The years-long legal fight over Five Points bar licenses has narrowed to a single target. Attorneys for the parties have agreed to drop the appeal of a ruling that let Group Therapy keep its liquor license, while attorney Dick Harpootlian presses ahead with his challenge against the neighboring bar, The Saloon.
The dispute traces back to July 2024, when former Wales Garden Neighborhood Association President Coley Frank Adams filed protests against the renewal of liquor licenses for both Group Therapy and The Saloon, according to the Post and Courier. Adams, represented by Harpootlian in administrative law court, claimed the bars failed to meet a state law requirement that most of their business come from food sales rather than alcohol. Adams has said he had not been inside either bar in around a decade.
Judge Crystal M. Rookard ruled in December 2025 that both bars could retain their licenses, following court proceedings that stretched on for months. Adams sought reconsideration, but the request was denied on Feb. 20. Appeals of the license rulings followed.
Group Therapy's Appeal Dismissed
The parties agreed to drop the Group Therapy appeal.
The Saloon's case is a different story. Harpootlian continues his challenge against the bar.
What The Law Actually Requires
The dispute centers on defining and enforcing South Carolina's meals requirement for liquor licenses. The South Carolina Code of Laws sets no specific percentage for how much revenue must come from food.
“The law itself does not set a percentage,” Harpootlian has said, and he argues that gap is the heart of the problem.
Judge Rookard did not allow Harpootlian to introduce bar food-sales data or question what percentage should be required, according to the newspaper's reporting on the case. That evidentiary ruling left the central question of what counts as a restaurant largely unresolved even as the bars kept their licenses.
A Long History Of Challenges
This is not Harpootlian's first run at Group Therapy. He made an unsuccessful challenge against the bar in 2020. Group Therapy has weathered challenges, while other college-oriented bars in Five Points have closed since Harpootlian began challenging establishments over the meals requirement.
Both bars operated under temporary liquor licenses while the court cases played out. Their full licenses were restored by the state Department of Revenue after Rookard's Dec. 31, 2025, ruling — in Group Therapy's case, in time for a Jan. 9 memorial for Steve Taneyhill.
Taneyhill died in December 2025.
For now, the legal fight that once targeted two Five Points staples has been reduced to one. Whether The Saloon's case ultimately reshapes how South Carolina defines and enforces the meals requirement for bars remains to be seen, with no court date yet set.
