The public backlash against Charleston City Council’s proposed Entertainment District Overlay Zone has been swift and fierce. The ordinance would require new downtown bars to close at midnight, and Charleston booze-hounds are not pleased.
The movement has a website (charlestonafter12.org), and angry residents have been calling and e-mailing their councilmembers. An online petition against the ordinance that was started during the council meeting now has more than 2,000 signatures. There’s even been talk of a drink-in protest at City Hall.
And then there’s this guy:
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In case your satire detector is broken, the Twitter account @ChiefMullenCPD is not, in fact, the mouthpiece of Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen. During our interview with the real-life Mullen Thursday afternoon, we asked if he was familiar with the Twitter account. He didn’t laugh, but his response showed that he was a good sport about it:
I saw that. You know, I’ll tell you this: I do what I do as a police officer so that people like that can have the right to do what they do. If that gives them pleasure, then I guess they should keep doing that. I think most people that know me and most people that know what I’ve been doing since I’ve been the police chief in Charleston know that everything I do is for the best of my ability to help people in this community. If a few people — maybe a hundred of them, maybe more, if they want to spend their time doing that on Twitter and they feel like that would be a fun thing for them to do, then I’m happy for them.
Fair enough. Still, whoever is behind @ChiefMullenCPD, it’s the hottest fake Twitter account in Charleston since @MtPViper. Here are a few of our favorite spoof tweets so far:
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