By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
After a year’s worth of legal proceedings that ended in a no contest plea for the owner of a local tattoo parlor, Burlington Mayor Bob Miller is on the record opposing attempts to reopen Fat Daddyz Tats in the city.
A letter penned by the mayor was one of several documents included for the city Plan Commission to review Tuesday night, as it reviewed the conditional use permit for a new location for Fat Daddyz, which is in the downtown loop.
The former location on Milwaukee Avenue closed after operator Charles Hinds was charged with possession with intent to deliver marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia in February of 2014.
Hinds pleaded no contest to both charges, and other charges were dismissed in July. The vote on the conditional use permit had been tabled from earlier in the year until the case against Hinds was concluded.
He will be sentenced Sept. 28 at 9 a.m.
However, even with owner Mary Ann Sander on hand to say that Hinds would no longer be involved in the business, enough questions remained that the commission voted to table the decision until its October meeting.
That will, effectively, give Sander time to wrap up current business before having to close the shop. She had asked the commission to give her 30 to 60 days to honor current clients who had already paid, and gift cards and certificates.
Sander, who used to be Mary Ann Hinds, is now using her maiden name, and Miller’s letter named her as Hinds’ “former spouse.”
The couple’s home on Lakeshore Drive was foreclosed on last year, and on Tuesday at the meeting, Sander indicated she now resides in Bay View.
Miller wrote in the letter that – with or without Hinds – the business should not be open because Sander had failed in her responsibilities of maintaining a business that was not “hazardous, harmful, offensive or otherwise adverse to the environment or the value of the neighborhood or the community” as stipulated in city ordinance 315-130.
The day following the meeting, Miller said nothing said at the meeting changed his mind.
“Why should it?” Miller asked. “When that letter was inked, so to speak, that was the information. That information doesn’t change.”
Sander, however, said that Hinds’ presence made a significant difference. She told the commission that as of last week, he had resigned, and she is in search of a new operation.
She also denied having any knowledge of Hinds’ criminal activity at the former location.
“I was absolutely unaware of the kind of business going on,” she said to the commission. “I had no idea those incidents were taking place.”
Sander also said she felt that business had given back to the community over the years it has been here, and all she wanted was a chance to run the business properly.
Hinds attended the meeting with Sander, but did not speak. After working through a handful of questions, Alderman Tom Vos raised a motion to deny the request – with the idea that Sander should reapply now that Hinds would no longer be involved. That was an option suggested by the city’s planning consultant, Patrick Meehan, in a memorandum to the city over the issue.
However, that was when Sander made the request to make the date later so she could take care of business.
After discussing that option, Alderman Todd Bauman pointed out that Sander didn’t have a conditional use permit now.
“How do you extend something that they don’t even have?” he asked.
Commission Member John Lynch then asked if tabling the item until October was possible. The mayor said that it was, and after sorting through rescinding the original motion, the commission put the issue aside until its Oct. 13 meeting.
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