A non-update

Because Rosa asked, here's a picture of the exterior of my place. Ooh.

Yesterday morning I met with the contractor who will fix my floors. He will, in addition, be putting a couple of additional sheets of drywall on the ceiling, so that everything is up to code for the good people who enforce the fire code. He estimates that the work will be done by the end of this coming week. So I guess pencil it in to be done sometime around the end of April. If I'm lucky.

I'm ready to talk about Zoning. I needed a couple of days to get my head together and work through the rage, but now I'm ready to spill the beans. I went before the ZBA on Wednesday and I can say without any doubt that the Zoning process in this fair city is fucked, more or less. Well, more than less.

My hearing was scheduled for 2pm and I arrived around a quarter 'til. Nb: Since I went before the ZBA as an incorporated entity (well, technically as an LLC, but that's close enough as far as the ZBA is concerned), I had to appear with my attorney in tow. When I saw that I was 7th on the agenda, I was a little bummed that I would likely have to wait a little while to go before the board, but figured it was better to be 7th than 15th. And there was another hearing scheduled for 3:30, so how bad was this really going to be? Really bad, it turns out. See, after I came into the room, a steady flow of muslim-looking folks started streaming in. By the time the first case was being heard, there wasn't even standing room left in the place. There were maybe two hundred people in this room with 80 seats. My only hope was for the case that all of these people were there to support or oppose was being heard after my case. No such luck.

The Liquor Control Board wants to move their West Philadelphia Wine and Spirits Shoppe from its current location on 40th and Market to a former Rite-Aid on the 4200 block of Walnut St. There's a mosque across the street. The mosque is pretty strongly opposed to this concept. The other neighbors seem to be more or less in support. An hour and forty five minutes (and a few hundred dollars) later, the board cut off discussion on the topic. And I'm sitting there next to my attorney, who I'm paying by the minute and who's barely recovered from a stomach flu. Fabulous.

Maybe eight minutes later, my case number is called. I have a letter from the neighborhood association showing their support. I have a letter from the President of City Council showing her support. This should be really easy. Nope. Three people from the neighborhood have waited around for a few hours to protest my variance request. They say that they don't want any businesses in their residential neighborhood. They say that they have enough of a chance to mingle with the neighbors at the award winning community garden. They say that the landlord doesn't pick up trash that's often strewn in front of the property. Three people. Who really cared about their neighborhood. Who had every opportunity to bring these issues to the table at the SOSNA meeting (that they didn't attend). And you know what? The ZBA listened to them. And made this my problem. So I have a variance, but in two years, it expires. And I need to go back to the ZBA for approval for the variance. Again. So now I have to be on the lookout for any person who I might offend in the next two years who could come out to the ZBA meeting and ask to have me put out of business. Great.

I could rant about the system in this space, and I could go after members of the ZBA on a personal level, but that's not going to do anyone any good at any point. So I'll just say that the ZBA has really helped me out a lot. Thank you, ZBA. Thank you very much.

Fuck.