8 thoughts on “Business Owner Exclaims Greensboro Unsafe After Murder in Parking Lot”

  1. Anyone familiar with that place isn’t shocked that this occurred there. If anything, I’m stunned it took all these years to unfold. I left Greensboro for good in 2014, but I frequented that place often going back even further; heck, even when it was Liberty Oak and The Dessertery, when I was a child. The amount of drugs funneled in and out of that place is the stuff of legend, especially this time of year. Kids home from college would gather there – Page, Grimsley, Northwest, GDS etc. Well-to-do kids, hence the location…. If you wanted cocaine, you just walked straight through the doors out back. Nights either began there, ended there, or both. I mean, just look at the name – “speakeasy.” I don’t know anything about ownership, past or present etc, but it was very blatant – the funneling in and out. Laughable, really. It had a reputation, but most of the clientele were upper crust, privileged white kids, and even powerbrokers in the city.

    1. Thanks for your comments, Allison. You seem to be familiar; and I was unaware that site was used to sell drugs. My impression would have been that Speakeasy is a drinking place. Selling drugs at that shopping center would explain perhaps why the murder took place. So many seem to involve drug deals somehow gone bad…

      It appears the police department has a hot spot to target, if they have the will to do so.

    2. I have to disagree, Allison. I discovered Speakeasy right around 2014 and found it to be a nice gathering spot with great food. My high school class has had many reunions and meetings there and the owner is very accommodating.

      In the interview, she mentions the other bar located 2 doors down in what used to be the fabric store PieceGoods. That bar attracted a crowd which cause violence in the parking lot. Speakeasy is nothing like that Tequila bar! I would encourage people to frequent Speakeasy at lunchtime to see the place and get some great food!

  2. With all due respect to the Mayor. There isn’t a political fix for a spiritual problem.

    1. No, there isn’t, Tommy. Better government and policing and law enforcement can reduce the amount of crime, but it can’t be eliminated completely. This city council won’t do what they need to do to reduce it.

  3. This story reminds me of my days at DEA in the mid 1980s. We arrested a member of a prominent Irving Park family for distribution of a large quantity of cocaine. He was in the high end restaurant business and I am sure you would recognize the name of his establishment.

    I think Allison’s memories are credible although they go back almost 10 years.

    TC you are correct that the term speak-easy generally refers to joints that sold alcoholic beverages without a license during prohibition ( 1919-1933 ). Here is a 1891 NY Times article on the etymology of the term:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pittsburgh_Dispatch_Speakeasy_Origin.jpg

    Anther not so well known method of obtaining a hard liquor drink during prohibition was the medical use of alcohol. Doctors were able to prescribe medicinal alcohol for their patients. After just six months of prohibition, over 15,000 doctors and 57,000 pharmacists received licenses to prescribe or sell medicinal alcohol. Physicians wrote an estimated 11 million prescriptions a year throughout the 1920s, and Prohibition Commissioner John F. Kramer even cited one doctor who wrote 475 prescriptions for whiskey in one day. It wasn’t tough for people to write—and fill—counterfeit prescriptions at pharmacies, either. Naturally, bootleggers bought prescription forms from crooked doctors and mounted widespread scams. In 1931, 400 pharmacists and 1,000 doctors were caught in a scam where doctors sold signed prescription forms to bootleggers. Just 12 doctors and 13 pharmacists were indicted, and the ones charged faced a one-time $50 fine. Selling alcohol through drugstores became so much of a lucrative open secret that it is name-checked in works such as The Great Gatsby. Historians speculate that Charles R. Walgreen, of Walgreens fame, expanded from 20 stores to a staggering 525 during the 1920s thanks to medicinal alcohol sales.

    Will the GPD focus on such places ? We hope so. Recently they had their work cut out for then with multiple shootings at the Blind Tiger:
    https://greensboro.com/news/crime/article_2ec4f996-a3fd-11ed-8203-ebf28c86c613.html

    1. Fred, I didn’t know about doctors prescribing liquor during prohibition. It only makes sense given what we have seen with narcotic prescribing. Similarly, I didn’t know about Walgreen’s history. (I think people should stay away from the chain pharmacies.)

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