We love our Facebook readers. This time, however, we must disagree with them.

The issue bothering them is the September 24 show scheduled for the Roanoke Rapids Theatre.

The comments implore Mayor Emery Doughtie to not let the show go on because Lafayette Gatling has not paid his bill and is some $500,000 behind in his payments.

The mayor told us Saturday if the city wins its injunction he would most likely OK the show.

This show is not a Gatling production. The manager for the band, Easy Street, has leased the theater. The deal includes the promoter paying for the lighting and engineers.

The featured entertainment for the evening is not a major headliner, but is one promoter Betty Robinson believes will be. We believe it is better to have an active theater rather than an inactive one.

Through the debacle that has become the Roanoke Rapids Theatre, what we feel is a modern, beautiful venue has had few shows and we believe the city needs this show to prove its future worth.

This doesn’t mean we support Gatling, we have made it clear we don’t. We were the first to say it’s time for him to leave and let people with more knowledge on booking shows run the venue.

Our Facebook readers have stuck with us during computer ailments and two redesigns. It’s the first place we post stories when there are technical glitches. They are our frontline and we appreciate them.

However, we think they are missing the point this time. This show isn’t about Gatling. It isn’t even about the lawsuit or Randy Parton. It’s about a hungry regional band who wants to play in what we consider to be a first class venue with opening act David Johnson — a regular at Timeless Tea — who is equally hungry to perform to bigger audiences.

Don’t look at this show as a negative. Look at it as a positive step to get people back in the theater, look at it as rehabilitation, as a wreck victim who is trying hard to walk again.

This is how the theater will survive, by small steps.

What the mayor told us Saturday is should the city win the injunction, which would give it control of the theater during the remainder of the litigation, he sees no problem with having the band perform. He said if there are problems that would hurt the city, then the answer would be no.

There are no shady deals going on with this band wanting to perform. The city wants Gatling out of the theater as badly as the rest of us do but has to do it within the law and the law says nothing about barring the doors and kicking him out.

Gatling’s eviction has to be done as any landlord who is trying to boot someone out would do and that process is through the court system.

We’re just as frustrated over the theater matter as most of our readers are. The solution, however, is not to burn the place down, the solution lies with what the people who had the foresight to book this show saw — a vision which can be expanded in the future.

We believe the city will win this lawsuit. We believe the city should win this lawsuit because Gatling has never proven to us he can run this venue.

We don’t believe, however, the answer is to not let these acts play. We believe the answer is to let them play — Editor.