Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 24, 1995 TAG: 9502240106
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Big Boy is in Big Trouble.
The city that boasts a giant star atop a mountain says it won't allow a Big Boy - with or without an earring and tattoo - on the roof of a one-story restaurant downtown.
And it definitely won't stand for a fiberglass statue of a waitress with rollerskates and a flashing neon hula hoop.
City Zoning Administrator Evelyn Dorsey this week told Roanoke restaurateur Roland "Spanky" Macher that the punk version of the Big Boy statue atop his new Star City Diner violates the city's rooftop sign ordinance. She gave him until March 3 to take the thing down.
Macher says his Big Boy won't budge.
And he vows to go ahead today with plans to hoist the waitress - hereafter referred to in official correspondence as "the dancing lady" - onto the restaurant's roof, whether the city likes it or not.
Actually, what Macher said was: "We're going to war. Well, don't say war."
Say, maybe, "legal battles."
The saga of the Big Boy - already loaded with fighting words like "defacing an American icon" - took another nasty turn Thursday.
On the one side are city officials who say they're just trying to enforce the law - and besides, Macher's ignored their warnings for six months.
On the other side, a restaurateur with a history of battling City Hall who says he's being "harrassed" while the rich and powerful have found ways to get around irritants like the rooftop sign ordinance.
But first, a recap of how things got to this point: Macher, you may recall, found a statue of a Big Boy, the symbol of the restaurant chain, in a Georgia antique shop. He paid $1,200 for it and brought it back to Roanoke, where he gave Big Boy a fashion makeover: bleach blonde hair, an earring and a tattoo.
Last week, Macher put Big Boy atop his Star City Diner, set to open in about two weeks. Roanoke Mayor David Bowers declared Big Boy an "appropriate" symbol and said he looked forward to eating there. Matthew Kennell, who heads Downtown Roanoke Inc., proclaimed that "anything that will slow down people and make them spend money" downtown was fine with him.
Not so fast, boys. You're forgetting about Section 36.1-445, paragraph C of the city code: "Rooftop signs are prohibited in all districts ..."
Only hours after a newspaper story noting the appearance of this new city landmark hit readers' doorsteps on Wednesday, the city's zoning boss tracked down Macher at his new restaurant.
From there, accounts differ.
Macher claims Dorsey was "mean and hateful." Dorsey contends Macher "walked past me and said, 'Have a nice day,'" when she told him he was breaking the law.
This much, however, the two sides agree on:
Macher never told the city about Big Boy. But last fall he did show Dorsey his sketches of the rooftop waitress - who at the time was going to hold the restaurant's name over her head. Dorsey told him forget it. Her letter of Sept. 14 was quite emphatic on that point: "The dancing lady would not be allowed ... "
The reason: The city prohibits rooftop signs, except for those "grandfathered" in when the ordinance was enacted in 1966, such as the famous H&C Coffee sign.
Dorsey says that's the last she heard from Macher.
Macher says fine, he changed his plans, and had the restaurant's name removed from the waitress statue. No name, no sign, he figures.
No way, Dorsey contends.
She quotes the city code. A sign is "any device designed to inform or attract the attention of a person not on the premises."
"So it doesn't have to say anything," she says. In her eyes, Big Boy's a sign, whether he says anything or not. If he's on the roof, he's outside the law. Ditto "the dancing lady."
She contends Macher is willfully ignoring her warnings. "If the person is, in my opinion, setting out to break the law, I'm not treating it lightly," she says.
So now the legal clock is ticking. Macher says he intends to ignore Dorsey's oral warning and will wait for the required written notice after 10 days. Then he'll hire a lawyer and take his case to the Board of Zoning Appeals - or maybe to court.
In the meantime, he claims he's being "harassed" by city officials.
Why can't he erect a Big Boy and a waitress on rollerskates when there's already a national-debt clock atop his building? Macher asks.
Yes, what about the national-debt clock? Isn't that a rooftop sign?
Dorsey says she doesn't know, that it went up before she was in charge of zoning. But a computer check of city records shows that when the debt clock was installed in 1993, city officials declared it wasn't a rooftop sign, but rather an "addition" to the building - and issued a building permit for it.
Ah ha! Macher says. There's evidence of selective enforcement, he says. The debt clock was paid for by two of Roanoke's most influential business leaders, George Cartledge and John Hancock (who has since died), and was sponsored by two former congressmen, Caldwell Butler and Jim Olin.
"I think it's kind of funny; if you have a lot of political contacts and are a big figure in town, then you can get these decisions," Macher says. "I know I'm considered a rebel in the eyes of the city."
But he thinks he's figured out a way to beat the city by its own rules. If the debt clock is legally part of the building, then the top of the clock should constitute the rooftop, he says. Since Big Boy and the waitress are shorter than the debt clock, they're technically not on the roof, he counters.
Stay tuned.
by CNB