Jealous busybody gets Mom in trouble.

[glatt]

Speaking of complaining neighbors, we have a gas station that is a block from our house. This gas station also rents out moving trucks. They parked the moving trucks in the fairly empty lot of a nearby grocery store. To pay for that parking space, they donated money to the grocery store manager's favorite charity.

During a walking neighborhood meeting designed to look at sidewalk issues, some people in the civic association noticed that there was some trash near the trucks, and they thought all the trucks themselves were ugly. They complained to the corporate headquarters of the grocery store. The main headquarters told the store manager that they couldn't let the trucks be parked in the parking lot.

So now the trucks are parked on the streets near the gas station, in front of people's houses. The parking there is perfectly legal, and there is nothing the homeowners can do about it. The gas station feels bad, but they lost their parking in the lot, and there is nowhere else to park the trucks.

So then (this is getting long) somebody complained to the county that the gas station doesn't have permits for two businesses in that one location. The county agreed. It can only be a gas station that does "light repairs." The station applied for a permit to do the truck rentals too, but was denied. They are now appealing.

One interesting thing to come out of this is the definition of "light repairs." We have had our car worked on for years at this place, and much of it was apparently not allowed. Their "light repairs" permit only allows them to change oil, swap out windshield wiper blades, and minor things like that. I don't think they can even legally replace a tire. So this corner station is faced with having to lay off three workers who do the truck rental business, and lay off two mechanics who do car repairs all day long.

It's been there since the 1940's, the owner and a couple of the workers live in the neighborhood, and now it might shut down entirely just because of a complaint about trash in a parking lot that has snowballed out of control.

I feel a little bad for the people who live right next door to the gas station, but the place has been there for half a century. If you buy a house next to a gas station, you have to expect that you will be living next to a gas station.