New signage at the private First & Market parking lot was meant to prevent confusion, but some visitors are still getting burned.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Last Sunday, Orange County resident Michael Knight, his wife and three other couples piled into his Suburban and headed to the Downtown Mall for what they thought would be an enjoyable evening in Charlottesville. They had dinner at the Downtown Grille and took in a movie at the Regal Cinema, but when they returned to the Suburban, the festive spirit ground to a halt.

“There were only three cars in the parking lot, including ours, when we returned around 8:30pm,” says Knight. “And all of them had tow trucks behind them.”

Knight says the group had pre-paid for three hours of parking but had inadvertently overstayed by about half an hour. Knight says he would have expected some kind of grace period, perhaps a small fine, especially because it was a Sunday and there were so few cars in the lot.

Nope. This was developer Keith Woodard’s First & Market parking lot, and it’s not a place that tolerates customers who overstay.

Knight says he persuaded the tow-truck driver not to tow the Suburban, but he still had to scrounge up $125 in cash to reclaim his dangling vehicle. The other two parkers in the lot, he says, weren’t so fortunate.

“We were over the three-hour time limit by about thirty minutes,” explains Knight, admitting his group shouldn’t have overstayed. “But something is not right about that system. We thought we were fine with a three-hour ticket on our dash. Obviously, other people in the lot thought they were fine, too.”

Knight’s experience isn’t a new one for unsuspecting visitors. But recently released documents show it can be a painful one. (more)

Comments(128)

A rendering of UVA’s new Ruth Caplin Theatre.
Willam Rawn Associates

Last month, UVA held a ceremonial ground-breaking at the future site of the Ruth Caplin Theatre, a three hundred-seat, 20,500 square-foot “thrust stage” theater that will rise beside the Culbreth Theater on Culbreth Road— courtesy of Ruth Caplin, 89, and husband, Mortimer Caplin, 94, who donated $4 million for the $13.5 million addition to the Drama Building and whose lives have been as drama-filled as the plays and films they hope to nurture.

UVA alum and former law school prof Mortimer Caplin is a legend in legal circles, a still-practicing tax lawyer who served as IRS Commissioner during the Kennedy Administration and briefly into the Johnson White House, during which time he made the cover of Time magazine. As a law prof at UVA, he taught future U.S. Senators Ted and Robert Kennedy. And he’s a lover of the arts, it seems.

Indeed, back in his UVA student days in the 1930s Caplin was president of the Virginia Players, and appeared in a number of UVA productions, including the title role in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

“The theater will clearly advance artistic values cherished by UVA’s founder, Thomas Jefferson— music, dance, architecture, painting,” said Caplin in remarks prepared for the October 21 event, which he attended with his wife. “It’s our hope that it will enrich the studies of all University students, making the arts not only a part of their course work, but a part of their lives.”

So what’s a thrust theater? It has a stage that opens and extends into the audience, which allows theater-goers to watch the performance from three sides, allowing for more intimacy. In addition to theater productions, the facility will be used (more)

Comments(2)

Glass House Winery grapes are ready to deliver.
PHOTO FROM SANDERS FAMILY WEBSITE

According to the Hook’s latest count, there are 31 area wineries, which is enough to give Dish a hangover just thinking about trying to visit them all. Indeed, we appear to be surrounded by an army of wineries!

Well, it appears we will now have 32 wineries.

In early December, the Glass House Winery in Free Union plans to have its grand opening. Owners Jeff and Michelle Sanders, who moved here in 2006 and were featured in a story about “the lifestyle farming trend” in USAToday, have thrown their hats into the grape smashing ring with a few unusual twists.

Michelle is a chocolatier, so visitors will also be able to enjoy hand-made chocolates. But that’s not all. The tasting room features some unusual architecture, including a giant wine barrel turned into a doorway (which will be stained to smell like wine during the early December grand opening), a geothermal heat and cooling system, and a glass conservatory attached to the tasting room to house (more)

Comments(25)

Kathy Erskine before the National Book Award seal went on her book, Mockingbird.
PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO

Charlottesville writer Kathryn Erskine now possesses one of the most prestigious literary awards in the country: the 2010 National Book Award in young people’s literature for her book, Mockingbird.

Erskine was one of 20 finalists at the awards dinner at Cipriani Wall Street last night in New York. Also in the winners’ circle was singer Patti Smith in nonfiction for her memoir, Just Kids, about her youth in New York in the ’60s with her buddy, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe; Jaimy Gordon in fiction for Lord of Misrule, and Terrance Hayes in poetry for Lighthead.

Richmond native Tom Wolfe (more)

Comments(5)

Deuces Lounge owner Jerome Cherry, right, runs the new club with his son, Jerome Cherry Jr., left, and Jatavious Calloway.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Before the Outback Lodge on Preston Avenue closed last year, it wasn’t unheard of to find it in the news when fights broke out and gunshots fired. The new owner of what’s now called Deuces Lounge is trying to turn that image around.

“We want to let people see the Outback is dead,” says Jerome Cherry. “They don’t have to be afraid.”

Cherry opened Deuces Lounge in September to handle a variety of musical genres— except hip hop. “We want hip hop,” he says, “but we don’t want the violence.”

Instead, the club has jazz night, metal, salsa, and a different take on karaoke that Cherry calls “Be Seen, Be Heard” on Wednesdays. “It can be karaoke, it can be poetry, it can be stand-up comedy,” says Cherry.

Another legacy of the Outback affects Cherry’s ABC permit. He only serves beer and wine, and the ABC stipulated that the club stop serving alcohol at midnight. Cherry, who doesn’t drink, believes the lack of hard liquor will draw a crowd more interested in music than drinking.

The interior has been spruced up, booths added, and the stage enlarged.

“This is the biggest stage outside the Jefferson and Southern,” says Cherry, who sees the upstairs of the two-level venue as a lounge, with the downstairs as a club.

And to further nourish a more family friendly atmosphere, Saturday afternoons are for teen bands to rock out in a place where parents can come see them play in an alcohol-free zone. Cherry is a bass player, and this is his first go at running a night club.

“This is my dream,” he says.

Comments(7)

Pablo Castro and Sandra Morales face a class 4 felony charge for pandering.
PHOTOS COURTESY ALBEMARLE POLICE

A twenty-something-year-old couple allegedly had a 36-year-old woman turning tricks for them in Abbington Crossing Apartments, according to an Albemarle police release. An anonymous caller tipped off police.

Pablo Castro, 28, and Sandra Morales, 22, have both been charged with one felony count for receiving money or other valuables for the purpose of unlawful sexual intercourse. He’s being held on $10,000 bond; Morales has a $5,000 bond.

Gisela Martinez, 36, was charged with one count of prostitution, a misdemeanor, and released. She told police she was brought to the apartment in the 700 block of Lords Court from Washington to service men.

In June 2009, Albemarle police busted another prostitution ring on Commonwealth Drive that employed a woman from D.C.

“I don’t know if it’s coincidental,” says Sergeant Darrell Byers.

Comments(33)

Attorney Frank Buck served as Charlottesville mayor from 1980-’88.
FILE PHOTO

Update:

The case has been continued to December 13 at 9:05am as Buck’s deep ties to the legal community have led Charlottesville District Court Judge Bob Downer to consider recusing himself. Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman says he has requested that a special prosecutor be appointed in the case.

–Updated Friday, November 19 at 1:56pm

Original story:

Lots of people have imagined throttling someone. Attorney and former Charlottesville mayor Frank Buck may have acted on the impulse.

Buck was arrested on Thursday, November 11, and charged with misdemeanor assault for his role in a day-earlier incident that his legal client and alleged victim, Milton Leo John, calls “outrageous.”

According to John, a 53-year-old airline pilot, the judge and bailiffs had stepped out of the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on a recess when his attorney, Buck, began to discuss a week-earlier hearing. The topic was an old domestic abuse charge that, John says, was dismissed shortly after it was lodged and which should have already been expunged. John says he was calmly expressing his frustration over Buck’s alleged failure to press his case and presented a letter he’d sent Buck showing that he’d made the expungement request several years earlier.

John, who stands 5′7″ and weighs 160 pounds, says he began reading from the letter when his 6-foot-tall, 230-pound attorney suddenly and unexpectedly went berzerk. (more)

Comments(32)

Sandy Cason pulls out a grass he likes to use in his wreaths from his greenery-laden truck.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

“My uncles, my grandfather, me sat out here on the Downtown Mall,” says lifelong wreath-maker Sandy Cason, as he points out the boxwood, the tezzle, and the deer berry he collects to make his holiday creations at the farmer’s market founded by his father and brothers. But he won’t be there this year. He’s been banned.

“They have a personal vendetta against me,” declares Sandy Cason. “They don’t like me because I’m boisterous.”

Cason admits he told the assistant market manager to “go to hell” November 13 when discussing the fact that an anonymous jury had passed him over this season.

How did it happen that a scion of the Cason brothers— George, Jack, Billy, and Sandy’s father, Ezra, who founded the popular Charlottesville institution, the City Market— came to be black-balled?

According to Cason, he first drew the wrath of City Market management in late October when he lambasted a woman driving the wrong way down one-way South Street.

“Do you always do stupid things like that?” he concedes he said when she pulled into the market’s lot, and that remark led her to “cuss” him. Market manager Stephanie Anderegg-Maloy and her assistant, Lucy Lamm, asked (more)

Comments(63)

Developers want to build a 20-acre ‘Downtown Mall’ on the J. Bruce Barnes Lumber Company site.
PHOTO COURTESY J. BRUCE BARNES LUMBER COMAPNY

Crozet, the small village to the west, has ambitions.

Two decades ago it was known mostly for Mint Springs Valley Park and Crozet Pizza, the quirky, family-owned restaurant that was recently selected as one of the top 51 pizza parlors in the country by USA Today. Since then, however, the village with a population around 3,000 has grown in stature, welcoming the ambitious Crozet Master Plan in 2001, Starr Hill Brewery, Old Trail Village, the production of the Hollywood film Evan Almighty (which included the construction of an “ark” and visits from giraffes and elephants), various other popular eateries like Cocina del Sol, Jarman’s Gap, and the Mudhouse; the Crozet Music Festival, the Blue Ridge Shopping Center anchored by a Harris Teeter, an ACAC, and the brand-spankin’ new $10 million Crozet library soon to be built.

Charlottesville’s reputation as an attractive location over the same period, no doubt, has led to an interest in Crozet, which still remains relatively undeveloped, a new frontier that might harken back to Charlottesville’s earlier days, when UVA students weren’t even sure where the Downtown Mall was, and before we started making those number-one-places-to-live lists.

Indeed, that was the idea behind Old Trail Village, the ambitious 260-acre mixed use ‘village” with a town center, green space, a golf course, and beautiful houses nestled in a valley with spectacular views. However, while Old Trail has had some success, a drive through shows it to be (more)

Comments(30)

The deficit would reach $8 million in 2016.
CITY GRAPHIC

Unless something dramatically changes, the City is on course for an ever-swelling deficit that could top $8 million a year by fiscal 2016. That’s according to a grim presentation to City Council by City budget director Leslie Beauregard.

“The farther out we go, the wider the gap becomes,” said Beauregard.

She noted that state funding appears flat and that Albemarle County’s contributions to the City, via the so-called Revenue Sharing Agreement, will bottom out two years from now about three quarters of a million dollars below the current level of $18.5 million.

Another problem area is property taxes, which have fallen six percent below the current City budget. Despite the prospect of red ink, Beauregard doesn’t appear to be feeling blue.

“Things are looking better than this time last year,” said Beauregard. “We were pretty depressed this time last year.”

Indeed, during last year’s preliminary budget report, released two months before the announced retirement of former City Manager Gary O’Connell, the deficit was expected to swell much higher: to $11 million by 2015.

Further fueling optimism in Beauregard’s Monday, November 15 presentation was the fact that meals and lodging taxes have actually climbed above projections.

“We were pleasantly surprised by these— especially lodging,” said Beauregard, noting that the tax on hotel rooms appears on track to finish Fiscal Year 2011 about 5.5 percent ahead of Fiscal 2010.

Council has scheduled a work session on December 2nd to discuss the budget. On December 14, the capital spending program will be the subject of a public hearing before the Planning Commission.

Virginia law doesn’t actually allow localities to run deficits. The City will either need to raise taxes, cut spending— or pray for a sudden uptick in the economy that might cause tax collections to spike.

***

In another fiscally disappointing glance at a crystal ball, the City watched a presentation on a federal mandate to reduce pollution flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. The TMDL, or Total Maximum Daily Load program of the Environmental Protection Agency, could cost Charlottesville as much as $15.6 million annually to comply. Council endorsed a letter by the City planning director, Jim Tolbert, calling the proposed regulations too onerous.

Tolbert’s letter calls on the EPA to more aggressively pursue agricultural runoff before demanding that cities and developers retrofit their infrastructure.

Comments(56)