I just got back in town -- seriously, bags are still packed -- and, c'mon, this shows up in my mailbox: a missive from Kenny Brattain, otherwise known as the guy who was going to reopen Trees. Or, looks like, not. As you no doubt recalls, a few weeks back we wrote about Brattain's frustrations with the city -- specifically, with the myriad hoops through which he had to jump in order to get his specific use permit, as required by council last summer after the Deep Ellum Association worked to make it harder for "the wrong element" to open a club in Deep Ellum. Looks like their plan worked -- a little too well. And it's not like the city necessarily disagreed with Brattain; said Dave Cossum, assistant director of the city's plan division, "it's an unhappy process for some."
For Brattain, especially.
"THANK YOU CITY OF DALLAS, YOU WIN!! WE GIVE UP! WE WILL NOT RE-OPEN THE TREES BUILDING!"
That's the subject line of Brattain's e-mail that he sent out to various members of the media, as well as Mayor Laura Miller and council members Gary Griffith, Elba Garcia and Pauline Medrano. The rest of his mad-as-hell, go-to-hell, plans-all-shot-to-hell missive is after the jump. --Robert Wilonsky
To whom this may concern, we have successfully filed our SUP for 2707-09 Elm Street, Deep Ellum. I personally spent over 2 days and over $1,300 filing for the SUP. Our SUP was accepted, and now we have to wait for the Dallas City Council to vote on it. That will take about 3 months; meanwhile we are paying rent on a building we cannot use.BUT WAIT, THERE IS MORE!!!! THIS IS WHAT DID IT!!!
Of course, after we have spent the money with the city filing the SUP we are now told we need an SUP for the PARKING LOT.
David Cossum told us that under the new SUP law, we had to have 50+ parking spaces. We only have 20. So we contracted with an independent parking lot owner to supply us 30 more spaces. We had planned on paying for the additional expense by charging to park in Deep Ellum, like everyone else does, even the City of Dallas.
Now we are told by Karl Evens that we cannot charge for parking. So the 20 parking spaces we have, we cannot charge for, and we cannot charge for the contracted 30 remote parking spaces.
So the bottom line is this. We are being told that we need 50+ parking spaces. We have 20 parking spaces, so we are renting the remote parking spaces for an additional $3,000+ a month, and we will not be able to offset the expense because we can not charge to park. PLUS, we have to file another SUP for the Parking Lot and wait the 3 months for approval.
This makes this re-opening economically impossible. We are not a huge corporation; we are a small Mom/Pop business.
Well, City of Dallas, you did it. We are planning on not going forward with re-opening the Trees building. I guess we will look at a city that cares about its citizens and the local music scene. Good luck.
P.S. ATTN: City of Dallas! How come you can charge to park, but we cannot. ALSO THIS IS A WARNING TO ANYONE WHO WANTS TO OPEN A LIVE MUSIC VENUE IN DEEP ELLUM, THAT IS NOT A CHURCH. DON?T DO IT. THE CITY OF DALLAS WILL NOT LET YOU!!
Thank you for your time,
Kenny Brattain Owner Fat Daddy?s Sound Shack
