Undercover police operations at two Franklin bars led to indictments, officers tell beer board

Master Patrol Officer Clint Buchanan told the Franklin Beer Board on Sept. 18 that undercover officers observed repeated incidents of overserving and public intoxication at two downtown bars in 2024 and that he presented those reports to a grand jury. "They returned true bill," Buchanan said when describing the result of his presentation to the grand jury in the Tin Roof matter.

At Tin Roof 2, Buchanan described multiple incidents (a patron passed out on a patio table yet continued to order drinks; couples stumbling and being served; two named bartenders were identified in the reports). For Kimbrough's, Buchanan described groups on a patio who vomited and urinated in public and said an individual purchased five liquor drinks that evening for a table; the grand jury returned three indictments in that case.

City counsel framed those criminal proceedings as the factual basis for municipal show-cause hearings, and the city emphasized CAD call counts and DUI statistics as part of its public-safety rationale. Defense counsel repeatedly noted that indictments are not convictions and pressed the board on why police incidents were not accompanied by contemporaneous narratives or arrests of intoxicated patrons.

The board heard from police, city attorneys, business owners and defense counsel; in the Tin Roof case the board imposed a suspension and fine, and in the Kimbrough's matter the board ordered a collaborative remediation process and deferred formal discipline pending the parties' joint proposal.