Here are some FAQs about the proposal:

What is being proposed for Lower Greenville?
There is an imbalance of businesses on Lower Greenville: too few restaurants, neighborhood pubs, and retailers that are open during the day and evening and too many bars that are open only late at night. While this might not be a problem in a more commercial area, the strip of businesses on Lower Greenville is surrounded by neighborhoods. Nearby residents bear the brunt of the crime, noise, traffic, littering, and other problems that this over-saturation of bars brings to their neighborhood. Moreover, significant taxpayer dollars and city resources are expended to keep the area safe and under control late at night.

The legal processes the city has at its disposal to address this imbalance of businesses is not enough to fix the problem. When the city is successful in auditing a bar and persuading a court to close it down, another bar just takes its place. This piecemeal approach to enforcement is never going to fix Lowest Greenville.

To comprehensively address this problem, Councilmembers Angela Hunt and Pauline Medrano are proposing that Lower Greenville businesses that want to stay open past midnight be required to get a special permit from the city. This “specific use permit” or “SUP” would be required for any business operating after midnight, regardless of the type of business – it would apply equally to bars, restaurants, shoe shops, drycleaners and any other businesses.

The permit can be granted for several years for known businesses that haven’t caused problems, or it can be granted on an annual basis for those businesses that are new, unknown quantities. Or it can be denied for businesses that cause problems weekend after weekend. And even those bad operators won’t have to shut down entirely; they’ll just have to close their doors at midnight. We believe this will bring some balance back to Lowest Greenville and encourage a better quality and mix of businesses.

Are you trying to shut down Lower Greenville at midnight and close all the bars?
No! The goal is simply to bring some balance back to Lower Greenville and reduce the impact of businesses that operate late at night, not close down all bars or eliminate all nightlife.

There are a number of businesses – The Libertine, Winedale Tavern, and Taco Cabana to name a few – that are open past midnight that don’t pose any problem at all and have proven themselves to be good neighbors. These businesses are assets to the surrounding neighborhoods and they won’t have any problems obtaining long-term permits to operate after midnight.

Unfortunately there are other businesses that overburden the surrounding neighborhood by bringing crime, noise, traffic and other problems to our residents. Such businesses may be granted a permit only for a short duration or denied a permit to operate after midnight. But it is important to remember that even if bad operators are denied permits to operate after midnight, they aren’t being closed down – they can still operate until midnight without any special permit.

Why is midnight the cut-off?
The Dallas Police Department has confirmed that most of the problems on Lower Greenville – particularly violent crime, alcohol-related offenses, assaults, crowd control – primarily occur after midnight. While some community leaders suggested an earlier cut-off time, midnight seemed like a good compromise.

What area would be covered by this proposal?
The commercial properties on Lower Greenville between Belmont and Bryan.

What’s the process for creating this new permit requirement?
To require a special permit for businesses open past midnight on Lower Greenville, the city must create a new zoning district for the area – a “Planned Development District” or “PD.” Creating a new Planned Development District requires a hearing in front of the city plan commission where the public can weigh in on the proposal. The plan commission makes a recommendation to the city council, which holds another public hearing and votes on the matter. Once the matter is voted on by the city council, it becomes law.

What is the application process for a specific use permit?
Businesses wanting to operate after midnight would fill out an SUP application and pay a permit fee to the city. Each application is considered on an individual basis by the city plan commission (which holds a public hearing) then a final determination is made by the city council, which holds another public hearing. The permit can be granted for one year or several years, depending on the business and its history.

What criteria is considered in granting or denying a specific use permit?
The city evaluates each SUP application for its probable effect on the adjacent property and the community welfare. Dallas City Code provides the following criteria to analyze requests for specific use permits:

51A-4.219 (3) The city council shall not grant an SUP for a use except upon a finding that the use will:
(A) complement or be compatible with the surrounding uses and community facilities;
(B) contribute to, enhance, or promote the welfare of the area of request and adjacent properties;
(C) not be detrimental to the public health, safety, or general welfare; and
(D) conform in all other respects to all zoning regulations and standards.
(4) The granting of an SUP has no effect on the uses permitted as of right and does not waive the regulations of the underlying zoning district.

What other changes are envisioned for Lower Greenville?
If this permit requirement is implemented, the city councilmembers for the area, Angela Hunt and Pauline Medrano, are committed to helping clean up and beautify Lower Greenville using funds from the city’s next bond program. The effort could include significant streetscape improvements such as street resurfacing; narrowing the street (to match the width north of Belmont); creating wider sidewalks; planting street trees; installing antique lighting with matching trash bins and benches; and improved pedestrian crosswalks.

I’m back! I have returned from maternity leave and attended my first City Council meeting last week. We’ve got a lot coming up on the agenda, not the least of which is a very challenging city budget and the Love Field concessions contract.  More on these and other issues in the coming weeks.

BABY
Audrey Belle is doing great, though sleep has been hard to come by. THANK YOU to everyone who has sent us so many well-wishes!

BIKE PLAN
The city is updating its quarter-century old bike plan, and Councilmember Sheffie Kadane and I are co-chairing the committee overseeing the revamp. We held our first public meeting about the plan last week, and the turnout was amazing. The council chambers were overflowing as the bike plan consultant presented dozens of options for bicycle infrastructure.

I had met the lead consultant, Peter Lagerwey of Toole Design Group, last year when he was getting close to retiring as the bicycle program director for Seattle, where he oversaw the successful planning and implementation of their bike plan.

What impressed me most about Peter’s presentation last week was that he didn’t come to the first public meeting with an almost-finished bike plan for Dallas – one that the masses would be permitted to slightly tweak around the edges, allowing him to claim public input in a process rigged from the start. I’ve seen that type of Kabuki theater play out too often in government-sponsored projects where public input is supposedly invited but in reality given short shrift.

And apparently Peter has, too, since by way of contrast, he asked the audience if they’d ever been to meetings where they felt like the plan had already been written ahead of time ( lots of hands went up, including mine). Peter explained he wasn’t there to offer a plan at this point, but to show different infrastructure types that could be considered for our bike plan, and then get feedback from the public.  He was very clear that this bike plan will be built from the ground up, with a focus on providing Dallasites with an infrastructure that meets our needs.

If you couldn’t be at the meeting last week, you’re in luck: Patrick Kennedy from Pegasus News was there and did an excellent summary. As he points out, the biggest challenge is whether the city will actually change our car-centered culture or just talk a good game. It’s fine to laud the concept of complete streets, but what happens when that means reducing car lanes to expand bicycle paths and the pedestrian realm? Do policy-makers and city staff have the courage to follow through?

Patrick hits the nail on the head when he warns self-congratulatory city leaders, “[L]et’s not count our chickens before the[y're] hatched. Will [policymakers] stand up to transpo or DOT when they shrilly scream, ‘OMG, we won’t hit level of service A if you remove that lane of traffic! We have arbitrary formulas that prove it!!!!’”

Policymakers and city staff will only be persuaded to create real complete streets with real bicycle infrastructure in Dallas (and not a failed, faux version) if they (1) learn how other cities have successfully made the transition from car-centric streets to ones that are bike- and ped-friendly, (2) understand how important complete streets are to our city’s future economic development (attacting the “creative class” and thus the companies that want to hire them), and (3) hear the public express a real interest in redefining our city to make it more liveable.   On the last point, if a progressive bike plan and complete streets are important to you, please attend the next public meeting and make your voice heard (when we have a date, I’ll post it).

In the meantime, you can give your input via the Dallas Bike Plan website, which includes an interactive map and questionnaire (Peter’s presentation will be posted soon).  And check out another great meeting recap by Daniel Rodrigue over at Unfair Park.

AWARDS
I was humbled to have received two awards right before I went on leave.  First, Dallas Voice readers selected me as Dallas’ “Best City Council Person” for the third year in a row.  Second, the League of Women Voters of Dallas honored me with the Virginia Macdonald Leadership Award, which is “given to a League member who has exhibited courage in working for change and who inspired leadership in others.” 

Thank you so much to both Dallas Voice readers and Dallas’ League of Women Voters!  I am deeply honored to have received these awards and will do my very best to continue to earn your support.

Just saw this info on the Advocate’s Lakewood/East Dallas Blog that the “Big D Marathon” will take place this Sunday, April 11 from 8am – 3pm.  Most of the course is in East Dallas, so it’ll affect our streets.  You can see a map of the course on the “Big D Texas Marathon” website.

Well, no, actually the park debate (by which I assume the DMN means the referendum to remove the toll road from the floodway) did not slow, even by a day, improvements to our levee system or lack thereof.  But let’s set that aside for a bit.

Perhaps the more important question is:  Is the fact that critical levee improvements have been hijacked by the Trinity Toll Road actually news to anyone who’s been following this issue?

Let me take you back over a year ago, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers informed the city that our levees were rated “unacceptable” under the new federal standards.   The day after that announcement, the council voted to fund a study to determine the extent of the failures and plan for remediation.  It was crystal clear then (and frankly, before then) that the city’s insistence on intertwining the levee improvements with the toll road had slowed flood control improvements for years.  Take a look at the council meeting beginning at 01:59 where I point out that the mayor and council’s fixation on placing the toll road within the floodway has hopelessly intertwined the toll road with the levee improvements, thus grinding critical flood control measures to a halt.  That were it not for the toll road’s interminable delays, we could move forward on much-needed levee improvements.

That’s not news over a year later.  What’s news is that the mayor, city council, and city manager still refuse to acknowledge this reality and sever the two projects.  We can move forward on our levee improvements if we have the political will to put the safety of our residents ahead of this toll road.

In his article, Lindenberger states without attribution or explanation, “[I]n 2007, council member Angela Hunt led a referendum aimed at preventing a toll road from being built within the levees, citing worries about costs and impact on the parks. Things came to a halt again.”

Absolutely not true.  Take a look at 02:27.  No one at the city, NTTA or Corps ever stated that the referendum was slowing down their ”progress” (or lack thereof) on flood control matters.  To the contrary; city staff was adamant that the project was proceeding full-speed ahead, despite the referendum.

So I challenge Michael Lindenberger to back up his statement that the referendum delayed much-needed levee improvements by even one day.  What particular aspect of the levee project “came to a halt”?  At what point did flood control plans halt due to the referendum and later resume and who made those decisions?  What evidence exists to support this unsubstantiated claim?

Aside from this clearly erroneous assertion, there is no news in this article.  The city has known for decades that our levees are in critical condition.  The mayor, council, and city manager have known for years that by interlocking the toll road with levee improvements we are irresponsibly and interminably delaying flood control safety.

Recently, city staff estimated that bringing our levees up to federal standards will cost somewhere in the range of $50 to $150 million.  Right now, $46 million remains of the 1998 bond funds allocated to the toll road.

What will be news is when the mayor and council decide to actually put flood control safety first and not just talk about it – when the city finally decides to cut its losses on the failed, unfunded, and unapproved toll road and shift that $46 million to critically-needed levee improvements.  That will be news.

This is a joint effort of Deputy Police Chiefs Vincent Golbeck, Julian Bernal and Tom Lawrence, neighborhood residents, special events office, code enforcement, sanitation, parking enforcement, event sponsors, myself, and others. Note that these events are privately sponsored and are not endorsed by the City of Dallas. Check for updated info at www.dallascityhall.com.

Here is a link to a flyer that has all this info as well as a map of the Lower Greenville parking restrictions.

BULKY TRASH
In response to my request to ensure as much bulky trash as possible is picked up before the Lower Greenville festivities, I received this response from Mary Nix, Director of Sanitation at the City:

Although our brush/bulk crews are straining to get back on their regular schedule – as the snow storm debris collection is a massive undertaking – we recognize the need to address the Greeneville neighborhood’s immediate need.

We’ve sent several rotoboom trucks to collect storm debris (starting earlier this week) – and are making sure they’ll cover the area for several blocks to both the east and west of Greenville from Ross Avenue to Southwestern.  They’ll go additional blocks as time allows.  We’ll do our best not to inadvertently collect the temporary “No Parking” signs as we go!

PARADE
Time: 11:00 a.m.— 2:30 p.m., from Blackwell to Yale.

Police: 150 police for traffic and crowd control plus 15 Supervisors (All police paid by sponsors).
Traffic: Southbound Greenville Ave. closes at 9:00 a.m.; other streets close at 10:00 a.m. Streets will reopen when police decide it’s safe. Officers will direct traffic at Greenville at Mockingbird, and on both sides of Central service road from Blackwell to Mockingbird.

Trash: The parade sponsor has hired additional clean-up crews. The parade route must be cleaned up by 4:00 p.m. If not, Code Enforcement will issue tickets. There will be 100 portalets.

SPECIAL EVENT PARTY
Time: 10:00 a.m.—6:00 p.m. on Greenville Ave. between Vanderbilt and Vickery. Streets close 9:00 a.m.—7:00 p.m. Street sales of alcohol end at 5:30 p.m. or earlier if Deputy Chief Golbeck deems necessary.

Police: 9:00 a.m.– 7:00 p.m.—48 officers at event site and 36 officers conducting neighborhood patrols. 7:00 p.m.-3:00 a.m.—24 officers along Greenville north of Belmont and 18 officers patrolling the neighborhood (all paid by sponsor). Additional on-duty patrol throughout the day and evening.
Shuttles: Shuttle from Mockingbird Station to Lee Elementary. No alcohol or coolers allowed on shuttles. Two DART officers will be at Station to monitor.

Alcohol: No alcohol may be brought into event. Police DWI squad will patrol and arrest for DWI. This will be a ―No Refusal‖ weekend where blood will be drawn. Large ―Don’t Drink and Drive‖ signs will be posted. Taxi stands will be on Greenville.

Other: Party is 21+ only—IDs will be strictly enforced. City Fire Inspectors will monitor max. crowd size in event and buildings. Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission will also patrol. ―Respect Our Neighborhood‖ signs will be posted. More trashcans. Code officers will patrol 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. to cite violators for parking in yards, noise, etc.

Parking: Please refer to www.cepatrolcrimewatch.org for a map of the parking restrictions. Temporary ―No Parking ― areas have been expanded. On streets with Resident Parking Only (RPO), those with the appropriate RPO placards will be allowed to park any time. Five tow trucks will be queued to tow according to the following priority: blocked intersections, blocked driveways, no parking zones. Parking enforcement officers will be towing/writing tickets from 9:00 a.m.—2:00 a.m.

AFTER THE PARTY
After the St. Patrick’s Day party, party-goers usually go to the bars on Lower Greenville. Officers and other city personnel will be in this area to protect the neighborhood.

Police: There will be 36 on duty officers south of Belmont from 7:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m.

Parking: Temporary ―No parking‖ signs will be installed in neighborhoods. On streets with Resident Parking Only (RPO), those with the appropriate RPO placards will be allowed to park any time.Parking Enforcement until 2:00 a.m.

Other: Code Enforcement will be patrolling until 2:00 a.m.

TO REPORT VIOLATIONS/PROBLEMS
Call 911 for police, parking, code, etc. problems. From 9:00 a.m.-2:00 a.m., police dispatchers will be instructed to forward all calls related to St. Patrick’s Day in Lower Greenville to the police command post at Lee Elementary. If you do not get a response or need additional help, call me on my cell phone at (214) 907-4600.  Along with other city personnel, I will be working and available all day and night to limit the impact on our neighborhoods.

The worst area on Lemmon is between the toll road and Inwood, which has tons of terrible potholes, one after another, which have been exacerbated by recent weather. (It’s not that it’s smooth as silk elsewhere; it’s just particularly bad on this section.)

Crews are working on filling literally hundreds of potholes on Lemmon, and they anticipate it’ll take a week or longer to finish. I’ll be monitoring.

The toll road isn’t going to happen. The NTTA has said they are more than a billion dollars short in funding for the road. There are no “buckets of money” to dip into that the mayor once proclaimed were lying around for the road. The NTTA has also said that due to its current project commitments, it wouldn’t even be able to consider any other projects for five years. So, realistically speaking, the toll road is dead.

So if the toll road is dead, and the park is still viable, why on earth would we divert funds from the park instead of the toll road? We must move forward on flood safety improvements, so there’s no question we need to fund the federal levee study, and quickly. But take the money from a project that is clearly stalled, and let us get going on some park improvements that we can enjoy now.

Here’s a wrap-up of some recent news articles about the Trinity Toll Road:

“Dallas diverts Trinity bond funds to levee repairs” by Rudy Bush (Dallas Morning News)

Dallas has shifted tens of millions of dollars in Trinity River bond funds to study and repair its substandard levee system but so far has declined to use money set aside for the stalled Trinity toll road project.

Instead, $27 million has been diverted from the reconstruction of a critical floodwater pumping station along the river to form the bulk of funds for a major study of the levee system.

And today, the City Council is poised to advance an additional $4.75 million – originally intended for construction of the Trinity lakes – toward a feasibility study aimed at ensuring the levees’ future soundness.

Yet even as talk at City Hall shifts toward the possibility of holding a bond election to fund major levee repairs, there has been little discussion about using any part of $46.3 million in unspent bond funds set aside for the toll road.

“Council approves $4.75 million advance to Corps for Trinity flood control study; money comes from lakes bond money” by Steve Thompson (DMN City Hall Blog)

The City Council just approved an advance of $4.75 million – originally intended for construction of the Trinity lakes – toward a feasibility study aimed at ensuring the levees’ future soundness….

The lone dissent came from council member Angela Hunt, who said that rather than take the money from lakes funds, it should be taken from funds designated for the toll road, the prospects for which look dimmer than ever.

“So instead of using funds for the park and lakes, let’s use funds that essentially don’t have any use right now,” she said. “We cannot possibly go forward on this project that is – that is dead.”

Hunt went on: “We’re going to have to at some point admit that this toll road isn’t going to happen, and for us to throw up our hands or put our head in the sand and just pretend that this toll road’s going to get done at any cost – let me say that cost is for Dallas tax payers to bear the burden — and It’s disingenuous of us to continue on this path and tell voters that it makes sense for us to cont to spend money on a toll road that’s not going to get done.”

“Jacquielynn Floyd: How long can we stay stuck on the parkway?” (Dallas Morning News)

The hour is growing awfully dark for the Trinity Parkway, the hard-fought plan to run a major reliever road for Dallas’ painfully overloaded downtown freeways inside the river levees….

Yet way back in some timid, worrying part of my noggin, the lobe that frets about swine flu and engine noises and termites, the anxious question persists: But y’all do have a backup plan, right?

….[T]his plan really seems beset by staggering obstacles. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, permanently snakebit by the lessons of Hurricane Katrina, has repeatedly raised concerns about the Trinity levees, pushing the construction start back, and back again.

Cost estimates have increased – a lot – while funding sources are shriveling.

“Trinity toll road faces levee work delays” by Michael Lindenberger (Dallas Morning News)

The prospects for the Trinity Parkway are dimmer now than they have been in years.

A top city official said last week that the toll road again will be delayed by problems with the Trinity River levees. Work to shore up flood protection will push the road’s schedule beyond the mid-2012 start date that Mayor Tom Leppert set last year when worries first surfaced about the integrity of the 80-year-old levees downtown….

For years, and throughout the 2007 campaign, city officials touted an understanding with the NTTA that limits Dallas’ share of the road’s cost to $84 million. But since then, the price has continued to grow, and NTTA has said its ability to pay the difference has disappeared “for the foreseeable future.”

“Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics: Yet Again, The Dallas News Rewrites the History of Trinity River Toll Road” by Jim Schutze (Dallas Observer)

Yesterday’s paper was, for me, heaven-sent. There, on Page One, was a story by transportation reporter Michael A. Lindenberger revealing that every single thing Dallas city council member Angela Hunt has said about the toll road has turned out to be true. It revealed that Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert has engaged in egregious untruths about the project….

In the 2007 referendum on plans to build a new super-highway through downtown, Hunt made two main arguments: The design of the road, which called for it to be built out between the levees in the river’s floodway, is unsafe and unsound. And in part because of this massive design flaw, the road will be far too expensive to build.

Linderberger’s story concedes that plans for the toll road went awry “after planners decided it should be built between the levees.” The story makes it clear that funding for the project is at least a billion dollars short of the cost.

So doesn’t that make Hunt 100 percent right and Leppert 110 percent wrong?

Last night, I went to the Double Wide benefit concert for the businesses and employees who lost their jobs as a result of last week’s fire on Lower Greenville.  The Doublewide was great to host this, and Chelsea Callahan did an outstanding job organizing the five bands in such short order, helping raise funds for these newly-unemployed workers.

The neighborhood support for these restaurants and pubs — Terrilli’s, Mick’s, Greenville Ave., Hurricane — has been amazing.  Neighborhood associations are selling t-shirts to benefit the employees, a local bank and other business owners have set up a fund to provide financial support, and a facebook page has been created to highlight other job opportunities.

I’ve gotten so many emails from people — lawyers, planners, historic preservationists, architects – offering their services to the building owners free of charge, so the building can be rebuilt and the businesses (and their employees) can get back on their feet as soon as possible.  (I’m passing along this info to the owner, who pledged to keep the historic facade and rebuild quickly.)  A testament to the community support for these businesses can be seen in the many flowers now adorning the chain link fence surrounding the burned-out property — letting the owners and employees know that we are deeply saddened by their loss, that their departure has left a hole in our community, and that we wish them well.

This outpouring of support got me thinking:  Would we have seen the same response if a block of Lowest Greenville — say, south of Bell Avenue — had suffered a similar fate?

I don’t think so.

It’s not that the loss to the business owners or employees would have been any less traumatic or worthy of the neighborhood’s generosity.  But the businesses we lost last week were just the kind that we want on Greenville Avenue — restaurants and pubs that attract mostly neighborhood folks, that are family-friendly, and that have patrons visiting throughout the day not just late at night.

We see too few such businesses on Lowest Greenville — too few restaurants, neighborhood pubs, and retailers and too many bars.  Way too many bars.  All crammed into the middle of a residential area.  They’re open only late at night and cater to a mostly non-local clientele of frat boys and gangbangers, all itching to get their booze on.  We waste a lot of police time and resources and taxpayer dollars baby-sitting these bars and their drunks, dealing with the aftermath of bar shootings and murders and assaults that take place within half a block of people’s homes.  The police do their best to manage the traffic and parking problems, the noise problems, the litter and alcohol problems.  But this area was never, ever intended to house so many bars in a six block area surrounded by homes.

These bars are supposed to be getting special permits and go through a public process, but they don’t.  They skirt the rules and exist on the edge of legality.  The legal process the city has at its disposal just isn’t enough to fix the problem.  When we are lucky enough to audit a bar, win in court and close it down, another bar just takes its place.  This piecemeal approach to enforcement isn’t ever going to fix Lowest Greenville.

So Councilmember Pauline Medrano and I have proposed a special zoning district for Lowest Greenville that would require businesses that want to stay open past a certain time — say 11:30 p.m. or midnight — to get a special permit.  That’s it.  The permit can be granted for several years for known businesses that haven’t caused problems, or it can be granted on an annual basis for those businesses that are new, unknown quantities.  Or it can be denied for bars that cause problems weekend after weekend.  And even those bad operators won’t have to shut down; they’ll just have to close their doors at 11:30 p.m. or midnight.  We believe this will bring some balance back to Lowest Greenville and encourage a better quality and mix of businesses.

There are a couple of news articles highlighting this proposal.  One by Jim Schutze in the Dallas Observer (”Not Easy Being Greenville: The Neighborhood Isn’t As Bad As Some Think, But Can New Zoning Rules Make It Better?“) and the other by Nancy Visser in the Dallas Morning News (”Dallas seeks to control St. Patrick’s Day party scene on Greenville Avenue“).  I was so pleased to see that Chris McGuinness, owner of Dodie’s Seafood Cafe, is supportive of this proposal.  Again, his is just the type of business we want to encourage on Lowest Greenville — a great, family-friendly, community-oriented restaurant that appeals to locals.

I can’t wait to see Terilli’s, Mick’s, Greenville Ave., and Hurricane come back to Greenville Avenue in the near future.  I also can’t wait to see their brand of community-oriented, family-friendly businesses take root in Lowest Greenville and bring some balance back to this area.

This is great news on so many levels.  Jon was very sensitive to the loss to the business owners and their families and wants to get them back in business as soon as possible.  The reconstruction also means that we won’t be looking at a burned out building for months, and will get to see a part of our history revived in short order.

It’s so great to know there are property owners who are invested in our community, not just their small piece of it.  Many thanks to Jon and his partners for their commitment to Lower Greenville and our businesses, residents, and history.

From the Lakewood Advocate Backtalk Blog, here’s a great picture of original plans for the building back in 1931 versus today (pre-fire).  The sketch appeared in the June 14, 1931 edition of  The Dallas Morning News along with the caption, “J. T. Piranio is erecting the modern store building at Greenville avenue and Goodwin street at a cost of $25,000. This will provide six large store-rooms, designed in the latest style.”

The Lower Greenville fire has resulted in a lot of folks losing their jobs overnight. There are several ways you can help:

New Info:  From the Lower Greenville Neighborhood Association:

LGNA volunteers will be selling St. Patrick’s t-shirts at the block party between Vanderbilt and Vickery on Saturday 3/13.  T-shirts will be sold for $10 each, and 100% of gross sales will be donated to restaurant employee assistance.  LGNA is donating the t-shirts that will be sold.

From the Lakewood Advocate Backtalk Blog:

Benefit for employees of Terilli’s, Mick’s, Hurricane Grill is Sunday
Five bands are playing a benefit concert Sunday at the Doublewide for employees of Lower Greenville restaurants that were destroyed in a fire this week.

The bands are Corey Howe, STEW, Manned Missiles, Cocky Americans and Slider Pines, plus sets from DJs Sista Whitenoise and Woodtronic.  The party starts at 8:30 p.m., and tickets are $7.

From the Taste of Lower Greenville Avenue website:

How to support the employees of Terilli’s, Greenville Avenue Bar & Grill, Mick’s and Hurricane Grill
Collection of information, job leads, etc – Help Lower Greenville Facebook page

Restaurant Employee Relief Fund Bank Account
A bank account has been opened to raise money for employees directly affected by the fire. Donations can be made at any local Branch Banking & Trust (BB&T) branch. The account name: Restaurant Employee Relief Fund, Account #8056613196.

The account is coordinated by the Greenville Avenue Restaurant Association, The Greenville Avenue Area Business Association, The Greenville Merchants Association, and the Historic Greenville Avenue Area Business Association. Funds will be dispersed by the owners of the businesses on a case-by-case basis in coordination with the Associations managing the account.

PayPal
Send your donation online to Relief@TasteOfGreenvilleAvenue.com

St. Patrick’s Day block party
A portion of the $8 admission to the March 13 St. Patrick’s Day block party on Lower Greenville will benefit the burned restaurants, which will sell food and drink at the party in a tent on the parking lot behind Blue Goose. Since that parking lot was used for employees in previous years, the block party organizers have decided to start the Mockingbird Station shuttle at 7 a.m. so that employees can get to work. The shuttle is free for party-goers.

Etcetera
The Greenville Avenue Area Business Association will hold two happy hours between now and St. Patrick’s Day to collect money for the fund – Friday March 5, @ The Dubliner, 5pm and Friday March 12 @ Stan’s Blue Note