We had a very long meeting last night.  There were more people there than I’ve ever seen before.  As one might expect, the vast majority of those present were opposed to the store opening in Old Town.  A significant subset of those opposed the store opening anywhere.  Thanks to everyone that came out!  Wish we had that much citizen involvement on a regular basis.

The City Attorney made a long presentation in order to give his opinion on the law in this matter.  There is a copy of his document here.  The long and short of this appears to be that this store has fulfilled the City’s requirements for a retail establishment and it may open.  Many in the crowd disagreed with his opinion and urged the Council to simply pull the store’s business license.  The Attorney also went through the machinations and lawsuits that PWC (whose budget is roughly 10x ours) endured in fighting with the porn shops in the County.  IMPORTANT: They spent a ton of money but were ultimately unsuccesful in closing any of these businesses and ended up settling for an enforcement mechanism that was already available.

The Council listened to our citizens and then we decided to refer the question to our Land-Use committee to do two things:  The Land-Use committee will investigate the current status of the business and explore the legal reality of a business like this operating in our Old Town.  The Land-Use committee will also investigate the matter in order to establish the impacts of this sort of business on the community and then the committee will forward recommendations to Council to enact some regulation.  This is important in that whatever action is taken must be carefully considered, not another ill-considered effort that ends up with the City in federal court.  We must proceed by the numbers.

For my part, I don’t care much for the business as it currently stands and I especially don’t like the location of the business.  I don’t want to see this kind of stuff in Old Town where we have spent so much effort and money to build a welcoming environment.  When I brought forth Manassas Next – which included the work on Battle St. and championed the creation of an Arts and Entertainment district, this wasn’t the sort of entertainment I had in mind….

On a seperate issue:  Some have asked about why the meeting wasn’t televised.  They have suggested that we were trying to hide something from our citizens…Hiding something in a meeting with some 250 people present…Are you people for real?  How much time do you think we have to do this job?  I’ve got a company to run, a family to care for, bikes to ride in order to keep my diabetes in check and, during my free time, I’m on the Council.  The fact is that we budgeted to televise only regular Council meetings…that’s the big secret.  If you’re concerned about this or any other issue come on out to City Hall!!

I’ve just sorted through my Council packet and the Mayor has called a meeting on Tuesday about the shop on Battle St.  There will first be a closed meeting at 5:30 in the second floor conference room.

This will be followed by a presentation – in an open meeting in Council chambers – by the Staff and Attorney which will be followed by a session to recieve public comment on the matter (just like citizen’s time at a regular meeting).  My guess is that it will be run like citizens time with 3 minutes for each speaker – just a guess tho.

I don’t know the timing of any of these meetings other than when the first one starts.  I would guess that the closed meeting will be about an hour or so, the presentation from the staff will probably be about an hour and then public comment which will go on for however long it goes on for.  If you’re interested in seeing the whole thing, 6:30-ish in Council chambers is my best guess.  If you want to see the Council go into closed meeting at 5:30, you’re welcome to come but it isn’t all that exciting…:)

I fully support the Mayor in this as I believe we need to hear what the people have to say on the matter.  I’m pretty sure that I know what it’ll sound like <grin> but I do encourage all to turn out and let us know.  Trust me, it matters.