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“We understand it’s not convenient when we have these challenges,” Young said. “Just make sure you’re taking your time as you travel and get around the community. We’re doing the best we can to get everyone restored as quickly and as safely as possible.”

See MLGW’s video below to find out more about the restoration process.

The group that removed Confederate statues from city parks here in 2017, said Thursday it is looking to permanently relocate them outside of Shelby County.

The move comes after the Supreme Court of Tennessee denied a petition from the Sons of Confederate Veterans on Wednesday. The group hoped to get a review of its case against the city of Memphis for the removal of the city’s Confederate monuments.

The statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest and of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, along with a bust of Confederate Capt. Harvey Mathes, were all removed in 2017 and have been stored in an undisclosed location since.

Now, Van Turner, president of Memphis Greensapce, Inc, the non-profit that bought the two city parks where the monuments stood, said the organization is looking to get the statues out of Shelby County, “never to return.”

This week’s decision by the state Supreme Court effectively ends the litigation surrounding the statues, Turner said. Now, the Geenspace will “entertain conversations with a number of entities” to transfer the monuments in an “appropriate way.”

Turner said whatever entity the monuments are transferred to will be asked to sign an agreement that prohibits the monuments from returning to the county.

“That’s our main focus right now,” Turner said.

The group’s next focus will be the gravesites of Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife, which still remain in Health Sciences Park near the former site of the Forrest equestrian statue, Turner said.

Litigation surrounding the graves had been stayed pending a ruling by the state Supreme Court.

Now, the Shelby County Chancery Court will determine the fate of the graves, but for now it’s “up in the air,” Turner said.

• Renovations are underway at Memphis Park

In the meantime, Turner said Greenspace, in partnership with the Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP) and the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC), is looking to give the parks a refreshed look.

Enhancements to Memphis Park, which will be funded by Reimagining Civic Commons and were approved by the DMC’s Design Review Board in July, are already underway.

Improvements to the park include tree removal and replanting of trees, adding more benches and tables to create dining areas, and paving new trails. Lawn games and activities will also be added to the space.

The idea is to create a “greener, leafier, and more natural space that does a better job connecting the Bluff Walk with the River Garden,” according to the proposal submitted to the Design Review Board.

Turner said all of the enhancements are meant to make the park more “user-friendly.”

“The parks are symbols,” Turner said. “Do we have challenges? Yes. Is there a painful history there? Yes. Can we overcome those challenges? Yes. Can we return something that was negative in many respects into a positive that shows Memphis and Shelby County can move forward in a unified way? The proof is in the pudding looking at what were already able to do with the parks. It’s a win for every citizen in Shelby County and city of Memphis.”

A Tennessean has died from a vape-related lung illness, the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) reported Thursday.

This is the first reported fatality related to the use of vaping or e-cigarettes in the state.

The patient suffered from a “serious respiratory disease,” according to the TDH, which did not provide any additional information about the deceased patient.

In a Thursday statement, Dr. Lisa Piercy, Tennessee Health Commissioner, offered condolences to the family and urged Tennneseans to avoid using vapes or e-cigarettes.

“We are extremely saddened by this loss of life and extend our sincere condolences to the patient’s family,” Piercy said. “We are working with partners across the country to investigate these cases of vaping-associated illnesses in Tennessee, and recommend Tenneseans consider refraining from using e-cigarettes or vaping while this investigation is underway.”

To date there have been 53 reported cases of lung illnesses related to vaping in Tennessee, according to the TDH. Most of the patients are adolescents and young adults. There have been 1,299 cases across the country, leading to a total of 26 deaths, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC, along with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are investigating a cluster of pulmonary disease among people who use vapes or e-cigarettes.

Symptoms related to the illness include cough, shortness of breath, and chest pain. Other symptoms may include fever, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

At this time officials have not linked a single product, substance, or chemical to all of the cases. However in many cases, patients have admitted to using a vape containing THC or tetrahydrocannabinol.

TDH is continuing to provide details about its ongoing investigation into these cases and the number of affected patients here. The numbers are updated every Thursday at 3:30 p.m.

A new type of scooter is coming to Memphis next week. In partnership with Explore Bike Share, OjO is bringing 250 station-based scooters to the city.

Unlike the city’s current fleet of scooters, OjO scooters, which reach up to 18 miles per hour, give riders the option to stand or sit. Riders pay $1.25 to begin riding and an additional $.20 per minute.

The scooters will initially be docked at the following EBS stations:

• AutoZone Park

“They’re disciplined, thoughtful, and safety-focused like us,” EBS executive director Trey Moore said of OjO. “We’re partnering with OjO to provide on-the-ground management while missionally growing shared mobility for all of Memphis. We’ll be able to create shared mobility hubs throughout our service area.”

The scooters will launch Wednesday, October 23rd at the Cleveland Street Flea Market. Volunteers are needed to ride the scooters to stations around the city. Participants will get free breakfast from Curb Market, a free annual EBS pass, one $5 OjO pass, and a free helmet. The event begins at 10 a.m.

Memphis is the third city — after Austin and Dallas — to receive OjO scooters.

The Supreme Court of Tennessee denied the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ (SCV) petition to review the dismissal of its case against the city of Memphis for the removal of three confederate monuments from former city-owned parks.

The SCV sought a temporary injunction in 2018 to preserve the monuments that were removed in 2017 by Memphis Greenspace, the nonprofit that purchased the two Memphis parks and subsequently removed the statues.

Last year, the Davidson County Chancery Court determined that the monuments were no longer on public property and therefore were not covered under the Tennessee Historical Protection Act (THPA) of 2013.

The court also determined that the city acted legally in its efforts to remove the monuments.

That decision was upheld first in June by the Tennessee Court of Appeals and then again this week by the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Here is what the city’s chief legal officer, Bruce McMullen said about the court’s decision:

“We’re pleased with the Supreme Court’s denial of the application of the Sons of Confederate Veterans petition to review the dismissal of this case in the lower Courts. This decision effectively ends this litigation and allows Memphis Greenspace to relocate the statues to an appropriate venue outside of Shelby County. Every decision the city of Memphis has made throughout this process has been thoughtful and most importantly, legal.”

A few members of the Memphis City Council voiced reservations Tuesday about lifting the residency requirements for the city’s police and fire personnel.

The ordinance up for discussion would allow voters to choose whether or not Memphis Police Department (MPD) and Memphis Fire Department (MFD) personnel should have to reside in the city or county, or if they should be allowed to live up to two hours away. If approved by the council, voters will make the ultimate decision on the ballot next fall.

Chief operating officer for the city, Doug McGowen, said this is an effort to do “everything in our power to lower the barrier to those who want to serve the citizens of Memphis.”

Currently, 12 percent of MPD officers live outside the city and county, MPD director Michael Rallings said. Forty-two percent live in the city.

Rallings said that removing the residency requirements would aid the department with recruitment and help it reach its goal of having 2,300 commissioned officers. To date, there are 2,062 officers and another 85 in the training academy.

“As we continue to try and hire more officers and firefighters, I would hope we would remove any barrier to that,” Rallings said. “I just ask that you consider placing the issue back on the ballot and let the voters decide.”

Councilman Martavious Jones questioned whether lifting the residency requirements would assist recruiting efforts, as he said police hiring is a problem across the country — not one that is unique to Memphis: “Opening this up does not alleviate are recruitment and hiring problems.”

“Looking at the big picture,” Jones also said that allowing officers to live outside of the city could further exacerbate Memphis’ poverty rate. “Why should we let these high-paying, middle-class jobs leave our city?” he said. “We would open up the floodgates. We would not be doing ourselves any favors by doing anything that drives high-paying jobs out of here.”

Finally, Jones questioned whether it makes sense for first responders to live up to two hours outside of the city, especially in the case of a major emergency.

“First responders living two hours out?” Jones said. “What are they responding to? They can't respond. I don’t see how this makes the recruiting effort easier or the city safer.”

Councilwoman Cheyenne Johnson also expressed reservations about the ordinance.

“Part of being a part of Memphis administration is believing in Memphis,” Johnson said. “And if you believe in Memphis, you can find a home in Memphis. If citizens can’t believe officers are living next door or in community, it hurts the image the police and fire departments are trying to promote throughout city.”

Councilwoman Gerre Currie, one of the sponsors of the ordinance, disagreed saying that “whether they are two hours out or not I’m not going to second-guess personnel on their efforts.”

The council will return to this discussion in three weeks. MPD officials are slated to give a presentation on the department's recruiting efforts to date then.

As the number of vaping-related lung illnesses continues to rise around the country, the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) is recommending that Tennesseans avoid using e-cigarettes and other vaping products.

In Tennessee, there’s been 49 reported cases of vaping-related illnesses, according to the latest data from the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH). The department is updating this number here every Thursday at 3:30 p.m. Four of the 49 reported cases are in West Tennessee.

Shelley Walker, director of TDH’s office of communications and media relations, said the department is working with healthcare providers around the state to gather information about the cases. The goal is to collect information on specific components or brands of vaping products to find common factors which may reveal the source of the illness.

“We continue to urge caution to Tennesseans who are using or considering the use of Juuls or other e-cigs,” Walker said. “For those trying to stop smoking, we recommend talking with a health care provider, using only FDA-approved smoking cessation products, and calling the Tennessee Tobacco QuitLine.”

The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cites 1,299 reported cases of lung injuries related to vape or e-cig use across the country as of October 8th.

There have been 26 related deaths. The CDC reports that most of the affected patients report using a vape containing THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.

However, the CDC does not yet know which specific chemical or chemicals are causing the lung damage, as no single product has been linked to all of the cases.

The Industry

A local vape store worries what all of this will mean for the industry — and ultimately its customers.

Clarissa Warren, director of operations for VaporWize, Memphis’ first vape store, believes that the products sold in the store’s locations (more than a dozen of them) are safe. Warren said everything VaporWize sells is USDA-regulated: “We’re not selling anything that’s harmful to people.”

Warren maintains that it’s been scientifically proven that vaping is a safer alternative to smoking. VaporWize sells over 400 different flavors of e-liquid and Warren said it’s these flavored liquids that has helped many adults quit smoking cigarettes.

“People don’t want to taste tobacco when they quit smoking cigs,” Warren said.

• VaporWize

She said President Donald Trump’s recent push to ban all flavored e-cigarettes is a “mistake.” The Trump administration announced last month that the FDA is in the process of creating a plan to remove flavored e-cigarettes from the market.

As a result, Warren said customers here have been buying more e-liquid than usual because they are concerned that “the thing that keeps them off cigarettes will be taken away.”

“People who are switching to vaping have been helped by this,” Warren said. “I have thousands of success stories. I’ve been a vaper for six years and I’ve been to the doctor less in those six years than I ever did when I smoked cigs for 20 years.”

A group of Tennessee healthcare organizations, led by the Tennessee Medical Association recently sent a letter to Gov. Bill Lee, urging him and the Tennessee General Assembly to “take a firm stance on this important public health issue by implementing an emergency temporary measure to restrict Tennessee youth from obtaining vaping products and encouraging the General Assembly to take more permanent legislative action when it convenes in 2020.”

Read the full letter below.

Warren agrees that e-cigs should be out of the hands of youth. This can be done by eliminating internet sales of the products, she said, and only offering the products in “reputable stores,” where customers must provide an ID and be 18 or older.

Although the CDC has not found a single common cause of the reported illnesses, Warren believes it’s the illegal cartridges that people are buying off the street that are dangerous.

“The biggest problem is that people are labeling these deaths saying they were caused by vaping,” Warren said. “It’s not vaping. It’s not a legal product these people are dying from. It’s the illegal cartridges from someone who made it in their house. That’s the problem and it’s hurting our industry.”

For those who wish to continue smoking e-cigs, Warren said it’s important to only use products from legitimate vape shops in order to “make sure you’re getting the correct product that won’t do you harm.”

Street Vapes

• Dank Vapes

The Flyer spoke to a local man who sells what Warren would call illicit vapes. The vape dealer spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Among other THC products, he sells vape cartridges containing THC that he believes come from California. He’s sold about 100 this year, he said. They sell for about $50 a piece. The most common brand he sells is Dank Vapes, an unregulated brand whose products were recently found to contain contaminants in some cases.

Investigators in Illinois and Wisconsin found last month that 66 percent of patients with vape-related lung injuries in the two states reported using Dank Vape products. The investigators’s findings were published by the CDC.

They concluded that “Dank Vapes appears to be the most prominent in a class of largely counterfeit brands, with common packaging that is easily available online and that is used by distributors to market THC-containing cartridges.”

The local dealer said he can’t be 100 percent sure that the cartridges he’s selling are pure and without additives: “It’s just trust.” But, if one of his customers does get sick, he said he’d close up shop.

“They could come back and get their money and I’d stop selling cartridges — point blank, period,” he said. “I don’t sell poison to my community. That’s why I sell what I sell and it’s some stuff I don’t mess with.”

Effects of Vaping

Dr. Catherine Sanders, a pulmonology physician at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, said smoking anything, especially something you don’t know the ingredients of, can have long term effects on the lungs.

“If you inhale anything into your lungs, you’re changing the cells of your lungs and your airways,” Sanders said. “So there’s always potentially adverse effects from that.”

Because vaping is relatively new, Sanders said there isn’t a lot of research that shows its long-term effects.

“We know that vaping can cause acute illnesses like we’ve seen, but what we don’t know much about the long-term effects of vaping yet because it’s so new,” Sanders said. “It’s important for the public to know that it’s so much the medical and science community don’t yet know about it. That’s scary. You really take a gamble if you continue to vape.”

At this point, Sanders said it’s hard to definitively say if vaping is a healthier alternative to smoking regular cigarettes.

“It’s important to know that vaping is not a safe alternative to smoking, which it has been considered before,” Sanders said. “It’s not this great way to quit smoking or a better way to start. It could just be as harmful and young people especially need to know that.”

Sanders said there hasn’t been much research on vaping until the last couple of years is “just starting to pop up now.” Sanders said there is currently no research in Memphis that she aware of.

“There’s a big need for research now,” Sanders said. “I think we need to learn more about these products so we can educate the public on the potential consequences.”

A group, joined by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis), gathered Thursday near Memphis City Hall to demand “common sense” gun laws.

The Tennessee Chapter of Moms Demand Action’s volunteer leader Kat McRitchie said gun violence in the country is an ”epidemic.”

“Within one generation, gun violence had shifted from an abstract possibility to a daily reality for children in America, and I decided enough was enough,” McRitchie said. ”I had to be a part of the solution.”

Gun violence is a public health crisis that requires “urgent action to stop it,” McRitchie said, calling for Congress to take action by passing background check and red flag laws.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, which would “utilize the current background checks process in the United States to ensure individuals prohibited from gun possession are not able to obtain firearms.”

However, the U.S. Senate, McRitchie said, continues to do “absolutely nothing to address gun violence.”

“That’s why we are here today, to call on the U.S. Senate to do its job to reduce gun violence, beginning with passing legislation to require background checks on all gun sales and also to enact a strong red flag law,” McRitchie said. “It is unacceptable to make public statements after high-profile shootings while refusing to pass legislation that could prevent them.”

McRitchie believes that requiring background checks for all gun sales is “one of the most efficient tools to keep guns out of the wrong hands.” She said there are currently loopholes in the system that allow “people who shouldn’t acquire guns.”

The red flag law that the group is calling for would allow law enforcement to ask the court to temporarily suspend a person’s access to guns if there is evidence showing that person poses a threat to themselves or others.

“These are proven policies that help save lives,” McRitchie said.

Cohen said the House of Representatives has “done its job and continues to do its job.” He also called on the Senate to pass background check and red flag laws. Cohen said the country needs “reasonable and responsible gun bills to protect people.”

“The Republican party is a hostage of the NRA,” Cohen said. “President [Donald] Trump is a hostage of the NRA. The NRA does not care about people's safety. It cares about making money and selling guns and selling bullets. They care about raising money and spending it in ways that we’ve seen are not appropriate.”

Cohen said it’s important to keep pressure on the Senate so that the lawmakers will set a date to hear the legislation and “put the voice of the American people into action and save lives.”

Specifically, Cohen called on Tennesseans to reach out to Sen. Lamar Alexander who he said is a “prime person who might be receptive to this message.”

The Numbers

Every day in the United States 100 people die by gun fire, according to the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety.

There were 27 active shooting events, resulting in 18 deaths, in the country last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) reports. The FBI defines an active shooter event as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.”

There were 337 mass shootings in 2018 and have been 326 so far in 2019, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The research and data collection organization, which gathers data from news reports, police records, and other sources, defines a mass shooting as a single incident in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, are injured or killed.

The archive reports that so far this year there have been 30,313 total deaths related to gun violence. This includes unintentional shootings, homicides, and suicides.

• Gun Violence Archive

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris announced today that he is amending the previously announced plan to invest $10 million in transit here.

Harris presented a plan to the Shelby County Commission last month that would generate $10 million in funding each year for the Memphis Area Transit Authority.

The original plan would have implemented an annual $145 registration fee for households’ third vehicle and beyond. Harris said at the time this would only affect about 17 percent of residents here.

But, after meeting with the public and receiving feedback on the plan, Harris said Thursday that instead of requiring households to pay $145 for each another vehicle over the second, households would only have to pay one yearly $145 fee.

“We have been pleased by the willingness of residents to engage in a conversation about how public transit could help lift thousands out of poverty and preserve our shared environment,” Harris said. “We have had many great suggestions from the residents, including tailoring the plan to have an even more narrow impact.”

Alternative vehicles, such as motorcycles, trailers, antique cars, and boats will not require fees.

Under the amended plan, Harris said the county will still provide $10 million a year to MATA.

“The investment would still have zero impact in most families,” Harris said. “This plan does not call for a broad tax or fee on all citizens…. Furthermore, the idea is to try as best we can to tie the solution the problem. We know that traffic congestion and car emissions are problems that will only get worse. We believe that households or business with thee cars are using that infrastructure more and producing more wear and tear. Our proposal focuses on that problem or cars on the road while supporting a solution to congestion and emissions, public transit.”

This is the county’s first effort to provide dedicated funding for MATA. The plan is slated to go before the county commission by February 2020.