Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 28, 1995 TAG: 9507280086
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It wasn't the zoo in Michael and Lisa Burns' stifling upstairs bedroom that almost cost Lisa her home day-care business.
Nor was it the twice-monthly shipments of tarantulas and reptiles to their Salem home that made City Council members squeamish about granting Burns the rezoning she needed to continue her business.
What was at issue was the two-block stretch of Tennessee Street where the Burnses' home stands. It's an oasis of strictly residential homes in an area flooded by businesses.
"It's the last threshold in the neighborhood," said the Burnses' neighbor Tim Vermillion at a public hearing on the matter. "Once you allow a business in a neighborhood, how can you turn the next person down?"
It was a question Lisa Burns couldn't answer. Actually, she said she hadn't considered it before Monday night's council meeting.
"He brought up some good points," she said of Vermillion. "I never stopped to think about the business [being in a neighborhood]. I just wanted to keep my babies."
The babies Burns is fretting over are five of the 10 children enrolled in the Burns' Family Home Day Care.
She cares for too many kids for a home occupation permit - Salem allows no more than five - and council denied her request to rezone her home as a residential business.
But a change in a city ordinance that council is pondering could save the day care, which is one of two businesses in the Burns' rented frame home.
Upstairs is Michael Burns' exotic pet business; downstairs is the day care.
"I close my eyes, and I can't even remember how it got started," Lisa Burns said. And at that moment, it's difficult to tell which of the couple's passions she's referring to.
Both ventures started out small and grew. Their time was the first victim; their home was next.
Charlotte worked her way through Michael Burns' arms and slithered around his back.
She was the family's first pet - a 7-foot-long boa constrictor. And when Michael first brought the snake home, Lisa was none too pleased.
"I was ignorant. I didn't know anything about them," she recalled. Her husband teased her ab out being scared.
That was two years ago.
Now the rule of the house is, when Michael gets a shipment of animals to sell to pet stores, Lisa can't touch anything.
"We try not to let her hold anything, because she wants to keep it," he said.
That's how Stub, a spotted leopard gecko that's short one appendage, found a home.
"He came in and couldn't walk. I had to keep him," she explained.
Over time, her sympathy and his "hobby gone mad" have added up to a collection of reptiles that any pet store would envy.
They have between 15 and 20 in what used to be their bedroom.
The animals aren't for sale; they're the family pets. After all, Michael is allergic to cats, and Lisa isn't fond of dogs.
To them, it's just like having a cat or a dog, except these pets are kept in alarmed cages in a room with a padlocked door.
"Cats and dogs are very ordinary," said 9-year-old Kristen Burns, who enjoys the fact that her home is a neighborhood attraction.
Every other Friday, the kids show up like clockwork to catch a glimpse of Michael Burns' latest shipment of pythons, lizards and frogs.
Spoofy, a skittish iguana, is one of the few pets that's ever left the safety of the upstairs bedroom. He belongs to the 10 preschoolers, and he is the only connection between what goes on upstairs and downstairs.
|n n| Little waist-high hooks and brightly colored letters adorn the downstairs entrance. A back bedroom is filled with cribs, and the back yard is a preschooler's fantasy, filled with toys of every color in the rainbow.
"When I decided I wanted to do this, I wanted it to be done right," Lisa Burns said.
But a day care wasn't always what she had planned.
In fact, when the Burnses moved to Salem 31/2 years ago, they were looking for a day care, not looking to start one.
It began with her baby-sitting one or two children for her friends. Soon, she had applied for a state license. Now she has 10 kids in her care, and she keeps a waiting list of seven.
All of the parents of her charges know about the padlocked door upstairs, she said. (So does the city's animal control department.)
"That's the first thing I tell [parents] when we interview," she said. But the quality of care "is more important to them than what's going on upstairs."
But more important than either, Lisa learned Monday, is city law.
"I thought once I had my state license, I was OK," she said.
She since has realized she was wrong. And earlier this week, her ignorance of the law almost cost her half of "her babies."
A home occupation permit would allow her to keep five children, with no outside employees. Not only does she break both rules, but she also lacks the permit.
It was Vermillion who tipped off the city. He admitted at the public hearing that he went to the commissioner of revenue looking for Burns' business license. When he didn't find one, he informed the commissioner of revenue.
Burns got the license and thought that was enough.
It wasn't. The commissioner of revenue's office turned her case over to the planning office.
And that's when she found herself in a zoning quandary.
But things are looking up for her.
At its Aug. 14 meeting, City Council will consider rewriting the city's zoning ordinances for day care.
Actually, there is no code on home day cares, just an interpretation of zoning law written about 10 years ago, said Planning Director Joe Yates.
He's recommending that council change its policy for dealing with in-home day care businesses that have between six and 10 children. The change will call for a zoning and use permit, but no actual rezoning.
For Lisa Burns, that could mean another hearing - and the chance to keep all her children.
But if all else fails, she said, she will go to the Planning Commission Aug. 16 and get her home occupation permit and start the dreaded elimination process.
"You try looking at children you've raised since they were 6 weeks old, and take five children out," she said. "I don't know how I'll choose."
by CNB