ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996 TAG: 9608010039
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ELISSA MILENKY STAFF WRITER
At first glance, The Place looks like any other beer, pool and pizza joint. Signs listing beer prices are stuck to the walls. A small, red plastic Budweiser blimp hangs from the ceiling next to a giant cardboard Icehouse beer can with a sign attached that says, "Never Any Watered Down Taste."
But Styrofoam cups cover the beer taps and anyone who tries to order alcohol will get a soft drink or a glass of water instead - even though the Blacksburg poolroom received a state permit to sell beer in mid-June.
A long-forgotten restrictive covenant in the deed to the South Main Street lot where The Place is located says beer, wine, whiskey and any other alcoholic beverage can never be sold on the property. Neighbors discovered the restriction several months ago after unsuccessfully protesting the beer permit at the local level.
When the permit was granted after an appeal hearing in Richmond, neighbor A.H. Smith filed a request for a temporary injunction blocking the sale of beer at The Place based on the deed restriction. Owners of The Place were notified of the injunction on June 13 - the same day they received the alcohol permit in the mail. A judge granted the temporary ban, and The Place has been dry since, with the exception a few days when the injunction expired before the judge renewed it.
Now that lawyers on both sides have filed the necessary motions and responses, everyone is waiting for a Montgomery County Circuit judge to decide whether the injunction will be extended again until a trial.
Neighbors - who complain The Place already is generating trash, traffic and noise - said the problems will only worsen if the business is allowed to sell beer. They want the injunction to become permanent. They also fear The Place will disrupt nearby Wesleyan Community Church and the school it runs.
"This is a college town and kids want to have fun, but this is on the edge of a neighborhood. It's not downtown," said Tom Roberts, a Blacksburg engineer whose office is down the street from The Place.
Roberts, a Reform Party candidate for the 9th District congressional seat, said he is involved in the dispute because he is friends with some of the concerned neighbors and has a child at the Wesleyan Community Church school.
Owners of The Place, which opened in January, say they were never told about the restriction when they signed a one-year lease for the building and deny there have been problems with noise, traffic or trash. Without beer sales, they say, the business will fail.
"You don't make profit off of pizza unless you're a franchise," said Kristi Larson, a Virginia Tech student and one of the owners. "We make very little money off of food. If we want to make money, we have to sell beer. [The restriction is] pretty much putting us out of business."
The Place sits on the corner of South Main and Ardmore streets in front of a neighborhood of houses and a limited number of professional offices. The area was subdivided by D.A. Crismond during the 1940s, which is when the restrictive covenants were placed in the deeds for the entire neighborhood, said his widow, Peggy.
Peggy Crismond still lives in a white house adjacent to The Place, but never knew even her own deed contained the restriction until several months ago.
"I just know [my husband] never approved of alcohol," said Crismond.
The property where the Place is located, which was once owned by Smith, was empty until Paul Bostic purchased the land during the 1960s and built an auto parts shop.
The shop was later closed in favor of another location but Bostic kept the property and began leasing it to a series of retail businesses, including New River Office Supply in 1980. Mike Burnop, owner of New River Office Supply, moved his business from the building in 1988 but maintained the lease with Bostic and rented the space first to an auto parts store and then an antique dealer.
Last year Burnop sublet the space to the Diamond Mines Billiards, which sold beer for about three months until it went out of business and the owner left town. Several neighbors, including Smith and the pastor of the nearby Wesleyan Community Church, objected to the Diamond Mines' application for a beer permit but they did not know about the restriction in the deed.
Smith, 75, said there were added problems once the Diamond Mine began selling beer.
"We had drunk people running around, drunk people going to the bathroom ... and they weren't particular where they went," he said.
Burnop also said he did not know about the restriction, adding he has always talked to Bostic about potential sublessors. When he drew up the lease for The Place, Burnop even added a clause that said the rent would increase once they received a beer permit.
"I had no clue," said Burnop, who does not recall looking at the property deed. "I found out the day that they found out. Obviously I'd never lease it to them knowing they couldn't sell alcohol - especially after the Diamond Mine sold it."
Bostic, who like Burnop is a defendant in the lawsuit, said he too was unaware of the restriction.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's not up to me to pursue anything myself," Bostic said. "It's more or less to sit back and see how Mike [Burnop] defends himself ... when I turn a lease over to someone, it's not my business to nose into his business."
Smith's lawsuit maintains the owners of The Place, Burnop and Bostic should have known about the restrictions. It also says any past failures to uphold the alcohol restriction does not negate the lawsuit.
The defense maintains Smith waived his right to enforce the restriction by not raising the issue before, adding that problems such as traffic have occurred before alcohol was ever served at The Place.
Restrictive covenants typically are abandoned when the character of a neighborhood radically changes. Ashley Mobley, another part-owner of The Place, points to the nearby grocery stores and a Mexican restaurant across the street that also sell alcohol.
Clifford Harrison, Smith's attorney, said the surrounding area has become more commercial but the neighborhood itself remains primarily residential.
While the arguments continue, the Styrofoam cups remain on the beer taps at The Place - which has eight pool tables - while its owners begin to search for a new location. Smith would rather see another retail business in the space. After open heart surgery several weeks ago, he wants the neighborhood to remain quiet.
Mobley said it was never his intention to damage the neighborhood and he does not believe his business is disruptive. He never dreamed going into business would be this complicated.
"I didn't know," he said. "I'm new at this. Supposedly this is my mistake, some people say. The majority say it's not."
LENGTH: Long : 122 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. A long-forgotten restrictive covenant inby CNBthe deed to the South Main Street lot where The Place is located
says beer, wine, whiskey and any
other alcoholic beverage can never be sold on the property. color.