The feud, at least in the public’s eye, began in early 2022 when Chris Estano hired someone to play live music on the front patio of his Mainstrasse bar, Paddy’s on Main.
It announced itself in the form of a noise complaint about the events of that night, then landed on a Covington City Commission meeting agenda in March.
Paddy’s on Main shares a common wall with the building next door, where at the time, Bourbon Haus 1841 was also serving patrons on Covington’s popular Main Street.
Once the live music got going, the music on the other side of the patio, at Bourbon Haus, got a little louder. Wanting to make sure the artist he paid to perform at Paddy’s could be heard, Estano turned up the speakers on his side.
Patrons and people around the neighborhood turned to look as one side got louder, then the other.
“We’ve been very mindful to keep it at a level that’s friendly to everyone,” said former Paddy’s General Manager Brooklyn Koebke at the March commission meeting. “I know there have been instances in the past where the live music combatting with Bourbon Haus’ outdoor patio music has made, obviously, way more noise than necessary.”
Bourbon Haus owners Tammy and Dave Brumfield were also at the meeting.
“We offer an extensive outdoor patio where we do 25 percent of our business and as high as 50 percent of our business during our spring, summer and fall months,” Tammy Brumfield said at the meeting. “This business is currently under siege. We are here today because we now share a patio with a new bar, Paddy’s on Main, that opened in December. Long before they opened, Paddy’s has been blasting their music on the patio with clear intention of disrupting our customers.”
Koebke, who had previously worked at Bourbon Haus, said at the meeting that she understood both sides of the argument. But she conceded it would be hard to see the argument against hosting live music performances.
“On one Saturday in particular, it was a very clear indication that (Bourbon Haus 1841) was trying to power out our paid musician that we had hired for the three hours they were performing, which they never played past the noise ordinance,” Koebke said.
In the end of that particular commission meeting, Covington Mayor Joe Meyer told everyone to work things out themselves.
“Be a good neighbor. It’s really just that simple,” Meyer said. “These things will sort themselves out. I do hope this is the last we hear of loud noise and these other situations back and forth. I’m not picking any sides here. This is ridiculous. If I might say that, you’re wasting the time of everyone here with this situation that quite frankly, isn’t resolvable by us. It’s only resolvable by you. Please, be a good neighbor.”
The feud, which began in mid 2021, came to a head in a Jan. 1 Facebook post announcing Bourbon Haus’ closure. The Brumfields pointed the finger at Estano and one other local business owner in the post — but it turns out neither directly caused the bar’s closure. In the end, it came down to a liquor license.
But let’s rewind.
From the street, the buildings look like one house with a line down the middle; the right façade is painted gray and the left is red with green and yellow pillars. It looks as if two siblings who couldn’t get along put a line with masking tape down the middle of their bedroom.
It’s an appropriate metaphor for the relationship between Estano and the Brumfields, which began in May of 2021.
That’s when contractors got down to business at what would be Paddy’s.
In Estano’s opinion, everything was fine at first.
“When I first started building it, I would go over there and I would have a couple drinks and bring my guys over there,” Estano said. “They were nice. And then they just weren’t anymore.”
At one point, Estano said, the Brumfields heard he was going to put speakers on Paddy’s front patio.
When Estano was at Bourbon Haus one evening, he said, Tammy and Dave Brumfield walked up to him and asked if he was going to put speakers outside. He said yes and that he wanted to host live music a couple days a week.
“And they’re like, ‘No, you’re not,” Estano said. “They said, ‘No, we were here first. You can’t put your music outside.'”
Estano said the Brumfields told him they didn’t like the music the construction workers were playing, and that they didn’t know what kinds of bands Estano might hire.
Estano said he would give the Brumfields 75% control of the outdoor music.
But the Brumfields, Tammy said in an interview with LINK, felt that Estano was making demands about the music they could play at Bourbon Haus from the beginning.
Tammy Brumfield said she wasn’t necessarily opposed to having live music outside.
“We’re not opposed to live music,” Tammy Brumfield said. “We love live music. In fact, we used to have live music on our patio. We had it for two weeks. And we got so many complaints that we stopped doing it.”
So when Estano brought the live music in that night in early 2022, tensions were already high between the business owners. And while Estano said he didn’t think the Brumfields should get to decide what he did at his own bar, the Brumfields felt Estano made it so the music at Bourbon Haus couldn’t be heard.
And so things went.
The Brumfields announced the permanent closure of their bar after six years on Jan. 1.
“It is with a very heavy heart that we share the news that Bourbon Haus will permanently close,” the Facebook post, signed by Dave Brumsfield, began. “We have operated successfully for the past 6 years due to your loyalty and patronage! Unfortunately, we were forced to close due to a series of malicious occurrences.”
The post said Estano “terrorized” the Brumfields for a year and a half, but does not give specific incidents or go into detail about the unethical behavior they accuse Estano of.
Estano said the accusations are completely false. He said wanted to take the high road and let it pass, but felt he needed to defend himself.
“You’re going to find out that the things they’ve said in that post are blatant lies,” Estano told LINK nky.
Tammy Brumfield told LINK that at one point Estano stole an air conditioner from them, but Estano said it was a misunderstanding — both businesses had the same air conditioners, he said, and Amazon delivered one to his door, which the people working in the building at the time opened and installed. Tammy Brumfield said Estano later purchased one for the Brumfields.
The Facebook post goes on to also place blame on building owner Kim Wolf, asking why she “would maliciously intend to put us out of business.”
“We were fantastic tenants,” the post said. “We always paid our rent on time, even through COVID and performed all maintenance and repairs to the building, treating it as our own, although this was her responsibility that she often shunned.”
Court records show that the Brumfields haven’t paid rent at 522 Main since December 2021. But Tammy Brumfield said that Wolf stopped accepting rent payments in January of 2022, so they have paid rent every month into an escrow bond.
Alongside the ongoing tension between the Brumfields and Estano in 2021 was a lawsuit between the Brumfields and Wolf.
The crux of the lawsuit surrounds the Brumfields’ understanding that continuing to pay the $1,200 monthly rent as outlined in a November 2016 lease agreement after that lease expired in January of 2018 implied that the lease was extended for a year — and so on each January.
According to court documents, when Wolf advised the Brumfields in early 2022 that she was selling the building, the Brumfields’ attorney sent Wolf a letter stating the Brumfields had an implied yearlong lease and should be able to stay in the building until Jan. 15, 2023.
LINK nky obtained a copy of the original lease, which states that if the Brumfields wanted to extend its terms for another year, the Brumfields needed to give written notice to Wolf at least 30 days prior to the lease expiration.
In addition, the lease said, “In the event LESSEE (the Brumfields) remains in the possession of the demised premises after the term of this lease without exercising the extension option, he shall be deemed a tenant from month to month only.”
The only documented lease contained in court documents related to this case was from Jan. 15, 2017 to Jan. 15, 2018. It notes that if the Brumfields took the month-to-month option, they would need to give written notice and begin paying $1,500 per month in rent.
Wolf, who was advised not to speak to the media due to the ongoing litigation, never received anything in writing, according to a letter her attorney wrote the Brumfields’ attorney in January 2022.
“If your clients desired to extend the lease upon the expiration of the initial term, they were obliged to make that election in writing thirty (30) days prior to the expiration of the initial term,” the letter said. “They did not do so. In light of this fact, a month-to-month tenancy resulted.”
In March of 2022, the Brumfields sought a temporary restraining order against Wolf in an attempt to continue doing business at 522 Main. In addition, the Brumfields claimed Wolf was in breach of contract because they spent over $160,000 on improvements to the property, along with $32,000 in repairs. This demonstrated, the Brumfields said in the complaint, that Wolf and the Brumfields had “an implied agreement that Plaintiffs (the Brumfields) would have an interest in the premise to continue to generate revenue through its business.”
The Brumfields are also seeking damages for the money they put into the building, where Tammy Brumfield said they expected to stay long term.
“We invested a lot into that building,” Tammy Brumfield said. “We invested our personal savings.”
Litigation is ongoing: The Brumfields and Wolf will be back in court on Jan. 17.
The Brumfields were forced to vacate late last year — but technically, it had nothing to do with Estano or Wolf. Since they didn’t have a valid lease agreement, the City of Covington didn’t renew their liquor license, making them unable to serve alcohol after Nov. 30, 2022, according to Dan Hassert, Covington’s communication manager.
Kentucky law requires establishments to have both a local and state liquor license. The Brumfields had a valid state liquor license, and Tammy Brumfield said they were under the impression that the state would overturn the decision at the city level.
But, Hassert said, that’s not how it works.
“The city ordinance is pretty clear that it requires that they either own the building or have a lease,” Hassert said.
As for the Brumfields’ claim, later in their Facebook post and in a call with LINK, that Covington’s David Davidson was responsible for the decision not to renew Bourbon Haus’ liquor license, Hassert said no one person in the city makes those decisions.
The lease is “clearly something that you have to have in order to get one (a liquor license) and they didn’t have it,” Hassert said.
These days, music only comes from the red side of that masking-tape line. The gray side is quiet.
Estano has plans to expand his business, but for now, he’s content to keep doing his thing, running his bar, and making Covington his home.
The Brumfields are figuring out what’s next. While they having been looking at other sites around Covington, Tammy Brumfield said, most anywhere requires significant investment. At 60, the couple isn’t sure they want to go into debt to bring Bourbon Haus back to life.
As for the lawsuit?
We’ll let you know what happens on the 17th.
