Tuesday, January 3, 2012
News O’Terrill’s Pub closes, citing Peachtree-Pine as the cause
Posted by Eric Celeste on Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 1:58 PM
Just got off the phone with Rufus Terrill, the longtime owner of O'Terrill's Pub on Piedmont in Midtown, a block from the Peachtree-Pine homeless shelter. He said New Year's Eve was the last night the pub would be open, as he's tired of "the bums running off my business." The not-so-terribly-shy Terrill, who ran for mayor in 2009 and last year shot a contentious patron in the leg for hassling his bartender, says:
"I'm not gonna do it anymore. I woulda stayed open if [the courts] had shut it down. They're destroying my business here. I told folks today [via e-mail] that it's just too hard to deal with, but I thanked them for years of support."
Terrill says if the city and courts successfully evict the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless (which runs the shelter), he'll open up again. In the meantime, he awaits the outcome of the Fulton County Superior Court hearing set for Feb. 3 to see if the Task Force should be evicted.
Check out our 2009 video we shot of him and his Bum Bot which he built to chase homeless people away from his restaurant:
Comments (16)
Showing 1-16 of 16
And we're all very sad to see such a quality establishment go.
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Thats lol-riffic. Rufus shut down his bar for 3 weeks about a month ago for 'painting' and all of the regulars stopped going. His insanely racist posts on his facebook page coupled with his personal opinions about the area pretty much cleared out any level headed customers from his bar.
I'm glad I never went to this place and I hope Peachtree-Pine never closes.
This gadget looks like an offspring of the robot on the classic TV series Lost In Space and a BBQ smoker. Useless invention...an 80-pound crackhead could knock that thing over.
On a side note they do/did have great fish and chips.
Peachtree-Pine seems to have more lives than a tb ridden cat.
This guy is a total ass-hat. I often went to his bar years ago. Once I found out about his "Bum Bot" I swore never to give that jerk any more money. I hope is is serious and just takes his talents OTP where he belongs. Bring back the Imperial Pint!
Peachtree-Pine can't close. If it does and the men being held hostage to dependency there might go on to live productive lives. Too many people have built their identities around Peachtree-Pine being the victim of a grand conspiracy. Allowing the residents to get help from an actual service provider would destroy years they've invested in demonizing anyone who doesn't want to continue to enable the behaviors that led these poor souls into Anita's clutches.
I haven't seen Rufus in years so I don't know if he's turned racist or not. But I know what the ecosystem that Peachtree-Pine has fostered has done to that neighborhood so I could see anyone eventually snapping. If he has, hope he gets some time away from there and regains perspective because Peachtree-Pine isn't a good representation of any group.
This guy and the cracker from marietta who runs that bar Mulligans need to go into business running party bus safaris past peachtree pine where upwardly mobile suburbanites can hurl insults at poor people with mental and substance abuse problems. They could spray them with super soakers in exchange for money to be divided the following morning before the first bus.
I can easily see this being the next thing the new york times writes about.
the real reason he went out of business is a shit location
blame the homeless all you want but if you refuse to move spots to a place with more business its kinda your fault
el myr has plenty of bums, they're still in business. coincidence????
I live two blocks away from O'Terrels but have only walked by there once as I was offered crack and a blowjob by separate entrepreneurs in Renaissance Park. There is a problem with the homeless but where else can they be shuffled, it's downtown. I guess I agree with Rufus, mainly because this is my neighborhood so I'm biased. When I've talked with him any of the half-dozen times about the neighborhood and city I didn't hear any comments that would come across as racist so I don't know where that comes from. For a "shit location" Midtown Tavern seems to do alright, so I have to disagree with that as well. But I do agree with Jay Leno, the Bumbot is pretty damn funny
"el myr has plenty of bums, they're still in business. coincidence????"
I was going to make a joke about the difference is that the hipsters go inside el myr but realized
A) It would be mean to bums to compare them to hipsters and
B) It wasn't witty enough.
Those of you who side with the homeless shelter clearly don't live in that neighborhood. I personally witnessed patrons of the shelter urinating, deficating and fornicating near the pub, in front of the daycare center across the street, and in the park next to the condos and apartments.
We tried to sell our condo, but no one would buy. We've seen close to a dozen foreclosures. The children of one family that came to look at one of the condos for sale were startled to see two of the shelter's regulars screwing each other in broad daylight in the public park.
Rufus was our hero.
This particular shelter has few rules to discourage drug, etc.
I completely agree with the previous comment... My friend lives one block from the bar and i have been there many times. I have also witnessed homeless people screwing in the park in the middle of the day, I have also been offered crack, and my car has been broken into. If the homeless shelter does not close then there need to be some major changes and more police patrols in the area. My friend has also been unable to sell his condo and potential buyers sited the reason for not buying it as "I love your condo and the price right but don't want to subject my children to the homeless people that are always in the area selling drugs"
I also never heard Rufus make any racist comments. He has every right to be upset with the homeless in the area. Before anyone makes a comment about the shelter you should take a walk past O'Terrill's and past the shelter and see if you feel the same way.
Sad to hear about O'Terrill's closing. What happened with the shooting charges? I'll donate for his defense. I'd have shot the dirtbag too! Why can't the city keep it's streets safe?
I sincerely hope that Terrill can never reopen his business, becomes homeless and has to check-in at Peachtree-Pine.
Should Terrill ever become homeless, I hope for him the same thing I hope for all the homeless: that he'll go to any of the several dozen other shelters in the area so he can get actual help instead of becoming a human pawn like those unfortunate enough to cross paths with Peachtree-Pine in their ego war against everybody who doesn't drop to their knees and worship them for destroying so many lives. But if you hate Terrill, I agree that making him go to Peachtree-Pine would be a terrible punishment, just like it is for everybody else who ends up suffering there.
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