles be enclosed and operate during limited hours. Several of the operators also complained that party vehicles are treated differently than pedal taverns by Metro.
“Common sense regulations for entertainment transportation vehicles will help reduce traffic, control noise, make our streets safer and improve the quality of life for Nashville residents,” says TJ Ducklo, a spokesperson for Cooper's office. “We intend to vigorously defend Metro’s ability to regulate our streets.”
Nashville Party Barge, in its complaint, says it bought three new vehicles prior to being granted just four of its eight requested permits. Either, the company argues, Metro did not have a maximum number of permits available and denied theirs “irrationally, arbitrarily and capriciously,” or Metro did have a maximum number of permits available “and did not have any rational basis or objective criteria” from which to issue them. Rather, the lawsuit continues, Metro “awarded permits to qualified applicants seemingly at random.”
Nashville Party Barge is asking the court to reverse Metro’s denial and issue the company an additional four vehicle permits.
In late July, Lower Broadway bar Nashville Underground sued Metro. The company said it bought a Kubota tractor and hay wagon in 2021 with the intent of operating “a unique hayride experience in and around the downtown area.” Nashville Underground argues in its lawsuit that Metro failed to properly notice its April application period for transpotainment permits, and the company therefore missed the window.
“The short application process was intentional and/or arbitrary and … was implemented for the precise, improper purpose of arbitrarily reducing the number of applications and, ultimately, severely reducing and/or eliminating ETVs altogether,” the company wrote in its lawsuit.
Honky Tonk Party Express filed two related claims against Metro on Aug. 22. The company was granted 17 permits (five for sightseeing only, 12 for entertainment transportation) after requesting 35 permits. A hearing to consider the company’s request for a temporary injunction is scheduled for Sept. 6.
In its lawsuit, Honky Tonk Party Express describes the licensing commission’s process as “illegal, arbitrary and capricious overregulation of the entertainment transportation industry.”
“It seems obvious that the TLC got the Mayor’s message loud and clear and has done by rulemaking what Mayor Cooper could not do by fiat, which is improper,” the company continues.
This article first ran via our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
