News of a new restaurant is always exciting, but what if that restaurant also included a bar and happened to be your neighbor?
This is what the owners of Mel’s Grill and Buckshots are proposing with Fireside Kitchen.
They say that they “will ensure that the presence of a restaurant will not be a nuisance of any kind to the surrounding community, especially the surrounding residents,” according to their Facebook post Nov. 3.
How?
There are houses on three sides of the proposed location – it’s surrounded by families.
To put it simply, they want to open a bar in the middle of a neighborhood.
How will they control the patrons who have had too much to drink and decide to cut through the subdivision to avoid Sashabaw?
The subdivision where friends, students at my children’s school and residents of our community live.
As it gets darker earlier, it may not seem like a problem. But as days get longer, kids will be playing outside and riding bikes in the street. How long until tragedy strikes?
How will they provide ample parking at the bar/restaurant? They will be running opposite hours as Mel’s, but if you’ve ever been there on a Sunday, you know that the parking situation is ridiculous.
Will people be parking throughout the neighborhood?
Will they ensure that the patrons are considerate of the property and sleeping families when walking to their car once the bar closes?
Many residents have shown interest and signed the petition in support of this, but please, think of the residents that will have a bar as their neighbor and the negatives that it will bring to our neighborhood.
I would be the first to support this if it was in a proper location.
A neighborhood, though, is no place for a bar.
Noelle Akers
Independence Township
(Editor’s Note: This topic is scheduled to be discussed at a special Independence Township Planning Commission meeting on Nov. 30. It is a special land use, so everyone within 300 feet will be notified of the public hearing. Postcards to the neighbors were planned to go out this week.)