Update: The News Tribune covered the community forum concerning the corner of Ninth and Pacific where Club Impacts sits.

In case you haven’t caught wind of the brewing controversy between everyone’s favorite Jesus-sponsored all-ages music venue â€" Club Impact/Brick City, and the business owners that surround it, let me fill you in. This shit is funny.

According to an article written by Scott Fontaine and published in the TNT,  business owners surrounding Club Impact are complaining about crowds of unruly youth loitering outside Club Impact, taking up parking, dealing drugs, publicly urinating and generally being “rowdy.”
Even Marty Campbell, chairman of the New Tacoma neighborhood council, was quoted in the article, saying, “In the middle of what I think should be one of our top bar districts and entertainment districts, well, an all-ages club just doesn’t fit into that.”

This is so funny for so many reasons.

• Club Impact getting treated like a societal blemish? What would Jesus say?
• Do teens not have the same right to park as everyone else?
• Try picturing someone pulling up to one of the bars or businesses in the proximity of Club Impact only to be frightened off by a rough group of teen-agers waiting for the church-sponsored metal show.
• And how about Chairman Campbell’s assertion that Club Impact doesn’t fit in with “one of our top bar districts and entertainment districts.”

Look. I’ve spent a long time in Tacoma’s bar and entertainment districts. I’ve seen more drug deals, loitering, lewd behavior, raucous activity, and public urination than most people see in a lifetime. If that’s what the kids at Impact are up to, well, we should have invited them to our grown up Tacoma party a long time ago. Sounds like they fit right in. â€" Matt Driscoll