The building is (possibly) falling down

Construction has begun. Without a permit.

In a perfect world, I'd be doing this project entirely by the book, pulling permits and doing things exactly as the arcane laws of Philadelphia demand. Unfortunately, the reality is that the laws in Philadelphia are indeed arcane, thus making careful rule following an unattainable dream. As far as I can understand, I'm not technically allowed to do any work in the space until after my Zoning hearing (3/21, 1515 Arch St, if you'd like to come by and cheer me on with homemade signs and extra-large foam #1 hands. You could make a clever sign like those ass kissers who try to get on television by using the station letters in an acrostic to show support for their team. Zany Brilliant Adler would be acceptable, but maybe you can do better). But since I've gotten the thumbs up from SOSNA, the ZBA hearing is sort of a technicality anyway, and it's pretty much in the bag that I'll be getting my zoning.

So according to the "rules," I'm not allowed to pull any permits until this zoning crap is dealt with, but I don't have the patience (or the financial flexibility) to wait another week to get started. In addition, I'm not entirely comfortable with the demands that would be placed on me if I were to try to pull permits for building a couple of walls. Again, according to those pesky rules, I'm supposed to submit architectural plans for any partitions that I wish to build, even if they are not load-bearing. And then I have to wait a couple weeks for an examiner to check them out, then get the local inspector to do her inspection thing. In the time it would take for the city to give me permission to legally build three walls, I think I could probably have the cafe up and running. So in this case, I'm just going to come out and say it: "F the rules." (Incidentally, should L&I slaps a 'Cease and Desist' on me in three days, I'll probably change my tune)

My first order of business in the restaurant was to figure out why the floor slopes down three inches in the back of the place. With that in mind and a crowbar in hand, I pried off like 25 square feet of the floor yesterday. I found that one (or maybe more) of the floor joists is kind of rotted out. Water damage, I think. So it seems that there's a slim chance that the building will collapse at any time. I'm meeting with my landlord tomorrow to go over options and hope to convince him to pay a professional to fix this issue. Since it would seem to be a bad situation for everyone if the building were to collapse. I guess it's a good thing I put down a premium on liability insurance the other day...

In (entirely un)related news, I believe I've secured most of my financing. I might not see most of the money for another few weeks, and the process of acquiring said financing has been a major roller coaster/pain in the ass, but I'm sleeping better knowing that it's coming. Someday.