Posted on 01/05/2018 10:40:35 AM PST by Brandonmark
CLEARWATER — The city’s violation letter used bold letters in all caps to describe The Path Bicycle and Ride Shop’s alleged offense.
"INSTALLED SPIRAL BICYCLE RACK ON SIDEWALK WITHOUT PROPER PERMITS AND INSPECTIONS," it declared.
The Path owner Gary Keener was dumbfounded when his landlord forwarded him the notice last week. Because he didn’t install the brand new bicycle rack on the sidewalk — The city did.
"I just thought it was pretty pathetic," said Keener, who has owned the Cleveland Street shop for six years. "We’re kind of an anchor retail business that actually brings people to the downtown area. We go way back with how dumb code enforcement is."
On Dec. 4 the city blocked off a parking space on the 600 block of Cleveland Street, painted the asphalt blue, placed a red bag over the meter, and installed two spiral bike racks in the space. It was the exact setup the city installed in front of Tony’s Pizza on the 400 block of Cleveland Street last year.
An anonymous tipster (apparently offended by bicycles) filed an online complaint with the city on Dec. 13, stating "these spiral racks are prohibited according to the City of Clearwater Code of Ordinances."
Inspector Sam Swinton checked it out and issued a violation on Dec. 19 to James Lampathakis, who owns the building that houses the bike shop.
Assistant Building Official Dana Root said Wednesday that the violation should never have been issued.
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
No prob.
After maybe $50,000 in legal fees, they’ll probably dismiss the fine.
And raise your property tax by the amount of the fine.
Section 3-1411.B.5 of the Code of Ordinances, Clearwater, Florida, does, indeed prohibit “spiral” type bike racks.
Setting aside their erroneous accusation that someone else installed it, one must still wonder why the city is allowed to use a type of rack that they, themselves, prohibit.
“At the request of the city,”
and if he didn’t I am sure there would be hard feelings.
We spent how many billions defeating East Germany and the Soviet Bloc? Far too many people here are intent on recreating them.
So many laws and regulations. Even the government can’t keep them all straight.
The government makes a mistake?
“Oops. My bad. Move on.”
You make a mistake? Like, as they say, 3 felonies a day without even knowing?
“We can destroy you any time we feel like it. So, you have to ask yourself, Do you feel lucky ... PUNK?”
Clearwater official: “Nice shop ya got here, Gary. We hope nothing bad ever happens to it...”
The City is reducing parking capacity to cater to peddlers.
The more interesting thing seems to be that the racks were not installed on the sidewalk but within a blue painted area of the street. Swinton should be fired.
We got a citation from the city for having a unlocked freezer.
We called the inspector, told her that it was a locking freeze that was indeed locked. They came out, checked it and revoked the citation.
Guess what happened the following week?
After going around and around with them, and getting on first name terms with the code enforcement supervisor they finally quit. Then they began to find fault with our built up flower garden. Followed by the new concrete pads we had poured. It was "over standard." Who ever heard of something being cited because it was BETTER?
Finally told the code enforcement supervisor that we were seriously considering getting a lawyer because we were getting tired of the harassment.
That stopped it.
Illogical - The city takes away your sandwich boards, cites you for an eye sore and then takes away a parking spot for bike racks but cites you for same bike racks they installed.
A Rite-Aid pharmacy was built in my old hometown. The town is in a FEMA declared flood plain. The building was built to a FEMA elevation specs (even though the town has not flooded in 60+ years and since levees were built in the 1950’s).
Many permits and inspections took place before and during the contruction by the city. Many.
The final inspection found the finished building too low by 3/8” of an inch per the city specs, not FEMA’s.
The brand new building sat empty for over 2 years.
Rite-Aid was not allowed to open due to a “flood risk” and being out of compliance. They were told the new building had to be removed and re-built to codes (all of which they passed earlier).
Lawyers were finally called in plus a US Congress man. The city backed down.
I recall people in California being fined because they didn’t clear the brush around their homes for fire safety.
After they cleared the brush they were fined because they’d created an erosion risk.
Another example of why less government is best.
If memory serves, Clearwater is somewhat infamous as being a ‘Scientology town”. Don’t know if that factors in on this, though.
The Church of Scientology headquarters is also Downtown Clearwater, about a block or two away from Cleveland Street, which runs perpendicular to Ft. Harrison Street. Scientology headquarters take up at least 2 large buildings, which straddle Ft. Harrison Street and are connected by an overhead walkway. Wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the “whistleblower” isn’t affiliated with Scientology. They are buying up lots of properties in the area.
We can be quite sure that the city will take the same action itself that it undoubtedly demanded of the bike shop: to remove the bike rack, to restore the parking space to city and state specifications, all under the supervision of a dozen required workers from a variety of city departments, and within a very small number of days.
yeah, its crazy to put bike parking in front of a bike shop /sarc
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