A reader sent me an email recently after having visited First & Main for the first time, and asked me an interesting question: Why all the hubbub over the external speakers at Sonic, which by all accounts were not audible anyway, when other shops in the development are allowed to broadcast any music they want to the unsuspecting potential shoppers strolling down main street, dodging the speeding automobiles that are frantically looking for the last remaining parking space?
My short answer is "I don't know", but my longer answer is "Because they didn't ask permission".
See, the developers snuck in the big box store because they didn't ask permission, and nobody on town council or the planning commission thought to ask the question. I doubt that the issue of outside speakers even came up when the site plans for F&M were approved. It just didn't come up, and nobody asked.
So, now the town is stuck with the speakers, just like they are stuck with the big box.
Unless, of course, the VA Supreme Court decides in favor of the town in the big box suit, which would effectively allow the town to go back and change the rules on a whim. This would, of course, make it much more risky for a developer to want to build anything in Blacksburg, since they could never be sure the town wouldn't come back and slap new and expensive rules on them after they had made their investment.
But hey, it's a cruel world. And it's getting more cruel by the minute.
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The town still has ways to tweak the nose of the First & Main folks, though. To celebrate the grand opening of the center on Black Friday, promoters were going to drop 10,000 $1 bills from a helicopter. Selected serial numbers on the bills would be eligible for prizes from the merchants in F&M. The town put the kabosh on the plans "because someone might get hurt." In 2006, two children were hurt at a money drop at a minor league baseball game. Turns out one boy was trampled (bruises to his chest and back) and one girl got a bloody lip. But in NannyTown, even hurt feelings aren't allowed, so no money from above. Perhaps the F&M promoters could take a page from "WKRP in Cincinnati" and drop live turkeys from a helicopter. Maybe they could get John Carlin to do a live remote from the site as a last hurrah before he retires ("Oh, the humanity!").
nyuk nyuk nyuk...I wondered if anybody else around here remembered that episode of WKRP.
That is one of the first things I thought about (WKRP) when they mentioned the drop.
However, I only found out about it recently since I am not as old as you, Mike.
Ha! Thanks for reminding me.
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