Local businesses blaming pizza parlor for Sunday’s shooting
Some south Columbia business owners are blaming a local pizza parlor for ongoing problems in that part of the city — including a shooting that happened on Sunday.
Owners of the business that was hit with a bullet on Sunday, 44 Stone Public House, are pointing the finger at Southside Pizza and Pub.
Other employees in the Peachtree Plaza agreed that the popular pub is the cause of many problems in the area.
Dave Faron, owner of 44 Stone, said the shooting happened after a bar fight.
“From what we’ve witnessed being across the street, there’s certainly a concentration of incidents there,” he said. “There’s a certain type of riff-raff that goes there and causes these 911 calls and violent acts.”
Four other businesses also said problems stem from the pizza bar. One nearby employee even called Southside Pizza the “problem child of the area.”
But Southside Pizza owner, Mousa Abadi, said in his nine years of business he’s never had any problems.
“It’s a sports bar, people get rowdy, people get happy or sad, that’s all it is. You can’t put all that together and call it something or put the shooting on that, it’s got nothing to do with it,” he said.
ABC 17 News did some digging and found out that Columbia police were dispatched to Peachtree Plaza 139 times in the last year. Nearly 40 percent of those calls were from Southside Pizza.
The calls were for incidents including shots fired, disturbances, larcenies and assaults.
Abadi said there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for that number of calls.
“We have a drinking crowd coming in, so what do we do every time something happens?” he asked. “We call the cops. We don’t put a hand on anybody. If somebody’s car died out there and they need a battery, we call the cops.”
The owner of the pub was not happy with other business owners blaming him.
“You can’t accuse anyone of that kind of stuff, especially without any evidence,” Abadi said.
Police say there is no evidence that the shooting stemmed from Southside Pizza.
There is also no suspect description and the suspect remains on the loose.
