A Memphis pizza owner has refused to serve members of the National Guard.
“On Saturday night we declined to serve four uniformed members of the Memphis Safe Task Force, and I stand behind that decision completely,” Tamboli’s Pasta & Pizza owner Miles Tamboli told Action News 5.
“I love this country and I love this city, and that is exactly why I made this call. I want Memphis to be safe. Every business owner does. And the honest truth is that Memphis was already getting safer before this Task Force ever arrived,” he said. “Crime was at a 25-year low through the first eight months of 2025, according to the Memphis Police Department’s own data, later confirmed by an independent Tennessee Bureau of Investigation audit. That progress was earned by the people of this city. It was not delivered by soldiers.”
He argued that the task force has made Memphis “harder to live in.”
“Being pro-safety means telling the truth about what actually protects a community, and it is not soldiers trained for combat doing the work of police officers,” he added to the outlet. “That mismatch is dangerous for the people of Memphis and dangerous for the troops themselves, who were sent here to do a job they were never trained for. The founders wrote their objection to standing armies among the people into the Declaration of Independence itself, because they understood that a free country does not let the military police its own citizens. That principle is older than any political party, and I am not willing to abandon it because it became inconvenient.”
Last year, former Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that since federal officers deployed to Memphis in late September, the city saw a 48% decrease in homicides and a 45% year-over-year decrease in “overall serious crime.”
