Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 4, 1993 TAG: 9312040006
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ed shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Doug Trout has made due with the tight space since he rented the place and moved his body shop there nearly 14 years ago. It's inconvenient, tough to drive into and out of, and not much of a neighborhood, but Trout's business is steady.
In a rough and tumble business, in an occasionally rough and tumble neck of town, Trout has survived by being a rough and tumble customer himself. A squat man with a snaggletoothed grin, he's had a run-in now and again with officialdom and he admits he has no use for government bureaucracy.
His disposition hasn't improved over the years as, he says, Roanoke has made it clear to him that it might be best for everybody if he'd find a new place for his body shop.
After all, in a couple of years his neighbor across Williamson Road - the Hotel Roanoke - will again host guests. How would it look for the city if visitors were to part their curtains in the morning and peer across the parking lot at Doug's Body Shop?
In truth, the body shop isn't as offensive at Yellow Cab Co., or the Norfolk Southern Corp. shops, or any of the other local garden spots that hotel visitors will see when they gaze in that direction.
But no mind. Worried that his year-to-year lease might not be renewed in March, Trout went shopping for a new home for his business - and found one.
A few blocks away, on Orange Avenue, Trout found a building that would comfortably fit his business, his beat-up cars, and maybe even the drag racer he drives during the summer.
He negotiated to buy the place, if the zoning could be changed to allow his body shop. Nobody expected much of a problem because that stretch of Orange Avenue is a body-shop type of neighborhood.
But Trout would have to appear before the city Planning Commission, and later City Council, to get the required approvals.
He hired a lawyer and arranged to attend the Planning Commission's meeting this week. The Planning Commission in Roanoke meets on the first Wednesday of the month.
Doug Trout, never fond of city hall even philosophically, prepared to visit the place physically. He washed up, made sure his workers knew what they needed to do in his absence, and left for the 1:30 p.m. meeting in council chambers.
His attorney was there, and so was a woman applying for a zoning change in another part of town.
Other than that, the place was empty.
Many of the commission members were partying aboard the trash train choo-choo to the new Smith Gap Landfill for a tour, listening to barbershop quartet music and lunching on barbecue.
The meeting had been postponed, but nobody told Doug Trout.
He was not a happy man.
by CNB