Law and Order?
No doubt you have received an announcement for a fundraiser for Corey Stewart tomorrow. No big deal about that. I’m sure he needs the money and may not be totally confident that, if he prevails in the nomination battle, the Connaughton war chest and donor network will shower doubloons in his direction.
 The interesting thing to me is the venue for Stewart’s kickoff: Tim’s Rivershore in Dumfries. As most of you know, Tim’s and the County have been locked in a nasty spat over code violations for some time now. The attitude of Tim’s Rivershore strikes me as defiance of demands for compliance with County building and health codes. If you go to the Tim’s Rivershore Website, you get a strong flavor of how fervently the owners have seen this as a political issue.  Despite the political pressure, the county marched ahead with its enforcement activities. The County’s legal position was upheld this past May when Tim’s owner, Mr. Bauckman, was convicted and given some stiff fines by the court.  Mr. Bauckman is appealing those convictions. I’ve heard that County officials still regard Tim’s as being non-compliant with certain site and sanitation requirements.
Enforcement of health, safety and building codes is a core function of the County government that Mr. Stewart now aspires to lead. The past seven years have been ones where County officials and employees have worked hard to bring code enforcement up to the uniform standards that are the mark of any large, complex community. Tim’s is a long-time County landmark and, for many a quaint and popular link with a past that is fast receding (I’ve certainly enjoyed some long-ago evenings there). But enforcing local ordinances uniformly and predictably is tough, not particularly rewarding day-to-day work that is a hallmark of a well-run local government. Is Stewart consciously or inadvertently (either way would be bad) endorsing Mr. Bauckman’s tactics and apparent unwillingness to play by the rules? Is Stewart unfamiliar with the history of Tim’s defiance of the local law (that would be bad too)? Will other businesses that comply with local laws take exception to the appearance of this (that’s not so good either)? Will the local GOP be assumed to have taken sides against the County in the dispute, or is the impact limited to Stewart? Do Stewart’s endorsers know about this dispute and will their presence at the Fundraiser imply that they have taken sides against the County’s enforcement activity? Was the choice of Tim’s for this event sheer coincidence and the Stewart campaign just bumbled unaware into this dispute? Is Tim’s donating the venue at an attractive price as a means of promoting a candidate that might be more sympathetic to non-compliance? Or is this just the only available venue in all of Prince William County for that day and that hour? Was this a mistake, or was it intentional? If it was intentional, what’s the message re compliance with local law?Â
What do you think? I think Stewart should have tried to find another place. I myself am looking forward to going back to Tim’s when it’s all spiffed up and code compliant. But not before. Â
UPDATE: James Young and commenter Charles at Skeptical Observor have puzzlingly raised food safety issues re my post on Tims’ Rivershore. I have never heard of such problems. To my knowledge, the continuing issues between the County and Tim’s relate to parking facilities and sanitation issues focussed on sewage storage and disposal.       Â
Intentional.
Stewart is anti-county. He sided with Tim’s during the public outrage.
Still, it’s a gamble to hold a fundraiser there hoping no one suffers an illness, the pungent memory of which may linger on the 19th.
I find that a little hard to believe. Why would he want to send a signal of support for Tim’s in this context? At the same time, I’m not sure it’s more reassuring that there was a blunder that would have a lot of potential for being misinterpreted as support for Tim’s.
If this were in Loudoun, where the only criterion for being a “Republican” is the ill-defined term “property rights,” the LCRC would be lauding Tim’s, charging the County with violating Mr. Bauckman’s property rights. In fact, certain members of the Board might even praise him from the dais for breaking the rules, which are obviously being forced upon Mr. Bauckman by the slow-growth agenda of the County.
If this were in Loudoun….
I agree with #1!!!!!!!
I hope someone gets pictures of all those Republican pols hanging out with a convicted criminal; it will make great ads for the upcoming elections!
#1 above is Sean Connaughton
Funny how all the comments above were within 1 hour, isn’t it? So Sean, you have a little break this afternoon?
And by the way, how is your endorsee John Gray doing?
Gosh, violations at Tim’s. What a surprise. Nice try, but this was old news when the Board rezoned the Cherry Hill Peninsula for high density development in 2001. Back then it was easy to see that Tim’s Rivershore was the critical parcel for a viable development. Without Tim’s, traffic and transit problems are showstoppers. Plus Tim’s is right on the Potomac River, not on top of a 70 foot high bluff.
There wasn’t a peep out of Tim about the rezoning in 2001, and government did not say one word about the (blatant) environmental violations at Tim’s Rivershore.
Time passes, Legend flips the property to KSI (gee whiz, people were shocked simply shocked).
Despite BOCS promises that homes on Cherry Hill Road would be protected, KSI starts buying everything in sight. KSI also makes an offer for Tim’s Rivershore. Tim sees the lay of the land and decides to hold out for more money.
Then out of the blue, the Board says they are shocked simply shocked to discover that there are violations at Tim’s Rivershore. They send lackeys to string up yellow tape and Tim discovers there is no honor among thieves in Prince William County.
Now people on this blog are saying they are shocked simply shocked that Tim would support elected officials who are more friendly to small businesses than they are to developers. Get off your computer and take a drive through the county. Why is Tim’s any different than the dozens and dozens of other Prince William County properties with (blatant) environmental violations?
BFF: I take it you don’t disagree with the Court and the County that there are code violations at Tim’s. I also take it that your view is that this location’s selection for the Stewart fundraiser is intentional, not just a blunder, and is a matter of taking sides against the County.
First report from Stewart’s big kick-off.
Less then 60 people, of which a large number were not from PWC or just disinterested boaters looking for food.
Pathetic turnout for a 6000 household mailing/invitation.
The Stewart train is derailing before it even left the station.
Tim’s Rivershore was the picture perfect venue Vince, they even had alchol-free lime juice slurpees for punks like you.
Did they have lithium-free mental patient margaritas for guys like Molleur?
NovaScout, since you bring it up here I’ll answer here. Your post mentioned “sanitation” violations. And I’m not the only one that noticed, the first commenter directly commented on health problems of people showing up at the event.
And I see NOTHING from you in your post, or a subsequent comment, disabusing that first commenter from his interpretation of your post.
So when someone here claims you are saying people will get poisoned at the event, you said NOTHING about it, but when I made the same comments over at Jame’s blog you act like we are making things up.
I will admit though that my argument DID merge your comments with that of the first commenter, something I apologize for — you should not be held responsible for the actual words used by commenters, although you should be responsible for correcting false notions of your posts expressed in comments if you are going to complain about others reading things into your statements.
The first I saw of any notion that food safety was in issue, Charles, was at Jim Young’s site, He raised it. I hadn’t noticed the first commenter in this thread and I don’t know who that particular anon is. But I did put in an update that you can find in the original post. As I mentioned at Jim’s, I can’t really help what he or you or anon feel about particular issues. But there is a way that you can check Tims Rivershore or other restaurants in Prince William on the County website for recent infractions. Then make up your own mind as to whether you think it’s safe to patronize a place. Since I was focussing on ongoing site and sanitary issues (“sanitary” to me largely means sewer/water hook-ups et al., as opposed to “health” which would imply food handling issues), I didn’t get into food handling issues. I have since checked the county site on health inspections at Tim’s and recommend it to others whenever they are considering using a restaurant in the County.
But this all misses my main point, a point which you may or may not feel is valid. Tim’s and the County have been knocking heads over code compliance. It has been a very vocal and contentious spat. I don’t think it’s a good idea for candidates for County office, particularly Republican candidates, to allow themselves to be used in a way that might be interpreted as support for Tim’s tactics in this dispute. Two explanations: 1)inexperience and lack of knowledge or 2)active support for Tim’s. Neither will help us if this particular candidate gets the GOP nomination. Let’s get back to that point. Which do you think governed the Stewart campaign’s choice of venue?
“NoVA Scout,” your last suggests to me that you MUST be Chairman Sean; like Chairman Sean, when caught, your first instinct is to lie. Here is a quotation from your post-in-chief: “The attitude of Tim’s Rivershore strikes me as defiance of demands for compliance with County building and health codes.”
The dispute with Tim’s, as reported, was over the deck, i.e., the building code. You raise the “health code[].” Slick try, but blatant.
Well Jimmy, again you call someone a liar without bothering to actually check it out. I took NoVA’s suggestion and went to the Health Department’s inspection site and found that, on the last inspection (10-April-2006), Tim’s Rivershore had 7 critical and 9 non-critical violations. The definition of these two categories, per the site, is as follows:
“Critical Violations: Violations of the Food Regulations, which, if left uncorrected, are more likely than other violations to directly contribute to food contamination, illness, or environmental degradation. Examples of critical violations include poor temperature control of food, improper cooking, cooling, refrigeration or reheating temperatures. Such problems can create environments that cause bacteria to grow and thrive, which puts the consumer at risk for food-borne illness.
Non-Critical Violations: Violations not directly related to the cause of food-borne illness, but if uncorrected, could impede the operation of the restaurant. The likelihood of food-borne illness in these cases is very low. Non-Critical violations, if left uncorrected, could lead to Critical violations. Examples of non-critical violations include a lack of facility cleanliness and maintenance or improper cleaning of equipment and utensils.”
It would seem that Jimmy has a terminal case of foot-in-mouth disease.