“an "illegal detached structure"”.
I could understand if it was a big structure or an eyesore or was causing a traffic hazard but it doesn’t look much different than a bird house and more attractive than some mail boxes I’ve seen.
Why is it that so many people are not able to just live and let live and mind their own business?
FWIW, when I lived in Bel Air, MD there was a nice little independently owned coffee shop nearby. Not only was their coffee and their homemade pastries great, it was also a great place to hang out with friends especially on a Sunday morning as I often did with a friend of mine.
Unlike a lot of commercial coffee shops, they actually encouraged people to hang out. My friend and I usually bought more than one coffee drink and a pastry and on those Sunday morning that she brought her young son with her, he had milk and or hot chocolate, a bowl of oatmeal, cookies.... we all had the cookies. :),
They had several big cushy chairs and couches and coffee tables (sort of mismatched and used thrift store stuff, but clean and comfy), a gas fireplace, very cozy. And they also had a big bookcase that was their informal lending library.
Customers were encouraged to peruse and read and then take a book or two home with them but to return them or even better yet bring back another used book or two to replace them on their next trip back. They also had a selection of board games and puzzles. The also featured works by local artists and photographers that were available for sale, and some of them were quite good.
I used to stop there on my way to work a couple of times a week and the “barista” and I got to be on a first name basis. I’d walk in and she’d ask – “the usual?” And on the mornings the owner was the three of us would trade friendly barbs back and forth. The owner used to call me “Red” because of my strawberry blond hair, but he had two red haired daughters so I took it as a compliment as it was meant to be.
And a couple of nights a week they had an open mic night and hosted local musicians of all types, rock, folk, acoustic, including some Christian music groups and they also had poetry readings/poetry slams as they called it and one night a week a “Christian Coffee House & Bible Discussion” group met there and they often played live music.
On some of these nights the crowd was pretty young - teens and early 20’s. But I never observed them being disruptive, overly loud, hassling anyone, going into neighboring stores and causing any trouble and I never saw any drinking or drug use.
About the worst thing they did from what I saw, was some of them would congregate on the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop to smoke cigarettes as smoking wasn’t allowed inside the coffee shop. But they seemed to self-regulate themselves as far as not discarding their butts on the sidewalk, even as to go as far as bringing their own coffee cans to use for that purpose. But when I went to the coffee shop on those nights, not necessarily for the music or poetry readings, but just to grab a caramel macchiato after a long day at work, I never encounter any of these kids who wasn’t polite or any who I was afraid of being around.
Did some of them “look” rather “sketchy”? Well some of the music and poetry nights did attract a rather “artsy” crowd - some kids that looked kind of “goth” or like skateboard punks or bohemian neo-hippies, but heck, you should have seen how I dressed in the mid to late 70’s – I went through a disco phase, a rocker look- flannel shirts and skinny jeans, and a brief and fortunately not too extreme, punk phase. Oh to be young again.
But I found out from the owner who I had gotten to know pretty well, that some shopping center customers and other tenants complained (saying that the kids were scaring and driving their customers away, even though the police were never called) and the shopping center management told him that he could no longer have live music or other events without prior approval. Something about it not being allowed in his lease.
But these events brought in a lot of business and without them he lost business and he eventually sold to a new owner. And that new owner closed after about six months. The new owner remodeled the place trying to make it look more upscale like a Starbucks, but a lot of the charm and the friendly service was lost as well as the coffee not being as good and no more fresh baked goods.
And what replaced the coffee shop? A liquor store. That was an improvement. /s
And where did the kids go? I don’t know. But I do know they weren’t getting into trouble by drinking coffee and listening to or paying music or reciting poetry, even “bad” poetry.
