GOOD HOPE — Owners of businesses bearing the “Jack’s” name in Good Hope have gotten several calls from longtime customers saddened by news that their stores had recently closed.

Those customers will be relieved to know the city’s “Jack’s” businesses — minus the restaurant — are still as open as can be.

“Jack’s Truck Stop and Jack’s Western Wear and Outdoor Store are both still open; they never were closed,” said Western Wear owner Larry Allred Thursday. “A lot of people think that everything named ‘Jack’s’ down here has closed down, but that’s not the case.”

The confusion started June 26, when the owners of Jack’s restaurant — situated on the same property as the Jack’s Truck Stop and Jack’s Western Wear — announced they were shutting down after 50 years in business.

The restaurant did close, but the two other businesses, each of which is separately owned, were never part of that decision.

“It’s understandable, I suppose,” said Good Hope Mayor Corey Harbison. “Especially for people from out of town, who just know these businesses all have ‘Jack’s’ in their name, I can see how somebody might think they were still associated with the restaurant on the business side of things. But the truck stop and the western wear store; they’re still going strong.”

Allred, whose father, Jack Allred, opened the truck stop 50 years ago, said the “Jack’s” name became synonymous with adjoining businesses after the truck stop had become well established.

“We opened the truck stop back in January in 1962,” said Allred. “The buildings were different then, but it’s always been at this same location. The truck stop, including the Shell station, was never closed and is still open now.

“My mom and dad owned all of this land here for farming, before the Interstate went through — My grandfather owned it before then. And Jack’s restaurant did close last month; however, I think it’s going to be opened again really soon. There has been some interest in it already.”

The closing of the restaurant wasn’t the only thing that had some customers confused. A late-June television report also left many believing the City of Good Hope had passed a no-smoking ordinance that had driven business away from the defunct restaurant, which featured both a smoking and non-smoking section.

That’s never been the case, said Harbison.

“Good Hope doesn’t have a ‘no smoking’ ordinance at all,” he said. “There’s never been one drafted, and it’s never come up for a vote.”

When the restaurant, venerated as a local institution by many customers, closed last month, some customers lamented the loss of yet another gathering place that gave patrons a choice of whether to smoke indoors.

While 27 U.S. states have passed laws banning smoking, Alabama continues to leave the decision up to local municipalities.

The City of Cullman did pass a smoking law in 2005 — the so-called ‘Smoking Pollution’ ordinance — but it doesn’t allow businesses to split their interior space into smoking and nonsmoking sections.

The ordinance does require restaurants in Cullman to make plain to customers whether they allow smoking inside, but doesn’t allow any restaurant to feature both a smoking and a non-smoking section.

Harbison said he agrees with the intent of the Cullman law, since it leaves the final decision to allow smoking with the business owner.

“I think the City of Cullman pretty much got it right,” he said. “It allows businesses to choose, and then it allows customers to choose where they want to go. That’s really been the main thing to me — making sure that everybody involved has a choice.”



* Benjamin Bullard can be reached by e-mail at bbullard@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131 ext. 270.