While breezing through Fells Point the other day, I couldn’t help but notice that Woody’s Run Bar and Island Grill (1700 Thames St.) looked conspicuously stripped down, had some conspicuous yellow tape running along the length of its balcony windows, and had a more than conspicuous telltale bright orange STOP WORK order pasted to the side door on the shared-entrance (with European Football enthusiast bar Slainte) staircase leading up to the establishment. So it would seem the folks at the best waterview bar around were doing a little Spring renovation to get ready for their highly successful opening, but neglected to get a permit to do so. Fiddlesticks.
So there’s that, I can imagine why Woody’s would want to rush to an early opening this year and get some sprucing done in lieu of how obnoxious getting a work permit can be, or if there were some other reason behind the stop work order that’s another story.
But really this post is about permits in this city. You can’t even hang a painting in your basement in Fells Point or any other gentrified / “historic” area without a permit, or at the very least without a neighbor complaining about the noise or unappealing aesthetics of that flower box you just hung off of your balcony, GOD FORBID a business try to make improvements – however minor (and it would seem that Woody’s were fairly major) – without first consulting the surrounding residents, ministers, city council, board of estimates, congress, that nest of birds over there, it doesn’t matter. Chances are fairly high that upon attempting to get such a permit for work, a liquor license renewal, a title transfer, a game of bridge, or solar panel installation, someone will protest. Then there needs to be a hearing, time and money and calories burned and all manner of energy spent sitting around and listening to folks complain about your own business – your lifeblood – and how damaging is to the surrounding community. So yeah, I could see why anyone looking to do some minor work on their establishment would skirt the whole process and say “F*ck it, I’ll take the $500 fine if necessary, it’ll save me three months.”
What’s ironic is that all of these improvements, minor or not, are generally dealt with on the smallest scale; your neighbors are the ones who get to complain, get to protest, and could potentially ixnay the whole deal. Meanwhile, huge scope developments get voted on unanimously by the governing bodies of this city and its associated development arms (like the BDC) which create a greater impact – detrimental or otherwise – on all of us, often times without a shred of public input. And in the rare event that the public steps up and complains very loudly, those with the means to do so will simply spend more money, time and calories burned to either wait out public opposition or spend some arbitrary amount on “Feasibility Studies” so that whomever is backing the venture can whitelist it publicly.
So in a nutshell, neighbors, take care of each other – those that would run a highway through your backyard are doing a lot more damage than that guy who’s actually trying to make your block look better, you can deal with the hammers in the morning for a little while.*
Don’t get me started on permits for residential stuff. It is a huge and useless racket to simply get fee revenue for the city. If you build a house, get inspected, fail the inspection, then close the walls up anyway, and sell it. The city will wash their hands of their responsibility for said property, and you get away scot free! so why get it inspected at all? GOOD FUCKING QUESTION. i imagine with scumbag builders, it’s just a race to get the walls closed up before someone notices you did work.
At least it’s still OK in Baltimore to light dogs on fire and run teenage girls over with your car. Â