Morgan Wallen was denied a sign outside his Nashville bar just before its opening. Here’s why

Morgan Wallen will soon open his namesake bar in downtown Nashville, but don't expect to see his name in neon lights outside.

The Nashville Council voted May 21 to deny Morgan Wallen's This Bar and Tennessee Kitchen the right to construct a 20-foot sign featuring Wallen’s name, citing the "Last Night" singer’s "harmful actions" as its reason.

In a video from Tuesday's meeting, council members referred to Wallen's April 2024 arrest for throwing a chair off the rooftop of another downtown Nashville bar as well as his past use of a racial slur.

“Is this the same Morgan Wallen that got in trouble for making racist comments and using the N-word?" council member at-large Delishia Porterfield pointedly asked.

Porterfield also referred to council members' efforts to make Nashville a more "supportive" city for all its residents.

"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," she said.

The council voted 30-3 against the sign with four members abstaining from the vote. Wallen's bar is scheduled to open over Memorial Day weekend, according to its website.

Wallen's representatives declined TODAY.com's request for comment.

On April 8, Wallen was arrested in downtown Nashville and charged with three counts of felony reckless endangerment and one count of misdemeanor after throwing a chair from the rooftop of a six-story bar, according to an arrest affidavit filed by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.

The affidavit stated the chair landed three feet away from two police officers and that eyewitnesses observed Wallen "laughing" after he threw it.

The ACM Award winner later said he was "not proud of my behavior" in a statement addressing his arrest. "I have the utmost respect for the officers working every day to keep us all safe," said the singer.

Wallen has been the subject of multiple controversies in recent years.

In October 2020, the "Whiskey Glasses" singer was replaced as the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” after videos of him breaching COVID-19 protocols circulated online. Wallen was rebooked on the show the following December.

In 2021, Wallen made headlines again after he was caught on video using a racial slur. Wallen’s recording label announced on X that it had suspended his contract because of the video.

Wallen apologized for his language in a February 2021 video message to fans on Instagram.

“The video you saw was me on hour 72 of 72 of a bender and that’s not something I’m proud of either,” he said in the video, in part.

“I let so many people down who mean a lot to me and who have given so much to me and it’s just not fair,” he added.

Wallen later addressed the incident again in a December 2023 interview with Billboard.

Wallen, who met with Black leaders in an effort “to learn and try to be better" and whose charity, the Morgan Wallen Foundation, donated $500,000 to various Black organizations, told Billboard he made no "excuse" for using the slur.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people, heard stories (about) things that I would have never thought about because I wasn’t the one going through it. And I think, for me, in my heart I was never that guy that people were portraying me to be, so there was a little bit of like, ‘Damn, I’m kind of actually mad about this a little bit because I know I shouldn’t have said this, but I’m really not that guy.’

"I put myself in just such a s--- spot, you know? Like, ‘You really messed up here, guy,' he said, adding, "If I was that guy, then I wouldn’t have cared. I wouldn’t have apologized. I wouldn’t have done any of that if I really was that guy that people were saying about me.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com