Impulse Gay Social Club met with anti-homosexual scripture, support during public hearing

Julia Fair | The News Leader

Anti-homosexual biblical verses and messages of community support filled the Waynesboro City Council chambers Monday night.

Those messages came during the city's public hearing for the conditional-use and dance hall permit the Impulse Gay Social Club needs to open downtown, proposed to open in the vacant white building at 101 E. Main St.

The city set 10 conditions in the proposed permit, including prohibiting “adult entertainment,” defined by a Zoning Ordinance as “performances meant to expose genitalia.”

Vice Mayor Robert Henderson said drag shows do not fall under that ordinance when a woman in the audience spoke up — confused as how drag did not fall under that performance exclusion.

More: City Council considers permit for non-profit Impulse Gay Social Club

During the public comment period, a local pastor stood and read a passage from the bible that denounced homosexuality.

Mayor Terry Short interrupted the man's scripture, informing him he had exceeded his time to speak.

Another man told council that the kind of scripture the pastor read is what keeps gay men, like himself, in the closet and leads to people getting hurt.

More messages of support for the social club poured in during the public comment period from additional Waynesboro residents.

The supportive residents all had one compliment for the club in common — its accepting environment for everyone who walks in the door.

Owner Kevin Morris-Lewis of the Charlottesville location told council he’s lived in Waynesboro for two years, adding there’s a support system on this side of the mountain that he’d like to cater to.

“It gives a place for up and coming LGBTQ community a place to turn to,” Morris-Lewis said.

The social club needs the conditional-use permit because the building is zoned for local business, but it’s close enough to the downtown area that the city felt it would be appropriate to consider the conditional-use permit.

Other conditions set by the city would include prohibiting the door being propped open in order to contain noise, banning outside live music after 10 p.m., keeping alcohol served outside within a designated area and closing the establishment at 2 a.m., when the “party-goers,” must also leave the building.

The staff report about the consideration of the conditional-use permit from the City of Waynesboro included a Freedom of Information Act that Luke Juday, the director of planning, sent to the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority.

Juday inquired whether the social club’s current establishment in Charlottesville had any violations, suspension or revocations of its Alcoholic Beverage Control license.

The report showed that over a five year period, which is time the time frame Juday requested, the establishment had a clean record.

Council also discussed a $600 dance hall permit for the social club. A provision in the city code from the 1960s requires the non-profit to receive a dance hall permit.

The social club needed this because it plans to serve alcohol and have a dance floor but it does not plan to serve food, Juday said at the meeting.

Council plans to discuss whether it will grant the permits to the social club at its Aug. 27 meeting.