By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
The City of Florence has passed an ordinance which is intended to solve the problem of vehicles blocking public streets in their quest to be in line to enter one particular business.
But while it looks good on paper, many people are confused as to how it will work.
Even the council members.
“I continue to struggle with this,” said Vice Mayor Diane Whalen. “Trying to understand the process and how it works. Trying to understand if it’s a single violation, if there are ten cars in the right of way, or if it’s ten violations. Trying to figure out when this occurs, someone has got to call code enforcement, and do they then have to come out and have to take photographic evidence in order to submit a citation to the business? Same thing, thinking about the truck stop in particular, when they line up on Burlington Pike and sometimes they are ten or twelve trucks deep trying to turn right into the truck stop, as well as the trucks coming out at the light blocking access to Burlington Pike going westbound. So are those individual violations, multiple violations, not all trucks are going to want to turn. I’m having a really hard time with this one because there’s already legal reasons why they can’t impede the right of way, and we’re now adding a civil violation on top of that, adding to the duties of code enforcement and who calls them and how they do that in a timely fashion, and so I need some help.”
City Administrator Josh Hunt said there were a lot of questions there, and he started by saying that if there are ten cars in line, that would be one citation, and that would be a case where the responding police officer would use his discretion as to whether to cite the cars individually, or would go to the business and tell them they have to close off their curb cut because they are putting peoples’ lives in jeopardy.
“Because at the end of the day, that is what this ordinance is all about — its about life safety,” Hunt explained. “Public roads are not an extension of a private business’ activity and that’s a pretty standard fundamental in all site plan reviews, and it has been on the books for a very long time. So Code Enforcement would be in charge of issuing the citations, and the police officer would take pictures, and code would follow up with the citation and enforcing of that the next day. Ultimately, and I know there is a lot of focus on fines with this, and I guess I can see that, but that’s not what this is all about. I have dealt with stacking issues for years, and they take years to resolve, but I have been personally successful in correcting these issues.”
He said it gives the city the ability to address the problems head on, in addition to the life safety issues, and require these businesses to address the issues immediately.
“Sometimes it is as simple as putting yellow ballards in a stacking lane, that prevents cars stacking around the building in a different direction,” he said. “That solved a few of our issues, Sometimes it’s much more. They have to go back through the site plan process and add some stacking lanes. Sometimes civil engineers have to get involved. It is really complex, and it needs to be considered on a case by case basis.”
He said one of the biggest things is that it allows the police officers and the first responders to immediately make our roads safe. He didn’t understand why people can’t get on board with that aspect of the ordinance.
“Don’t they have that ability already?” asked Whalen.
“No, they don’t,” said Hunt.
“If someone is blocking a roadway, yes, we can cite them, that individual driver from blocking the roadway,” said Police Chief Jeff Mallery. “This ordinance is going for the business that is allowing their customers to back up onto the roadway. So if the first person is trying to get into the business, and the second person wants to go straight, and the third person wants to get into the business, we have to go car by car and see where they want to go. This is to hold the business responsible for blocking the roadway.”
Hunt said there are certain nuisance activities that these businesses do to encourage people to stack into the roads.
“This is certainly hypothetical, but let’s throw a few out there,” Hunt said. “Let’s say my peak period is 9-11 a.m., and I know I need 20 people to operate that store efficiently for that peak period, but 10 show up. And I choose, it’s a business decision, to choose to go ahead and operate that business as is, knowing that it is going to cause life threatening issues on a public street. That’s the direct result of a business decision. Another one is giveaways. A lot of examples of this. Knowing that if you’re going to go ahead with these giveaways, it is going to block a half mile down a public street. You’re choosing net profits over life safety at this point, and that’s unacceptable. And many members of the community have stated that this is unacceptable. This ordinance will address that.
Whalen clarified that police officers would be called at that point, and they would take pictures to forward to Code Enforcement, but the officers would then block the entrance to the building and stop the traffic from going in there.
“That would be the response regardless of the business, up to and including the truck stop which has been a pain in everyone’s backside for years and years and years,” she said.
“I didn’t want to get into talking about one specific business, this is about a handful of businesses, in a high turnover use category,” Hunt responded. “A lot of those issues are police issues. Let’s take more hypothetical examples. Let’s say you have a gas station and it has twelve pumps but only one has gas and is working. They could shut everything down, and put up a sign that says no fuel. But if they decide to keep that one pump going, and that causes queuing all the way down the street, that business is negligent at that point in time, and we have examples of that happening in the city, causing major life safety issues. Will it solve some of the problems with the TA? No, the TA has been around a long time, it is preexisting and non-conforming, in many ways especially from a zoning aspect. But it can, in certain scenarios, address specific issues.”
Mayor Julie Aubuchon asked if Hunt could explain ‘preexisting and non-conforming,’ and she said people have made comments that problem businesses shouldn’t have been approved.
Hunt said the TA was there before the regulations, but he said the ordinance comes in when there is a danger to people’s lives, and blocking public streets is a life safety issue.
“This is to address issues that have been going on in the city for years,” said Hunt. “And I’ve handled a handful of these, and they take years to resolve; with the stuff that’s on the books now you can only go after zoning, and this ordinance is another work around. I can assure you, we’re doing a zoning update now; we will be addressing zoning in a very different way, to handle some of these high turnover use categories that are many times allowed by right. Zoning is very complex, and people don’t understand a lot of it. We have to follow the letter of the law when it comes to zoning approvals. But I will be addressing the zoning aspect on this in the upcoming zoning regulations. That’s another tool.”
Hunt said businesses can make a decision not to do giveaways, and they want to promote their businesses, he understands that.
“But, think about the Black Friday deals,” he suggested. “If a business offers something really great, but only has two cash registers open, who is at fault there? Is it the patron’s fault for going for the deals? Or is it a business for having only two cash registers open? It is the same premise.”
The ordinance passed unanimously, 6 to 0.