Country Star John Rich Warns Democrat Tax Hike Will Devastate Nashville

Big & Rich singer and Broadway bar owner John Rich is sounding a stark warning: the neon lights and live music that define Nashville’s Lower Broadway could start going dark under crushing property tax increases.

“It was a one-two punch,” Rich told Fox News Digital. “So the first thing he did was they reappraised everybody’s property… at an extremely inflated appraisal rate, then they come in and raise the taxes aggressively on top of these extremely inflated appraisals. And with those two things, what you’ve done is you’ve now put a death nail in a vast majority of the businesses.”

Rich, who owns Redneck Riviera Bar & BBQ, said three major longtime venues have already shut down in recent weeks. He pointed to meetings with other Broadway owners who all reported running at a deficit. “We’d have to charge $50 a beer, which you can’t do that. I mean, there is no business model that exists that allows the businesses down there to stay open.”

Property values on Lower Broadway saw increases as high as 400 percent in some cases. Many operators rent their buildings and must pay the taxes under their leases, receiving none of the equity upside. Acme Feed & Seed’s annual tax bill reportedly jumped from $129,000 to nearly $600,000, leaving the venue hundreds of thousands of dollars in the red.

Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, a Democrat, has said the market evolves and it is not his decision whether individual businesses stay open. Rich rejected that stance, arguing the tax policy is deliberately squeezing out the honky-tonk culture that makes Nashville unique.

“You walk down Broadway, the doors are all open to all the honky-tonks, you’re hearing music from the right side of your head and the left side of your head for five blocks in a row,” Rich said. “There’s 60, 70, 80 live music venues in that one concentration. It’s the only place like it in the world.”

He painted a grim picture for the 2030 Super Bowl: “Can you imagine when the Super Bowl comes to Nashville… and there’s only 30 or 40% of the neon signs that are even still lit up, if you’re lucky? That’s what you’re looking at happening.”

Rich is calling on Governor Bill Lee and state legislative leaders to intervene before Music City loses the very character that made it famous. Business owners from across the political spectrum, he said, are united in sounding the same alarm.