Off Premises Signage

 The city approved 6-1 an amendment to an ordinance at its last meeting allowing for the placing of off premises signage along East Main and East Walnut between Washington Street and Lewis Lane. However, the businesses wanting to place off-premises signage must have frontage along those right of ways.

The same ordinance was a major point of contention when the city was working to get Kohl's to open a storefront in Carbondale. One of the things Kohl's insisted on was an amendment to the same ordinance allowing it to place a sign on Highway 13 pointing towards the Kohl's location on Giant City Road.

Signage

 Someone told me Carbondale had an ordinance on the books forbidding architectural signs installed at a 90 degree angle to the building, hence the reason for all of the signs flush against the building on Illinois.  According to city ordinances, that is not so. Architectural signs, those attached to the building, can extend out over the sidewalk and other public rights of way so long as they are at least 8 feet off the ground and the owner provides proof of insurance, in the event the sign falls off the building and damages the sidewalk or konks a passerby on the head.

special City Council Meeting

 It appears the city council will hold a special meeting this Saturday, July 13, to vote to repeal Ordinance 2023-03, which had been enacted last year to limit the ability of protestors to approach clients at women's health/abortion clinics in Carbondale. According to the reasoning, there are other ordinances on the city books providing sufficient protection so this ordinance was not needed. Although I am not a lawyer, I would guess there was some pushback or threats of legal action for passing an ordinance targeting protests by a specific group.

No Mow May

 I am going to contact the city to see about starting No Mow May in Carbondale.  It sounds like a worthwhile initiative to increase food for pollinators early in the year. Homeowners register with the city and receive a waiver for the month of May from having to maintain their lawns, allowing dandelions, clover and other flowering plants to grow and provide food for bees and other insects early in the year. Once the grace period expires, of course, local ordinances regarding lawn maintenance once again apply.

Ordinance Requiring Face Coverings

 City council meeting coming up this Tuesday evening by GoTo meeting only. you can register here. Major item on the agenda is an ordinance requiring Carbondale owners to make sure their employees wear face masks by providing for employer liability if they do not.

From the agenda:

Recommended Action

 

Adopt and ordinance requiring employers to ensure employees wear face coverings.

Originating Department: Legal

 

Background:

 

Since Ordinance 2020-24 was adopted, City staff has responded to multiple complaints concerning employees of businesses not wearing face coverings. As a result, the staff has reviewed the possibility, and the legality, of establishing employer liability for employees failing to wear face coverings. It's the City Attorney's opinion that employers are better suited to control the behavior of their employees. By providing for employer liability, the City can more easily enforce the current mask ordinance and ensure the safety of employees and customers. 

 

Additionally, Staff has been working with the Jackson County Health Department (JCHD) to seek compliance of one local business where at least 10 positive cases of COVID have been traced to. Following conversations with JCHD, it's our belief that placing responsibility on the employer to require face coverings of their employees will provide an additional, and more effective tool to facilitate compliance of businesses.

 

Recommended Action: It's recommended that the City Council adopt and ordinance requiring employers to ensure employees wear face coverings.

Sign Shaker

From what I remember, the rationale for Carbondale' s ordinance banning sign shakers is rooted in the number of accidents that have taken place, near the intersection of Main and Oakland, primarily due to distracted drivers. I think, given the epidemic and the difficulty that city businesses, especially restaurants and bars are having and the drop in the number of cars on the street, it might be a good idea for the council to revisit this ordinance and others, perhaps putting in a exemption until restaurants get back to normal operation.

LAB Agenda

Only thing on this week's Liquor Advisory Board agenda is a proposal to allow taxi and similar compensated drivers to purchase and deliver alcohol to customers. Really not a bad idea as it would keep people who are going to consume the alcohol off the roads. Big concern I see is checking for underage purchases. How do you make sure that the people who order the alcohol are of legal age to consume it. When you buy it in a store, ID is required. ID would still be required but there is a lot less oversight of a taxi or Uber driver than a checker in a store.

VBRO/Homeway

Had a reader of the blog point out that short term rental platform VBRO/Homeway pulled its operations out of the city shortly after the city passed a revision to Title 5, Chapter 17 of the Carbondale Revised Code. VBRO operates similarly to AirBnB, which also operates in Carbondale. Previously, the code required that the owners of short term rental properties collect the sales tax due for the rental and remit it to the city. The revised code moves that obligation to the housing platform, requiring it to collect sales taxes and remit them to the city.

VBRO felt this change in the regulations too onerous, given the size of the Carbondale market and pulled Carbondale listings from its platform after the regulation passed. Currently, AirBnB still lists Carbondale properties on its platform but had indicated it may pull them after the first of the year as well.  The city has indicated this is certainly not the desired outcome and will revisit the ordinance.

Inflatables Regulations

The city is proposing allowing the use of inflatables and air dancers for advertising by businesses throughout the city, except, of course, for some reason, for the downtown business district. This is a good move, except, of course (and you knew there was going to be another "of course") for the time limit. Businesses will only be able to use inflatables and air dancers to promote their business  for 2 48 hour periods or one 96 hour period per year. This pretty much guarantees no business in their right mind will spend the money to invest in something it can only use 4 days a year.

Carbondale has a pretty undeserved reputation as a city unfriendly to business. Enacting an ordinance with this short a time frame on the used of an advertising tool does not help mitigate that image. If the city must put a time limit, make it 90 or 120 days in order to justify businesses investing in them, though even better would be no time limit at all.

Signage

Looks like the city council will be looking at adjusting signage ordinances to allow businesses to use more streamers and pennants and some use of inflatables and air dancers, which I thought were already allowed in town since I have seen them used off and on in town over the years. Also bemused by the fact that the plan is to add an amendment to the current ordinance, rather than just rewriting the original one and adopting it. This is why so many communities have laws that make no sense in today's world. It is easier to add another layer of rules to the ones we already have than it is to rewrite the existing ones.

"The Carbondale Planning Commission will meet at 6 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 22 in the City Council chambers. Among items on the agenda will be a request from the Chamber for a text amendment relating to certain types of prohibitive signs.

This text amendment is the result of a sub-committee of the commission which included Chamber representatives as well.

This action would allow businesses to use streamers and pennants and would allow for some uses of inflatables and "air dancers."

Pony May Reopen

The liquor license for The Pony Cabaret and Steakhouse comes up for renewal for 2016-2017 today. Also on the agenda is a formalized definition of what is meant by "topless" and "bottomless". It appears they may have used an "or" in the original ordinance when they meant to write "and".

Jeffry Laundromat Closed

Downtown Carbondale landmark Jeffry Laundromat has had this noticed posted on the front door since early April, indicating a notice to shut the property due to not having a working restroom use by employees and customers. It appears that the restroom situation has not been dealt with as the doors have been locked for about two weeks or so.

Panhandling Ordinance

Carbondale's panhandling ordinance may not stand up to a 1st amendment challenge, should another chose to bring one against it. Courts are showing a track record of throwing out ordinances forbidding panhandling .

Food Trucks

Given that the city council voted to OK food trucks on public property at last night's meeting, will we get swamped with them? I would be not, at least not on the town square, whcih appeared the major point of concern when voting on the ordinance.

The town square just doesn't have the concentration of population needed to sustain a food truck, which by their very nature need heavy pedestrian traffic in order to stay in business. Consider the Strip, or S. Illinois depending on how well you know Carbonale. During the Strip's heyday in the 1990s, foot traffic at night could support up to 4 transient food stands within a two block stretch. Winston's Bagels held out for long after the others departed but eventually even he moved to a more lucrative location on East Grand.

Food trucks will do well if they can locate near Memorial Hospital, giving staff there a convenient option to on-premises dining, near the clinics on the west side of town, or close to campus, as students are always looking for another dining option. Any place else just doesn't have the concentration of population needed to support a food truck.

Alcohol at Sidewalk Cafes

Ah, here's more info on the ordinance under discussion at city council tonight. Currently it is not legal to consume alcoholic drinks at sidewalk tables in the city, though consumption is fine inside. I would assume that, currently, consuming drinks at the tables violates the city ordinances on open consumption of spirits, though why beer gardens are OK is a bit befuddling. Still a change in the ordinance is probably a good move.

Sidewalk Cafe Ordinance

Carbondale's ordinance regarding sidewalk cafes is on the city council agenda for tomorrow. No idea how they will be approaching it. More restaurants are putting chairs and tables out on the sidewalk so wonder if they plan to put limits on the number:

The Carbondale City Council will meet at 7 p.m., tomorrow, Tuesday, Jan. 11 Among items on the agenda is consideration on an amendment to city ordinances on sidewalk cafes.

Grubbs Gets Stipend

According to this article from the Southern, as part of his contract, Chief Grubbs will receive a $15000 stipend to cover costs of renting or purchasing property within the city limits and will continue to receive the stipend until such time as city council revises the ordinance  to extend the residency requirement.

I hope Chief Grubbs will do a bang up job as a chief, justifying the retroactive payraise and and the stipend. However, 'twould also could be viewed as Carbondale is such an undesirable place to live that you have to pay the police chief to move here.

Halloween 2

City Council voted to remove the remaining restrictions on Halloween bar openings last night and now people can buy kegs without restriction as well.

Meanwhile, The Southern keeps re purposing 20 year old photos of Halloween celebrations past in its accompaniments to their stories about the change. You would think they would have a more recent photo showing more recent Halloween festivities.

People are not going to block the Strip any more. For one thing, the state is much more aggressive about not letting people block a state highway, then it was 20 years ago. Number 2, the city has an ordinance in place forbidding groups of people from congregating on sidewalks in the evening for long periods of time, mainly to prevent things like students "taking the Strip".

While students would regularly close down the Strip every weekend in the 1990s, I cannot recall any instances of it happening since the turn of the century, due to stepped up enforcement.

Halloween

A proposal to permanently end the  Halloween restrictions on downtown bar hours is on the city council agenda tonight. Currently, council must revisit this every year and reauthorize it, in order to prevent a return to the violence filled celebrations of the 1990s. Today however, since the demarcation line for enforcement moved south to West Elm, the current ordinance only affects 3 bars:   Hangar 9, Sidetracks and Stix. City council feels that so few bars are affected, revisiting the issue on an annual basis makes little to revisit the issue every year.

I did find it amusing that the story in the Southern, front page no less, uses 15 year old photos of the crowds back in the 1990s and 2000, instead of more recent photos from recent years which would show a mostly empty Illinois Avenue on Halloween weekend.

More on Noise

The Southern thinks the noise ordinance targets students, despite what council says. I have to agree.

Also 50 feet distance during the day time and 25 at night is not very much distance. I was walking down  N. Springer this afternoon and could easily hear two me talking loudly half a block away, easily over 50 feet. Are they in violation of the ordinance?