Morgan Wallen 20-foot neon sign DENIED by Nashville city council due to arrest and racial slur controversy: 'You don't belong in this town'

A 20-foot neon sign featuring Morgan Wallen's name will not be constructed in downtown Nashville due to the country singer's controversial past.

Morgan Wallen's This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen is set to open in downtown Nashville this weekend and and permission from the Metro Nashville council was required before installation on the restaurant's sign began. 

But the council voted overwhelmingly against the installation of the sign, with many taking offense to the prospect of advertising the name of an individual who has had brushes with the law and said racial slurs. 

The motion was rejected by 30 council members, with only three voting in favor of the sign, according to The Tennessean. Four council members abstained. 

'I don't want to see a billboard up with the name of a person who's throwing chairs off of balconies and who is saying racial slurs,' at-large council member Delishia Porterfield said, according to the outlet. 

A 20-foot sign featuring Morgan Wallen's name will not be constructed in downtown Nashville due to the country singer's controversial past

A mock-up of the sign of the restaurant, which is set to open in Nashville this weekend 

Also in agreement with her statements was council member Jordan Huffman, according to WSMV.com.  

'I rise to oppose this,' he said. 'Number 1 - Mr. Wallen is an East Tennessean - he gives all of us a bad name. His comments are hateful, his comments are harmful, and you don’t belong in this town, as far as I’m concerned. I’m tired of this city bending over to just, make anybody happy that makes a comment that they want to. We continue to go down this road. I encourage my colleagues to vote against this.'

Even the sponsor of the resolution, Jacob Kupin from District 19, had reservations about the sign. 'It struck me that we’re putting up a sign with someone’s name on it that hasn’t been a good actor downtown,' he said.

'I decided to move approval for this because I do support the efforts to move this bar forward...the restaurant group that’s managing this facility, TC Restaurant Group, has been really a good partner in everything going on downtown,' he added.

TC Restaurant Group, the company opening the eatery, also operates other restaurants named after iconic country singers, including Jason Aldean's Kitchen & Rooftop Bar and Casa Rosa Miranda Lambert's.

Morgan Wallen's This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen is scheduled to open on Memorial Day weekend. 

Last month, Wallen was arrested after he chucked a chair off a rooftop bar in downtown Nashville.

Wallen was charged with three counts of felony reckless endangerment and one count of misdemeanor disorderly conduct, with officers alleging the chair landed three feet from them.

Wallen faced huge amounts of backlash in 2021 when TMZ released a video of the singer saying the N-word to one of his friends after a night out. 

The restaurant is being opened by a third-party establishment, TC Restaurant Group

After the footage of Wallen using the racial slur went viral, many radio stations stopped playing his music and the Country Music Association removed Wallen's appearances from their platforms. 

His songs were removed from Apple Music, Pandora and Spotify featured playlists because of the sandal.

Wallen's record label, Big Loud, suspended its recording contract with him indefinitely.

The Academy of Country Music announced that Wallen and his most recent album at the time, Dangerous: The Double Album, would be ineligible for the 56th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards.

Last month, Wallen made headlines after he launched a chair at cops from a rooftop bar in downtown Nashville; pictured November 2023 

In the week after the racism, album sales for Dangerous surged and the digital sales went up over 100 per cent.

He even remained on top of the Billboard charts for seven more weeks.

In April, 2021, Wallen donated $300,000 to the Black Music Action Coalition in the names of 20 people who had counseled him after he used the racial slur.

Wallen publicly spoke of his comments on Good Morning America on July 23, where he said that 'he was around some of his friends, and they say dumb stuff together' and said that 'he was wrong' to express those words.