Tuesday’s column: ‘You can fight City Hall’
Dave Kelly, owner of Dave's Coffee Time Cafe on Brambleton Avenue, in the drive-through window that he's been been trying to get approved. | Photo by Sam Dean
Dave Kelley is one of those hard-working and scrappy entrepreneurs.
At one time he was a contractor, though he found it difficult to find workers who could keep up with him.
Later, Kelly, 54, had a mowing business that took him all over Roanoke and Roanoke County. Last summer he got into ice cream.
He opened Crazy Dave’s Ice Cream on U.S. 220 in Daleville. He sold that store before the summer was out and reinvested the proceeds in a coffee shop on Brambleton Avenue, the former Mojo Cafe.
It’s now known as Dave’s Coffee Time, and it’s across the street and down just a bit from The Coffee Pot. The shop opened in September.
Before he got in the coffee business, though, Kelly did a bit of research.
“The first three things I learned were, one, you want a drive-through; two, you want a drive-through and three, you want a drive-through,” Kelly told me.
Drive-through sales can easily account for 40 to 60 percent of a coffee shop’s business, he said.
Brambeton Avenue is a busy artery from Southwest County into the city. Thousands of cars drive on it every day.
So Kelly reasoned: “I’d better make sure I can have a drive-through before I put any money in this.”
So he called the city to find out if the zoning would allow it. He says he was told it did.
“No problem,” he says they told him. “But you have to have an engineer draw up plans.”
So he hired an engineering company.
“Then they called down there [to city hall] and the city said, ‘Yes, it’s zoned for a drive through.”
So the engineering company drew up plans and submitted them.
Meanwhile, Kelly signed a lease for the location with his landlord, and then invested $40,000 of his own money into materials for renovations and equipment.
A couple weeks went by then the engineering company gave him a call.
“They said, ‘You’ve got a problem. It’s not zoned for a drive through,’ ” Kelly said.
“I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Kelly said.
READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.
February 14, 2012 - 6:00 AM
Bunch of idiots. The same thing happened to Paco’s Tacos on Williamson Road regarding a beer/wine license. They would never have invested in the location they did had they not been assured the beer/wine license was a given. And then, after investing in the place, advertising, renovating, etc. they were told “uh, oops, no license for you!” Of course you can always appeal, on your own dime, and on their schedule.
Dave Kelley is one of those hard-working and scrappy entrepreneurs.
That’s strike one right there when it comes to dealing with liberal bureaucrats. 0bama has already declared war on this type of person.
My business was next to MOJO for five years in that building. When Mojo tried to get a drive through the city said it would take away parking spaces zoned for the building and nixed it. Plus the church who owns the building parks in those spots on Sundays which was always a sore spot with Mojo.
A drive through would be nice. Good luck Dave!
It’s nice to see that Blacksburg isn’t the only totally dysfunctional local government in the area. They do have company.
Maybe Mr. Kelley should have asked for his answer in writing. Instead of looking to fault the government – as most people do – maybe one should look at another side. If I were going to invest all my money into a business, I would have all of my i’s dotted and t’s crossed. Why didn’t the Mojo cafe have a drive-through? Where was the realtor during all of this? Why didn’t the engineering firm email the city? Oh, that’s right because it’s just easier to place the blame on the government. But what most people tend to overlook is that local governments are also made of hard working people. Working over 40 hours a week in a thankless job without a pay raise in years really says something about your local government that you so unfairly criticize.
Cristina is right in the respect that Dave Kelly should have gotten it in writing. He did not.
I wish Mr. Kelley good luck. If I were going to open up a coffee shop with a drive through, I’d want to be on the side of the road going with the highest flow of morning traffic. I doubt if that is the cae with his location. I can see some serious morning traffic reentry problems from that location.
I don’t like his characterization of Mojo Cafe as a “failed” coffee shop. I liked that place quite a bit; the service, the atmosphere and especially the coffee sustained me many times at a point in my life when I really needed it. That is all. Good luck to him (and I’d visit if I still lived there).
While this is typical of bureaucracies, I’m glad to see the city(my employer) try and make things right.
This guy’s enemy was the city…now it’s the Kurig!
90% of dealing with government, or big business, or the media, or the school system or the Little League, is asking the right questions and the other 10% is sitting quietly and listening to the reply and being patient enough to get it in writing.
Saintbridge,
Mojo Cafe was a good shop. But it failed. That’s all Dave Kelly was talking about.
He should have just opened the drive – thru and dared the city to do something about it. In my experience people do things without a permit, it gets reported to the city, and nothing ever comes of it. I can name at least 3 current circumstances right off the top of my head.
I’m surprised you liberals are not more supportive of your city government.
And Christina, I’m sorry but you obviously don’t have much experience with the folks down at the municipal building.
“He should have just opened the drive – thru and dared the city to do something about it. In my experience people do things without a permit, it gets reported to the city, and nothing ever comes of it. I can name at least 3 current circumstances right off the top of my head.”
will,
Great! Name them.
The city is aware of them Dan. I am not going to name them in a public forum. You would like that wouldn’t you. LOL
“The city is aware of them Dan. I am not going to name them in a public forum. You would like that wouldn’t you. LOL”
I doubted you would (or could).
Now you are calling me a liar Dan. So much for civil discourse.
will, if I claimed that I knew the names of at least 3 nuns who had had abortions, and you asked me to name them, and I replied “nah, I don’t care to,” I would expect a similar response from you and perhaps some others on this blog.
“I didn’t think you would (or could)” doesn’t necessarily call anybody a liar.
Pretty sketchy story Dan. Nobody looks good with He said, She said. Dave isn’t too savvy as an ex-contractor that should have more experience and knowledge about zoning than most common folk.
We’re expected to assume he called the right person in the right department. Then the story takes us to someone saying he might need an engineer plan without telling us how he found out he did need one.
Paper or paperless, it seems nobody did anything in a normal common sense fashion. Dave screwed up and didn’t need any help to do so. Zoning lawa, maps and information are available to the public. The engineering firm should also know this and checked before they did any work.
Nothing in writing or e-mail by anyone? Dave should get his money back from the engineering firm at least. The rest is on him.
That’s the difference between you and I Dan. I think I could respect you respecting their privacy. I choose to protect the anonymity of business owners because it might hurt them and you call me a liar. Are you claiming that you did not accuse me of lying with your “or could” comment? I suppose that depends on what your definition of is is.
And by the way, 3 is just the tip of the iceberg.
Dan, wouldn’t you like to see a copy of the lease? I doubt that was a phone call deal and should mention something about changes and authority to do so. Add the landlord/property owner to the mess.
will,
If I had written “I didn’t think you could,” an extra-sensitive person (or someone who was pretending to be extra-sensitive) could logically infer that I suspected he or she was lying. Still, that’s merely an expression of a suspicion as it relates to an action. I don’t believe that anyone who has ever stolen something is necessarily a thief, either. But if that person steals regularly, the label would apply.
Trust me, if I wanted to call you a liar I would have said, “anonymous entity will you are a liar.”
But what I actually wrote was, “I didn’t think you would (or could).” That means it’s one or the other, but I’m not sure which. It leaves the question open and calls nobody a liar — of course.
Do you get the difference now?
Sorry about my knee jerk reaction. I finally figured out I hadn’t read the whole column. Shame the Read the rest here link goes to an index, not the column this comment section is about.
It’s still a pretty black and white issue. Ignorance of the process is like the rest of law, not an excuse. Kelly didn’t do his homework. His research was about business and drive through windows. Wanting one and being allowed to have one are not related. The misinformation says someone needs more training. The public gets to pick up the cost of the waived fee. Good for Dave, bad for everyone else.
I hope he’s getting more educated about why he needs to have a hearing to aquire the exception. I wouldn’t be overjoyed yet. It’s almost misinformation to have some folks show up and say, “Looks good to me.”
A drive through is slightly more involved than a hole in the building. That should be evident in the engineering plan, which may or may not comply with requirements listed in the planning or building departments.
It’s not a fight, it should be an educational moment.
Jeffrey King, the link is now fixed. Thanks for reminding me about that.
Usually I set up these blog posts the evening before the column appears in the paper, before a link to the online column exists. So I link to the column archive (the relevant column always is the top link in that list), and I go back and relink later. This time I neglected to do that.