Leave your lizards at home: Here's why reptiles are banned on Beale Street | Know Your 901

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Today's question from a visitor to Downtown doesn't rank high on the scale of importance (and we do mean "scale"), but it has the virtue of being unexpected...

Why are reptiles banned from Beale?

As we said, this is an unexpected question. The reason it is unexpected is because, if you are like most people, you (a) did not know reptiles are banned from the Beale Street entertainment district; and (b) you did not know this because never in a million years would you have wondered for even a moment about the status of reptiles on Beale Street.

However, if you paid enough attention to the signage posted at Second and Fourth streets, at the entrances to the two-block pedestrian stretch that constitutes the bulk of the Beale club district, you would notice that a list of prohibited items includes not just FIREARMS and such potentially dangerous-in-a-crowd conveyances as SKATEBOARDS, SCOOTERS and SEGWAYS but, also, ANIMALS/REPTILES.

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This is not merely precautionary. It is a prohibition born from experience, according to the Downtown Memphis Commission's Jon Shivers, director of the Beale Street Historic District.

"About 10 years ago, somebody did bring in a large lizard," Shivers said. "It was kind of a beefy litttle thing, probably three of four feet long. It was on a dog collar and almost like a dog leash, a little thin one, like when people walk a cat, if you've ever seen that."

Anyway, this man-lizard combo was a hit with picture-snapping tourists, but at some point "the man got sidetracked and put the leash down and before you know it the lizard was gone. We did find it, thank God, before it went into any of the clubs" (a happening that probably would ended less well for the lizard than the patrons).

"I guess it just wanted a moment of its own on Beale," Shivers said.

Patrons attempt to bring many types of animals onto Beale, Shivers said, from small dogs to cats to ferrets and beyond. "A man on musicfest weekend, he had a chicken, and it caught some love on social media," Shivers said. "It was a chicken wearing clothes. A shirt and some jeans."

In recent years such non-human visitors have been declared verboten, as Beale managers work to make the street safer and more orderly. But the reason reptiles are mentioned specifically is because, rightly or wrongly, they tend to creep people out more than, say, Pomeranians or parakeets.

"Sometimes, it's a little startling when they bring their snakes, and it's a 10-foot python they're carrying on their shoulders," he said. "Some people like it, they want to take pictures. But it kind of makes some people feel uneasy when there's a lizard or snake around. Some people are so freaked out it creates a little panic."

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Shivers said some Beale Street rules were recommended by police, such as the prohibition against visitors bringing glass bottles to the street. But the no-animals policy was a Beale decision.

Of course, exceptions are made for service animals and for animals who are on the job as professional entertainers, like the albino python that was part of Larry Dodson's act in the Bar-Kays, or the goats at Silky O'Sullivan's bar. But in general, Beale Street management only welcomes those critters, varmints and pests that can pay a cover charge. So remember: Bring your ID, but leave the iguana at home.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Beale Street in Memphis: Why reptiles are banned