It’s a scenario most of us can sympathize with, and a lot of us can empathize with: neighborhood dynamics. They change — and not always for the better.
To wit, residents living in old, established communities behind the South Howard (SoHo) district are less than pleased that a street dotted with family restaurants has been morphing into Ybor, the Sequel. The usual issues.
But in all fairness, merchants along a commercial strip deserve consideration, especially during the Great Recession. But it’s not a matter requiring Solomonic sobriety.
Vested interests were on display at City Council last week when The Lime Restaurant requested permission to extend its business hours: from 11 p.m. to midnight, Sunday through Thursday, and midnight to 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Enough to matter to those in the dining and imbibing business — and enough to matter to those who prefer the sounds of silence at such hours. Council approved the later-hours request by a 4-3 vote.
Two points.
Inevitably, such conflicts are reduced to rights of commerce vs. quality of life. As if the two are mutually exclusive. Curtis Stokes, voting with the majority, gave gross over-simplification a bad name. “I think we should take government out of the lives of private businesses,” he noted. “I have a moral problem with us impeding this establishment’s right to make a living.” That sounds more like a Republican talking point than a deliberative response to early-morning, neighborhood scenarios. South Howard isn’t Dale Mabry.
Second, does the 4-3 vote break-out signify a de facto pattern of more than passing interest for anyone coming before this council? The 3-member minority were Chairman Tom Scott, Charlie Miranda and Mary Mulhern. The majority were the two rookies, (resulting from the untimely, premature departures of John Dingfelder and Linda Saul-Sena) Stokes and Yoli Capin, and the two proven lightweights, Joe Caetano and Gwen Miller.