Searcy police chief says city has no legal authority to close bowling alley after fentanyl arrests

Although the meeting wasn’t held for the purpose of discussing the bowling alley incident, which led to the arrests of manager James Preston Tarkington, 32, of Searcy and John Sterling Holmes, 32, of Searcy, Councilwoman Tonia Hale asked Police Chief Steve Hernandez to speak about the overdose, saying that she knew several council members had reached out to him in regard to the incident at the Super Bowl at 825 S. Main St.

Searcy officers and Central Arkansas Drug Task Force agents had responded April 17 to the bowling alley in regard to an overdose. Tarkington was taken by NorthStar EMS for treatment at Unity Health-White County Medical Center, then he was charged with possession of fentanyl, a class C felony, and possession of drug paraphernalia, a class A misdemeanor, on April 25.

That resulted from an immediate investigation that was started since both agencies consider fentanyl overdoses a high priority, according to Lt. Todd Wells. During the processing of the scene, “a powdery substance was located in the bowling alley which tested positive for fentanyl.”

Holmes also was arrested April 25 after a search warrant was executed on his vehicle and another search warrant was executed at Super Bowl. The agents from CADTF located more fentanyl in Holmes’ vehicle and fentanyl paraphernalia was found inside the bowling alley.

Holmes was charged with delivery of fentanyl, a class Y felony, and trafficking fentanyl, also a class Y felony. He remained in the White County Circuit Court on a $150,000 bond Thursday and is set to appear in White County Circuit Court on June 3 to answer on his two charges. Tarkington is not in jail.

Hale asked Hernandez if he could give the council an update on what legally could be done concerning this situation. Hernandez said he would refer to Moore for the “legal side of this,” but “I know we’ve gotten a lot about shutting it down, which that would be a seizure of the property and we don’t have enough to seize their property. I would assume that would get us in a lot of legal trouble with the business because it was one of their employees that did this.”

He said that Tarkington isn’t the owner of the property, although Councilman Don Raney later said that he is the owner’s son. “I would prefer we stayed out of the legal trouble of doing all this,” Hernandez said. “I know there’s a lot of pressure in the public. I have a drug task force agency here that made an arrest that needed to be made.”

He also noted that the business is currently closed and that Ken Shoemaker with Code Enforcement “spoke with the owner of the business today and suggested that he get the business cleaned.”

“I think media and social media has blown this – don’t get me wrong, fentanyl is terrible, obviously we all know that – but there wasn’t fentanyl strewn all about the building; matter of fact, it may have been found on him. I don’t want to dive too deep into this because we’re not going to have court at a City Council meeting.”

Moore added again that it was an employee and not the owners who was arrested and “there are no other code enforcement violations for which there would be a reason to question their business license.”

“The police force and code enforcement indicated to them that they probably ought the clean their business,” Moore said, “but the suggestion [to force the business to close] stands for the proposition that if somebody is arrested today in a gas station somewhere that the gas station would be subject to having their business shut down, and that’s, to use a legal phrase, a ‘slippery slope’ to begin if there’s no other violations or if an employee has dome something at a business or something of that nature.

“I agree we’re talking about a seizure of property and a seizure of a business, so I don’t know that I would recommend doing anything other than what we’ve done.”

Hernandez also discussed Tarkington being released while Holmes is still in jail.

“Apparently, the public thinks we control bonds and we don’t,” he said. “The sheriff doesn’t control the bond. I’ve seen that, too, that the police department, the sheriff are letting him out because of who he is. We have no control over that. We can only do what we can do.”

He said the main purpose of sharing the arrests on social media “was to notify the public and give them the option, ‘Do you want to take your kids there or not?’ That’s what I keep seeing [that] we’re opening up a dangerous business for people to take their kids; we’re not. We have no control over that, but we notified the public and people need to make that choice.”

Becky McCoy, the 17th Judicial District prosecuting attorney, explained to The Citizen on Monday that bonds in felony criminal cases are set by White County Circuit Judge Mark Pate.

“Tarkington had a case that was already filed, and that bond was $30,000 paper,” McCoy said. “He had bonded on that one when he picked up this new charge from the incident at the bowling alley. After he got released from the hospital after the bowling alley thing, he was booked into jail and the judge set his bond without our input. The bondsman surrendered him on the previous bond, on the $30,000 bond, so when he was in court [last week], the judge made the bond on his first case $150,000 paper bond with conditions of pre-trial release.”

{p class=”p1”}According to information from caseinfo.arcourts.gov, Tarkington has an open case with seven offenses from June 24, 2024. The charges are listed as simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms; trafficking in fentanyl; possession of controlled substance greater than 10 grams but less than 200 grams; tampering with physical evidence; driving while intoxicated (second offense); refusal to submit to chemical test; and careless and prohibited driving.