Morgan Wallen Seemingly Claps Back At City Council Who Said He “Doesn’t Belong” In Nashville With Photo Of Sold-Out Nissan Stadium Show

The city council may not want him, but the people of Nashville seemed happy to welcome him. That's the apparent message from Morgan Wallen after the Metro Nashville City Council voted last night to reject an application from Morgan's new bar , Morgan Wallen's This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen, for a proposed sign over the entry to the bar. TC Restaurant Group, the hospitality company that partnered with Wallen for the bar (and also operates bars like Jason Aldean’s Kitchen & Rooftop Bar, Luke’s 32 Bridge, Miranda Lambert’s Casa Rosa and Lainey Wilson’s upcoming Bell Bottoms Up), had requested permission for an “aerial encroachment” for the sign to hang over the new bar, located at 107 4th Avenue North, just beside the Ryman Auditorium. The sign would have hung above the entrance to the bar, but because it encroached on a city right of way, owners needed to get permission from the council to install it. But the council made it clear that they weren’t exactly happy with Wallen right now – with many members speaking out against the singer and his behavior during a meeting last night. Council member Delisha Porterfield referred to not only Morgan’s latest incident when he was arrested for throwing a chair off the rooftop of Eric Church’s downtown Nashville bar, Chief’s, but also his racial slur incident from back in 2021 in arguing that he shouldn’t be granted permission for the sign: “We just passed legislation a little earlier tonight saying that we wanted to make sure that Nashville was a supportive place for everyone, so I don’t want to see a billboard with the name of a person who’s throwing chairs off of balconies and who is saying racial slurs and using the n-word, so I’m voting no.” https://twitter.com/DelishiaForNash/status/1793101282523373968 And councilman Jordan Huffman also expressed his concerns: “Number one, Mr. Wallen is a fellow East Tennessean. He gives all of us a bad name. His comments are hateful, his actions are harmful, and you don’t belong in this town as far as I’m concerned. I’m tired of this city bending over to just make anybody happy that makes a comment that they want to. We continue to go down this road. I encourage my colleagues to vote against this.” Meanwhile, councilwoman Brenda Gadd said that TC Restaurant Group shouldn’t be giving Morgan another chance, incorrectly asserting that Morgan pledged to donate to the NAACP and then failed to deliver on that pledge: “Someone who continues to get second chances, I think the third party operator, surely they don’t need any reminder about his racist comments, using the n-word, his pledge to the NAACP for funding and then him never fulfilling that commitment. Mr. Wallen has also received many more opportunities since then, and he’ll receive one through other operators, but I can’t with a good conscience support this because of that.” So far, neither Morgan nor TC Restaurant Group have addressed the council's denial, and it may ultimately be challenged in court since the council was clear that the decision not to allow the sign was based on its content, raising obvious First Amendment concerns. But in the meantime, Morgan is seemingly sending a subtle message to the council that made it clear they don't want him downtown. On his Instagram story, the singer posted a photo of one of his three recent sold-out shows at Nissan Stadium here in Nashville: There was no further caption or statement from Morgan, but it seems pretty clear (given the fact that his shows in Nashville took place weeks ago) that he was sending a response to the council members who said he "doesn't belong in this town."