Greg Lacour
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Articles by Greg Lacour
Charlotte council passes teen curfew pilot program
Charlotte City Council members voted 9-2 Monday to adopt a new, more stringent curfew for minors in response to safety concerns in parks and other public spaces. The revised city curfew ordinance requires anyone under 18 to be home by 10 p.m. every day, including weekends — with exceptions that include parental accompaniment and traveling to and from jobs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Estella Patterson said the department does not intend to punish young people.
Charlotte council passes teen curfew pilot program
Charlotte City Council members voted 9-2 Monday to adopt a new, more stringent curfew for minors in response to safety concerns in parks and other public spaces. The revised city curfew ordinance requires anyone under 18 to be home by 10 p.m. every day, including weekends — with exceptions that include parental accompaniment and traveling to and from jobs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Estella Patterson said the department does not intend to punish young people.
Regional transportation board approves I-77 toll lanes project after months of whiplash Original
The Charlotte area’s regional transportation board voted Wednesday to reverse an earlier decision and support the state’s plan to install privately managed toll lanes on an 11-mile stretch of Interstate 77. At an estimated $4.3 billion, it's the most expensive highway project in North Carolina history. The decision by the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization was all but a formality, and the board didn't discuss it Wednesday.
I-77 toll lanes might move forward again as Graham, Mayo indicate openness to support Original
After months of debate and an earlier vote that appeared to end the project, the contentious Interstate 77 toll lanes from uptown to South Carolina may move forward after all. That appeared to be the case after Monday, when Charlotte City Council members discussed what to do next about the largest highway project in the state’s history. Council members plan to vote next Monday on whether to reverse their decision to withdraw support for the $4 billion toll lane project.
This Charlotte YMCA Became A Church. Not Everyone Was Happy
On a recent July morning, before his sermon on resisting revenge, David Chadwick served his congregants a brief update on the church’s real estate situation. After a year of searching, Chadwick and the council of elders at his new church, Moments of Hope, had finally reached the promised land: the Morrison YMCA in the affluent south Charlotte community of Ballantyne, which would finally be the growing nondenominational church’s permanent home.
How Long Memories Killed the Biggest Road Project in State History
On a sticky evening just after Memorial Day, Darnell Ivory paid a visit to her childhood friend Audwin Ross on his front porch in McCrorey Heights, a historic Black neighborhood in Charlotte. Ross rarely uses the porch because of the dust and nonstop traffic noise from the Brookshire Freeway, about 100 feet away on the other side of a chain-link fence and a steep, wooded berm. But he’s renovating the house, which he’s lived in for all of his 68 years.
Family Dollar's Levine Family Tries To Leave A Legacy
His portrait occupies a prominent place on the wall. The suit is gray, the tie red with diagonal stripes. He returns a viewer’s gaze with a direct, beneficent look and a hint of a grin. The fingers of his right hand grasp a book with a deep golden cover: Leon Levine and Family Dollar: An American Success Story.
Charlotte obesity doctor guides through wearable tech
STOCK PHOTO Wearable technology makes it easier to track health metrics. Ask Dr. Denise Dennis-Coke about health-tracking devices, and she’ll show you the ones she’s wearing. “I have on my Dexcom Stelo, my Oura ring and my Garmin watch,” she says with a chuckle. “For me, it’s like, ‘Let’s see what the data says, and then let’s see if we can improve it’ — which is how I would recommend most people approach it.” Like doctor, like patient.
TRAVEL: Princess Grand Jamaica
MILES FROM CHARLOTTE: 1,166 miles TRAVEL TIME: 3 hours, 8 minutes NONSTOP SERVICE ON: American Airlines The Kids Club’s doors slide open. Just inside, smiling behind a bright-yellow desk, is Davia Grant-Morris, informally known as “Queen D.” Her formal title is Kids Club manager, but, she explains, this is her castle. She is a most benevolent queen, and she has a royal sense of humor, too.
‘Top Chef’ on Charlotte’s red (but actually orange) carpet
Morning, everyone. Welcome to a big week for the team at The Food Section Charlotte (TFS:CLT). It’s our long-awaited formal launch week. It also—and this was coincidence, we swear—arrives with one of the biggest spotlights to ever shine on Charlotte’s food scene: Season 23 of “Top Chef” on Bravo, which centers on “the emerging and diverse culinary hub of Charlotte, North Carolina.” (It is both of those things. That’s why we’re doing this.) The season premiere will air at 9 p.m. on Monday, March 9.
How ICE Turned Charlotte’s Democratic Primary Into a Battleground
It was windy and cold outside but stuffy in the fellowship hall where the candidates prepared to preach to primary voters. A crowd of about 40 shuffled into Little Rock AME Zion Church, one of Charlotte’s oldest Black places of worship, in a corner of the city center. They peeled off wool coats, hats, and scarves and took their seats in the pews. It was January 15, four days before Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
A 'Very Bleak' Week for Charlotte's Latino Businesses
Amid conflicting reports Thursday about whether a six-day U.S. Border Patrol operation had concluded, Charlotte’s Latino business owners and community leaders began to gauge how much harm “Operation Charlotte’s Web” had done. In a sense, the measurements resembled initial damage assessments after a severe storm—except that it was still unclear whether the storm had passed.
Border Patrol's 'Charlotte's Web' Operation Creates Uncharted Legal Terrain
U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped an immigrant worker Monday in Charlotte. The man showed agents a photo of his federal employment permit, but not the actual document. So they detained him. The two attorneys at Tedesco Legal, a Charlotte firm that specializes in immigration law, took the man’s case pro bono on a referral from a fellow attorney.
Fear, Protest, and Preparation As 80+ Are Reportedly Detained in Charlotte
A few hours after federal immigration officers began to detain people in Charlotte on Saturday, Gerardo Aguilar did something he’d never done in his 24 years here: He joined a protest. Aguilar, 42, is a U.S. citizen, born and raised in Chicago. His father was born in Mexico; his mother is also of Mexican descent but was born in Brownsville, Texas, just across the border.
2025 Charlotteans Of The Year: Eugene Woods
Eugene Woods moved to Charlotte in April 2016, when he took over as president and CEO of what was then Carolinas HealthCare System. “This is the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere, as a matter of fact,” Woods says. The son of a Navy aeronautics mechanic, Woods was born in Rhode Island but spent much of his childhood in southern Spain, where his mother, Maria, was from. Woods, 61, has moved from city to city through a successful 34-year career in health care administration.
Charlotte Public Media Charts An Uncertain Future
Here’s how Trump Administration cuts will land on Charlotte’s public radio and TV stations The people who run the Charlotte area’s public media outlets know that for the next two years, listeners and viewers can expect less: Less local reporting, less local programming, less ability to react quickly to fast-changing events, and less capacity to promote and enhance community events.
What Do Charlotte Brewers Drink When They Step Outside Their Breweries?
The Charlotte area boasts a long and varied roster of gifted brewers who delight in perfecting their flagship recipes and rolling out adventurous prototypes. Who better to taste-test (and assess) these libations than other brewers? That was our working hypothesis, anyway. We wondered: What Charlotte-area beers do Charlotte-area breweries’ head brewers drink when they’re not drinking their own? So we asked a few, and they emailed us back between batches.
A Space Where Pet Owners Can Grieve
The Humane Society partner knows that loss is loss Twice a month, a small group joins licensed therapist Heather Kotler on Zoom. The sessions last about an hour, and Kotler, who specializes in trauma treatment, presides over an online space where people can talk, cry, connect, feel, struggle—whatever they need to work through their grief over losing a beloved pet.
A Dating App For Dog Lovers
Amanda Levine graduated from the College of Charleston in 2015, moved back to her hometown of Chicago for graduate school, and dove into the world of dating apps: Hinge, Tinder, and JSwipe, the platform for Jewish singles. A mental health therapist, she moved to Charlotte for a job in 2018 and kept using the apps to meet men. She met them, all right—a procession of dudes and dates that went nowhere. “The actual men I went out with, they were all … OK,” Amanda says.
The Road To A Transportation Overhaul In Charlotte
A breakdown of the pivotal one-cent sales tax referendum and what the penny would pay for Mecklenburg County voters will decide next month whether to approve a new sales tax—one that would generate billions over 30 years to pay for what local officials say are badly needed transportation projects.
One Year Post-Helene, A Look At Duke Energy's Response
A snapshot by the numbers In August, we talked to Duke Energy’s manager of emergency preparedness, Jason Hollifield, about his unprecedented test during Hurricane Helene. Here’s a look at how the power company met the nation’s deadliest mainland hurricane since Katrina. Duke Energy customersin the Carolinas who benefit from self-healing and automated restoration technologies—more than double the 1.2 million served in 2022.
Dining or Dogs: A Hard Choice For Charlotte Breweries
I spy three dogs in the taproom on a scorching Saturday afternoon in mid-July: a Lab mix in the corner near the to-go fridge; a Dalmatian who trots over to check out the merch table; and a timid, black-and-tan Australian Cattle Dog near the under-development space that soon will prevent her and her fellow pups from hanging out in the taproom. This make dog sad. This make hooman sad, too.
Life Lessons With The Charlotte Sports Foundation New CEO
Will Pitts long-jumped from medical equipment sales to lead the city’s catalyst for sporting events Will Pitts is slightly distracted the morning of June 9, when we meet near his office in SouthPark. It’s 9 a.m., and he explains that the Charlotte Sports Foundation, the events organization he’s led since April, has an announcement to make in two hours.
The Charlotte Sports Foundation's Greatest Hits
The Charlotte Sports Foundation’s roots lie in what was both a triumph and an embarrassment: the 1994 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four, held in the now-demolished Charlotte Coliseum on Tyvola Road. It was a triumph because it placed Charlotte at the center of the sporting world and welcomed tens of thousands of fans from Duke, Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas, the eventual champion.
The Lonely Brewery In University City
Armored Cow Brewing sits alone in its pasture. Around it, within a shopping center in the crook of Interstate 85 and West W.T. Harris Boulevard, are the kinds of big-box retail outlets that for decades have defined University City: a Guitar Center, an Office Depot, a Ross Dress for Less. An Applebee’s is just up JW Clay Boulevard, which shares the street with the brewery.
This Fall Exhibition At McColl Center Honors More Than Its Historic Building
McColl Center will kick off a two-month exhibit Sept. 20 that, on its surface, celebrates a pair of significant milestones for one of Charlotte’s most distinctive—and sometimes underappreciated—arts institutions. The exhibit, The Long Exposure, will mark the 25th anniversary of the center, housed in an old Presbyterian church at North Tryon and West 11th streets at the edge of uptown.
Charlotte Brewers Embrace Witbier
They’re (ahem) not universally beloved. But in the depths of summer, a surging number of beer drinkers opt to wheat for it Summer’s coming. You can feel it outside the walls of Triple C Brewing in South End on this mid-May afternoon: upper 80s, humidity rising. Time for a cold one. Inside, Garry McShane, recently installed as Triple C’s head brewer, orders two pints and walks them back to the table. I’ve asked for just a sample. “You don’t have to finish it,” he says.
What To Do In Charlotte In August
The best things to do and see this month More than any other month, August—sweltering, slather-on-the-sunscreen-and-DEET August—is the season for outdoor events, especially ones that involve music and sports. It’s a full calendar and a heaping plate of opportunities for rubbing elbows with your fellow Charlotteans in the stands—provided you hydrate and temper your annoyance at the heat and crowds. Saturday, Aug.
Are Charlotte Brewers Are The Verge Of A Canning Crisis?
Local brewers brace for the effects of Trump metal tariffs—especially the ones they can’t predict Matt Virgil doesn’t want to be misunderstood. NoDa Brewing, one of Charlotte’s oldest and largest independent breweries, will probably be fine. It’s weathered the inflation that struck even before President Donald Trump took office in January. Like all small breweries, NoDa Brewing looks for ways to cut costs here, make more money there, without sacrificing beer quality—canned or not.
A Rare Disorder That Emerged From Nowhere Nearly Killed This Lake Wylie Man
Rob Marchand has fought his way toward the light Ten days into his hospitalization—after he’d resisted the wheelchair, after he’d twice walked out of the hospital,even after he’d suggested that an Uber would be cheaper than the airlift helicopter needed to save his life—Rob Marchand put up another fight. He wanted to see his daughters. No more treatments until he saw his kids.
CleanAIRE NC Is Holding Their Breath
In mid-March, Lee Zeldin, the new administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, announced that the EPA would “undertake 31 historic actions in the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history.” Among them: “reconsideration” of federal regulations that govern coal-fired power plants; the oil and gas industry; wastewater; greenhouse gas and other emissions; and the amount of particulate matter—basically, soot—that manufacturers can legally release into the air.
It's Lime Time For Charlotte Brewers
Kit Burkholder reaches into one of the refrigerators that line one wall in Kit’s Trackside Crafts, his bottle shop and taproom in Pineville. He pulls out a white 12-ounce can. The label displays a drawing of a man who paddleboards against a “sun” in the form of a lime slice. This is by far Burkholder’s best-selling beer and a favorite among his customers, many of them Charlotte brewers. “Oh, yeah,” says Andrew Viapiano, co-owner and head brewer at nearby Middle James Brewing.
What You'll Find At Charlotte's Super G Mart
Jennie Nguyen and her husband moved to Charlotte from Charleston in 2021. The main reason: He landed a job here. A secondary reason: She was tired of Charleston, including its seafood-and-Southern-dominated food scene. Nguyen, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrant parents, had graduated from Winthrop University in Rock Hill four years before. She’d grown to like our bigger city just north of the state line. “It wasn’t too big, but it wasn’t too small,” she says.
Charlotte Area Breweries Are Primed For The THC-Beverage Trend
A week after New Year’s, Resident Culture Brewing showcases its nonalcoholic drinks—Dry January, you know—during a tasting event on the lower level of its South End location. Chilling in ice baskets are reasons you might cheekily rebrand the month as High January: cans of Cümulo, a line of hemp-derived THC-infused seltzers, which the brewery launched in August 2023. Resident Culture sells four varieties.
How The Charlotte Hornets Lost Their Sting
The Hornets were once the city’s pride and passion. Now they’re an afterthought. What happened? Two days before Christmas 1988, in a brand-new arena off Tyvola Road, the Charlotte Hornets played the Chicago Bulls. The Hornets had cast-off veterans, career backups, and a 5-foot-3-inch point guard. The Bulls had Michael Jordan. And the Hornets won, 103-101, on a basket by Kurt Rambis at the buzzer.
Are Townhomes The New Dream Home in Charlotte?
Available land dries up. Housing prices soar. New city regulations encourage density. People hate yard work. All propel a dominant trend in Charlotte real estate. Last year, fresh off a divorce, Emily Allen thought she could continue to live in the house she and her ex-husband had bought in 2019. It was a lot of space for a single woman and a dog: 2,000 square feet, four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, and a massive, sloped yard with a huge willow oak out front and another in back.
The Queen of Charlotte's Underground Gets Real About Local Music
Even after 40-plus years making music, the audacity of Hope Nicholls blasts from the speakers Hope Nicholls, the queen of Charlotte’s underground, turned 65 in January. “Having a huge birthday party at Snug Harbor,” she says with glee on a gray, drizzly December weekday at Boris & Natasha. That’s the offbeat boutique she and her husband, Aaron Pitkin, have owned and operated since 1999 (though at its current location on The Plaza near Matheson Avenue only since 2021).
Travel From CLT: Saint Lucia
The eastern Caribbean island blends a unique history with spectacular mountains and beaches, a drive-in volcano, and one of the world’s best music festivals MILES FROM CHARLOTTE: 1,925 TRAVEL TIME: 4 hours, 25 minutes NONSTOP SERVICE ON: American Airlines It’s Caribbean Fusion night at the Saint Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival, and an older gentleman in black-framed glasses and a light-blue cap croons onstage about how he feels good when he’s wrapped up in your arms.
JCSU’s Massive Photo Collection of Black Charlotte History
James Peeler's photography shines a light on a half-century of history When Latrelle Peeler MCAllister was a young child, she would accompany her father to his studio, a modest storefront he leased at 1404 Beatties Ford Road. Only years later did she understand the personal and historical significance of the hours he spent there.
Cupid's Cooler: Charlotte Beers for Your Valentine
Beer can be romantic,too. Courtesy of some Charlotte-area breweries, we have a few suggestions—i.e., 16-ounce aluminum cans of beer—to gas up your night with that special somebody. (“Gas” in the preceding sentence is deliberately ambiguous. Results may vary.) Divine Barrel Brewing Divine Barrel has peach, apple, and mixed-berry versions, too, but blueberry’s the choice of Sales Manager James Amato.
AI In Charlotte: Where and How The Robots Are Taking Over
Look at the wonders artificial intelligence grants us: Well-organized, multisource essays through ChatGPT; a pocket reference assistant in Siri; technology that can create a face that looks just short of real. But can you really tell what’s real and not when reality lives on a screen?
How AI is Changing NASCAR
The sport has entered a new age of data analysis, 3D printers, and optical scanning stations. But what will happen to the sport if tech takes the wheel? It’s an odd space, a garage-shaped-and-sized Vinylite tent inside a building the size of a blimp hangar. A pair of aluminum ramps lets drivers roll their cars in. Industrial shelves beside the entrance hold servers, wires, and other components. Some glow red against the black of the gear and tent.
A Guide To North Carolina's Gerrymandering
Kate Barr’s quixotic run for a state Senate seat reflects a hard reality for North Carolina voters: For the past 15 years, the Republican-controlled General Assembly has drawn and redrawn congressional and legislative district lines to secure partisan advantage, and the result is one of the most gerrymandered states in America. That’s not to say Democrats didn’t do it, too, when they held legislative power, as they did for more than a century before the 2010 elections.
Pizza of The Past: Zepeddie’s Is Back
Opening a new restaurant is hard. Opening a new pizza restaurant in a city that teems with options (and their toppings) is harder. But how do you resurrect a pizza place in a new location—after 25 years? Well, it helps if your family, established with profitable home construction and architectural woodwork companies, already owns the building. It also helps when that building sits at the edge of one of the city’s highest-growth areas.
Western North Carolina Breweries After Helene
In late October, a month after Hurricane Helene, I asked Karis Roberts, executive director of the Asheville Brewers Alliance, what the city’s brewing community needed most. “We’re desperate for grants and funding and capital to rebuild,” Roberts said. “We need funds coming in at really low interest, somehow, and fixed rates. We need a spike in tourism yet again.
Charlotte History: Pictures From The Vault
Longtime custodian of historic images plucks her favorites from the archive Over her 35 years keeping Charlotte history as a librarian in Charlotte Mecklenburg Library’s Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room, Shelia Bumgarner gazed upon thousands of historic photos and catalogued them in The Vault, the Carolina Room’s digital archive. After Bumgarner’s retirement, we naturally wondered: What are some of the images that mean the most to her, and why? Here’s what she chose.
Beldrie Is Not Your Grandma's Golf Apparel
A few years ago, Blair Hedley had never played golf, designed clothes, or run a business. Since then, she’s made a career and much of a life out of all three, and the quick transformation belies how often she thought about dropping the whole idea. “I put it on the shelf so many times,” says Hedley, 31.
Charlotte in 2024: By The Numbers
The year in (somewhat) random figures The fine the NFL levied in January against Panthers ownerDavid Tepper after he tossed a drink toward Jacksonville fans during a game on New Year’s Eve. Tepper apologized. “The fine,” noted ESPN, “represents less than 1% of 1% of his wealth.” The amount of money Evan Agustin Perez of Charlotte was ordered to pay in restitution to the Small Business Administration in February.
In Memoriam: The Charlotteans We Lost in 2024
Public servants, a banking giant, a beloved sportswriter, and others we’ll remember Charlotte said goodbye to a host of prominent citizens in 2024: from civic leaders to fixtures in the morning paper; from slain law enforcement officers to a respected designer and a beloved brewer. We recall and honor their lives and what they meant to their city. Charlotte’s rise as a national banking center was built around two men who served as its foundational towers: Hugh McColl and Ed Crutchfield.
A Special Collaboration Gets a Handle on Plastic in Charlotte
Brewing produces a surprising amount of plastic. None of it goes in the beer, thank goodness. But breweries sell cans to go, and those are typically conjoined in groups of four or six by things called “handles,” manufactured from recycled plastic by a Eugene, Oregon, company named PakTech. (Brewers usually refer to handles as “PakTechs,” in the same way people refer to a facial tissue as a Kleenex.) PakTech, in business for 33 years, is set up to collect, melt down, manufacture, and sell handles.
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