Moonlight’s response to nuisance citation: Put a sign over it
City code enforcer says it’s a start, but not an end.By: Chris Huber, The Daily Republic
- Moonlight Bar named nuisance
- New sign at Moonlight
Like hanging a painting over a cracked wall, a new advertisement now blankets the Moonlight Bar in Mitchell.
A massive Budweiser beer sign covers the south side of the Main Street establishment, put there in response to a nuisance letter the business received in August.
The Moonlight Bar was cited on Aug. 24 for unsightly property.
The bar’s letter was one of 35 letters Mitchell’s code enforcer Jeff Lanning sent to Main Street businesses in hope of making the downtown area more visually appealing.
An explanation in the letter to the Moonlight Bar said the establishment must “Paint/refinish unfinished exterior surfaces on the building, doors, and windows on all sides of the building. Repair or replace any broken or missing windows. Repair or replace broken siding.”
Enclosed with the letter was a picture of the south wall along with pictures of other parts of the building.
Lanning said putting up the massive sign is a start to improvements that need to be made on the building but hopefully not the end.
“It’s a start,” Lanning said. “I don’t know myself if I would do something like that but they are starting to make improvements.”
Lanning said he hopes the sign is only a temporary fix for the establishment.
“I hope they made sure that that wall was structurally sound before the sign was put up,” he said. “I hope they wouldn’t just use it as a cover up.” He said leaving the sign up would be up to the owners.
Kevin Ballard, manager for the Moonlight Bar, said the sign was put up by the building’s owner both to have more advertisement and as a way to make that south wall look better.
Ballard said he thinks it’s a good idea to have these types of code enforcement in place.
“I think we have already made some steps to this building to make it look a lot better and I know we are going to try and do some more,” he said.
The building is owned by Robin Ackman and the Moonlight Bar rents the space. Multiple calls to Ackman by The Daily Republic were not returned. Ballard was unsure if the sign is a temporary fix or a permanent one.
Overall, Lanning said he is happy with the improvements he is seeing in the downtown area.
“There has already been a large change to a lot of properties and more change is coming,” he said.
He called the cover-up type fix with the Moonlight Bar instituted an isolated incident, “most people are working with contractors to improve their buildings.” He said he has spoken with some building owners who will be continuing work in the spring to bring their buildings up to code.
Tags: news, updates, local, downtown, mitchell, nuisance, bar, moonlight
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