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Traffic passes by The Sunken Well Tavern in a city neighborhood. |
By EMILY BATTLE
A small restaurant on Fredericksburg's Littlepage Street has sparked a debate over what kind of business fits in in a residential neighborhood.
Several of the people who live around the Sunken Well Tavern see the restaurant as a threat to peace in their neighborhood.
Lots of other residents of the neighborhood say it's a welcome place where they can walk to grab a meal and get reacquainted with the people who live around them.
The dispute has been brewing since last fall, and it now sits before Fredericksburg's Board of Zoning Appeals, which will take it up next month. A date for that meeting has not been set yet.
Meanwhile, the restaurant's owners are on pins and needles watching a process that will decide the fate of a venture into which they've invested everything they have.
Paul Stoddard, Steve Cameli and Rob Ivy met when they all came to Mary Washington College.
Stoddard is 26, and Cameli and Ivy are 27. Shortly after graduating, the three started working for local restaurateur Moe Roman, owner of Wings on the Water, Fatty J's and Buffalo Moe's Tap and Grill.
"Ultimately, we wanted to open up a restaurant that was more centered around food," Stoddard said. The group started scoping out locations, and decided on the building at 720 Littlepage, largely because it was small enough that they wouldn't have to hire a large staff.
In July, the three applied for a zoning certificate from the city, and Planning Director Ray Ocel approved the restaurant as a nonconforming use.
A nonconforming use is one that wouldn't be allowed as a new use in the zoning district it's in, but that is permitted to continue because it was there before the zoning changed.
In this case, the building at 720 Littlepage St. was in commercial use long before the neighborhood was zoned residential. The building's owner has a right to continue that use, but he can't expand it, and he can't re-establish it if it's abandoned for more than a year.
Craig and Maureen Jones own the building, and it has served as a neighborhood restaurant and store for decades.
In the 1970s, it was Freeman's Store. In the '80s and '90s, it was the Sub Shop. A restaurant called Jake's Place was there until 2003, and most recently it was Green Goods, a deli and catering operation.
With zoning approval in hand, Stoddard, Cameli and Ivy set about preparing their restaurant. They spent seven months building a bar, putting up a new kitchen wall, installing booths and painting.
They also applied for a license to sell alcohol from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
When neighbor Carrie O'Malley saw the notice posted in the restaurant window that an ABC license was pending, she started to wonder about what was moving in across from her Hanover Street home.
O'Malley and other neighbors started asking questions about what the zoning of the property would allow.
As a result, Stoddard and his business partners got a letter from Ocel on Jan. 19--about two weeks before they opened--asking for more information about their hours, and the hours that previous businesses in the building had kept.
In February, Ocel told the restaurant owners they'd need to limit their hours to between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.
The owners appealed that decision, saying the restaurant use had already been approved on the property, and that it was unfair to come back months later and limit the hours.
Stoddard, Ivy and Cameli want to be open from 7 a.m. until midnight Monday through Thursday, and from 7 a.m. until 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
Before their appeal was heard by the Board of Zoning Appeals, O'Malley and the owners of 12 other homes on Hanover, Littlepage and Weedon streets filed another appeal of Ocel's opinion.
These residents argue that a restaurant under Ocel's proposed hours, and with an ABC permit, shouldn't be allowed, because it would have more of an impact on the neighborhood than the last commercial use in the building--Green Goods, a deli and catering operation.
If the Sunken Well is permitted, they want its hours limited to those of Green Goods, which was closed Sunday and Monday, open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. To be open any longer, they say, would be expanding a use that isn't permitted anymore in the residential neighborhood.
Stoddard said these hours would literally kill his business.
The BZA heard the Sunken Well's appeal this week, but members held off on a decision until its April meeting, when they'll hear the neighbors' appeal.
If this week's hearing was any indication, plenty of people are watching their deliberations.
The hearing drew a standing-room only crowd in City Council chambers, and applause followed speakers from both sides of the issue.
"We pay a lot of taxes, and we don't want a bar across the street," said Richard Ross, one of the Hanover Street residents whose appeal is pending in April.
"It's not a bar, it's a restaurant," said Sabina Weitzman, who lives on Marye Street.
Stoddard said it's unfair for neighbors to characterize the Sunken Well as a wild bar when they haven't been given a chance to prove themselves.
"There aren't going to be fights in our parking lot. There aren't going to be overly intoxicated people in here. We won't allow it," he said.
Cameli said that it's particularly frustrating that the debate over the use has come after the three men invested in the business.
"This wouldn't have been a problem if we had heard about it in the beginning, because we wouldn't have signed a lease or left our jobs," Cameli said. "We made our investment, we put our time and sweat into it. This is our money. This is it."
O'Malley said she understands those concerns.
"I think it's a great idea what they're doing. It's just not the right place," she said.
She added that the residents around the restaurant also have a serious interest in the outcome of the debate, since some have owned property in the neighborhood for decades.
"These are people who have been here," she said. "They're long-term families that are here who want to just keep this neighborhood a nice, quiet, safe, tranquil neighborhood."
To reach EMILY BATTLE:
Email: ebattle@freelancestar.com
