BET Buys The Block

Local business owners complain of lost patronages due to the street barricades for the BET Hip Hop Award show filmed in Atlanta this weekend. BET offers no alternatives, only their promise that customers will be allowed through the traffic blocks.

Police spokesman, Ron Campbell told the AJC that streets will be closed from Atlanta’s Piedmont Avenue to near Baker Street north all the way to Pine Street for BET’s Hip Hop Award show this weekend. For those unfamiliar with Atlanta city streets, those would be the streets surrounded the Atlanta Civic Center where the BET are schedule to be filmed on October 13.

Many local businesses are opposed to the closures arguing that they will miss out on valuable business. In addition to the streets shutting down, the sidewalks will also be close which will effectively block patrons from entering surrounding businesses. Rufus Terril owns O’Terrill’s Irish Pub on Piedmont and went as far as to ask BET what they would do to prevent his business being effected over the weekend. Terril met with city officials and BET representatives Wednesday night. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported they essentially just blew him off.