It’s finally starting to feel like summer here in the Queen City.

Today we saw temperatures reach a scorching 92°, with the heat index much higher. This unexpected heat caused most A/C units to work overtime, and one in Uptown Charlotte even caught fire due to the heat. 

One of the units on top of 300 S Tryon St. in Uptown caught fire this afternoon, causing the entire building to be evacuated, according to several of the employees.

The fire is now under control and some of the employees have been able to re-enter the building.

Stay cool out there Charlotte!

If you have enjoyed being in Uptown Charlotte near Romare Bearden Park anytime this past year or so, your eyes have undoubtedly been drawn to the beautiful 33-story high-rise on the corner of 3rd Street and S. Poplar that has deservedly earned the social media hashtag, #UptownStunner.  We are talking about Ascent Uptown, Charlotte’s newest and most opulent apartment community set to open June/July 2017.  

In celebration of their summer opening and inspired by their dedication to community involvement, Ascent Uptown is about to give away over $3,000 in prizes to the top three winners of their first ever #UptownStunner Photo Contest!  The contest is open to anyone with a camera (or smartphone) and a social media account.  

Here is how you enter the contest:

Simply take a picture of the new Ascent Uptown building from your favorite angle, then upload it on social media using #UptownStunner.  You are encouraged to be as creative as you like in your photography.  Feel free to include yourself, friends and family, your pets or find different angles and perspectives, capture some daytime pics and a few nighttime pics as well.  The contest is wide-open to your interpretation and artistic expression!

Here is the timeline:

Between now and May 21st – Post your photo online (don’t forget to include #UptownStunner).  You may post/enter as many times as you like.  

Monday, May 22nd – Ascent Uptown will select twenty of their favorite submissions that will be published on Charlotte Stories for online voting.  All twenty of the photographers chosen will be invited to a special event to be held on Tuesday, May 30th (more details included in this article).    

Tuesday, May 23 – Monday, May 29th – Online voting takes place!

Tuesday, May 30th – An exclusive event will be held at the Charlotte Knights’ Stadium where the top three winners will be announced.  

The top three prizes will include:

1st Place – $1,000 Visa card, a weekend stay in the Ascent Uptown Guest Suite and dinner for two at Ink-N-Ivy

2nd Place – $700 Visa card and a weekend stay in the Ascent Uptown Guest Suite

3rd Place – $300 Visa card and a weekend stay in the Ascent Uptown Guest Suite

Happy Posting Charlotte!

In at No. 10, Charlotte, N.C., is among the U-Haul Top 10 U.S. Destination Cities for 2016, rising four spots from its previous destination ranking of No. 14, according to the latest U-Haul migration trends report.

Charlotte witnessed an 8.9 percent increase in arrivals over 2015 to become one of the top 10 busiest U.S. cities for incoming U-Haul trucks.

“We have wonderful weather, all the major sports teams and job growth galore,” said Brad Pruitt, U-Haul Company of Charlotte president. “Charlotte has become a banking center and is consequently the nation’s second largest financial center. People are packing up their U-Haul trucks and heading to The Queen City in droves.”

U-Haul Destination Cities are ranked according to the total number of arriving one-way U-Haul truck rentals to a city in the past calendar year. Destination Cities do not account for departing traffic and thus do not necessarily reflect growth like U-Haul Growth Cities. Destination Cities reflect the volume and regularity of do-it-yourself movers coming into a community.

Two Charlotte breweries have just filed a constitutional challenge to a state law that limits local breweries from producing any more than 25,000 barrels per year.

Last month, the NC House passed HB 500, which initially increased the self-distribution production cap to 200,000 barrels annually, but that provision was taken out at the last minute. They also removed another provision that would have allowed smaller brewers to end their contracts with their wholesale partners without having to pay a fortune. According to HB 500’s sponsor, Rep. Chuck McGrady, the N.C. Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association weren’t willing to allow the NC House to pass the new bill with those provisions attached.

Olde Mecklenburg and NoDa breweries filed a joint lawsuit earlier today, in which they accused the state of North Carolina of engaging in “economic protectionism.”

The lawsuit claims that North Carolina’s distribution cap and franchise laws are unconstitutional and “artificially suppressing” the state’s craft beer industry (now estimated to have an annual economic impact of $1.2 billion).

“First, North Carolina’s ‘Distribution Cap’ punishes craft breweries for their own success by forcing them to hand over the rights to distribute their own beer to private distributors if they sell more than 25,000 barrels — a cap that is arbitrary and ensnares small but successful craft breweries,” the lawsuit states. “Second, North Carolina’s ‘Franchise Law’ forces craft breweries to enter into oppressive, one-sided contracts with distributors that literally last forever, and which require the breweries to turn over control of their product — including pricing — to the distributors.”

It goes on to argue that “franchise laws leave the breweries powerless in an oppressive and illusory ‘contractual’ relationship with no recourse. Craft brewers who question their distributors’ efforts face the real and legitimate prospect of the distributor intentionally ignoring that craft brewery’s brand and promoting competing brands — effectively extinguishing the craft brewery’s business. The craft brewery, meanwhile, has no remedy. Craft brewers have no choice but to submit to their distributors’ will, or else face financial ruin.”

What are your thoughts on the barrel cap for small breweries?

In about 2 weeks, some of the biggest stars in Hollywood will be coming to the Charlotte region to film the upcoming film called ‘Logan Lucky’ – the biggest movie to be shot in Charlotte since last year’s ‘Masterminds‘.

The premise of the new comedy involves the siblings of the Logan family attempting to reverse a family curse. Siblings Jimmy, (Channing Tatum) Mellie (Riley Keough) and Clyde Logan (Adam Driver) attempt to execute an elaborate robbery during the Coca-Cola 600, after accomplice Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) gets out of prison.

During an Entertainment Weekly interview, director Steven Soderbergh called his new heist movie is a radical take on the wildly popular ocean’s movies, “on the most obvious level, it’s the complete inversion of an Ocean’s movie. It’s an anti-glam version of an Ocean’s movie. Nobody dresses nice. Nobody has nice stuff. They have no money. They have no technology. It’s all rubber band technology, and that’s what I thought was fun about it. It seemed familiar to me, but different enough. The landscape, the characters, and the canvass were the complete opposite of an Ocean’s film.”

The full cast, who will presumably all be in the Charlotte area over the next few weeks, includes:

	Katherine Waterston
	Riley Keough	…	Mellie Logan
	Channing Tatum	…	Jimmy Logan
	Adam Driver	…	Clyde Logan
	Daniel Craig	…	Joe Bang
	Sebastian Stan
	Hilary Swank
	Seth MacFarlane	…	Max Chilblain
	Katie Holmes	…	Bobbie Jo Logan Chapman
	David Denman	…	Moody
	Jim O’Heir
	Macon Blair
	Dwight Yoakam
	Jack Quaid
	Brian Gleeson	…	Sam Bang

The new movie will be opening across the country on August 18th.