Usually when you see reports about a flashy new charter school going into a neighborhood of bars and nightclubs, it’s about how local families are thrilled about the area taking a turn for the better. But bar-owners in Dallas’ Deep Ellum area are hoping to 86 the school’s plans of bringing education to the block.

“Why you would pick to do it where you have nine other bars within feet of school property,” asks the owner of one bar down the street from the building where the school is slated to open. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

Aside from changing the character of the neighborhood, the bar-owners have concerns about the impact the school would have on zoning in the area.

See, while all the existing bars and clubs would be grandfathered in, no new bars could open up within 300 feet of the school. This also means that if a bar were to shut down, it could not be replaced with a different gin joint, beer hall, wine bar or whatever you call a place where people drink absinthe.

A rep for the Uplift Education, the folks behind the charter school, tells CBS Dallas that the educators are not necessarily trying to drive anyone out of the area: “We know that sometimes there are establishments like bars or strip clubs that are near us. In fact one of our campuses is a quarter of a mile away from a strip club.”

As someone who went to high school across the street from a sewage treatment plant, having a bar or strip club down the block sounds like a pretty good deal.

Bar Owners Fight To Keep School Out Of Deep Ellum [CBSLocal.com]

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