THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 1, 1995 TAG: 9412300215
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: On the Street
SOURCE: Bill Reed
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
The year 1994 passed too swiftly, or so it seemed.
It began with much promise, but never quite reached the heights expected.
The past 12 months did, however, bring some joy and pain to Virginia Beach residents, whether they wanted it or not. Raps, Pats and Shrugs are hereby accorded to those primarily responsible.
RAP for FERC, an apt acronym for a federal energy regulatory agency that is ostensibly standing between Virginia Beach and a 60-million gallon-a-day municipal water source at Lake Gaston. The agency is in the midst of yet another snail's pace study on the possible environmental effects of laying 80-plus miles of water line from the lake to the Beach. Every endangered catfish, mudguppy and hoptoad in the lake will be fossilized by the time the study is completed.
SHRUG for the city officials who decided to demolish the 36-year-old Dome, otherwise known as the Alan B. Shepard Civic Center or the Virginia Beach Civic Center. The oversized golf ball was a unique architectural structure - a geodesic dome - that gave the resort strip needed character and a lot of happy and colorful entertainment memories. It was torn down because it was deemed too expensive to fix up and maintain - AND because city economic development big wigs think the property is much too valuable to be a mere repository for a dimpled pile of aluminum.
RAP on the folks who wanted to place Dixie Stampede, a cornpone Civil War-theme dinner theater, at the Dome site. Stampede, a spinoff from the Dolly Parton entertainment conglomerate, was shot down quicker than a ruptured Pungo quail after representatives of the city's black community vehemently objected to city sponsorship of a program that prominently displayed Confederate flags.
RAP on the Virginia Racing Commission, which this summer, awarded out-of-the-way, sparsely populated and underdeveloped New Kent County the right to build the state's only horse racing track. This was done although Virginia Beach had both Churchill Downs - a backer with the bucks, the experience and the know-how - the space and the annual tourist draw, to make the whole parimutuel gambling package work.
RAP on the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Commission for giving The Edge, an Atlantic Avenue tavern, the ``death sentence'' - yanking its liquor license permanently - after a lower-level ABC official had fined owner Alex Asercion and suspended his license for 20 days. His crime, failing to ensure that food and liquor sales at his establishment met the required state-mandated proportions: 40 percent food to 60 percent liquor. The scales of justice were tipped by the overzealous thumb of the state in this case.
PAT for the city officials who decided to place late-night parking restrictions on most neighborhoods adjoining the resort strip to cut down on dark-to-dawn lawlessness, littering and partying in those residential areas by thoughtless, insensitive louts. After some eleventh-hour dickering with some unhappy folks, the city decided to give bona fide residents free on-street parking permits and two guest passes. Anything beyond that will cost them some dough. Peace and tranquillity doesn't come without a price these days.
PAT for the City Council members who voted to award the new resort entertainment contract to Cellar Door rather than hand it back to Virginia Beach Events Unlimited with all its good ol' boy and girl connections. VBEU, as Virginia Beach Events Unlimited is commonly referred to, has staged some great programs in the past 11 years - the North American Fireworks Competition and the American Music Festival, to name a couple. However, VBEU's administrators couldn't quite get it together when it came to accounting for more than $1 million in city money used to back the events. Cellar Door, a nationwide concert promotions company, has two years to prove that it can do better. by CNB