Rest Room Variance Denied.

The BOCA Board of Appeals denied a request Tuesday morning for a variance on the City requirement for restaurants to have public rest rooms that are ADA compliant. The City adopted the Building Officials and Code Administrators (BOCA) Code, which sets standards for building specifications, in 1998.

The Board met to hear the appeal requested by Candance Gazaway who plans to open a restaurant at 217 E. 3rd. City codes inspectors denied a building permit because the existing rest room was not ADA compliant. The age of the building, size restraints, limited space, and the fact that the existing plumbing is encased in concrete were the main concerns prompting the owner to ask for the variance. The possibility of not offering a public rest room was not an option the Appeal Board would accept.

Board Chair Elliott Hunter expressed his concerns about allowing the variance.

"If we don’t enforce regulations as we go," said Hunter, "then people will continually come to us and say ‘we want to open a restaurant and there are these others who do not have to comply’."

Sometimes after the new wears off, we have a tendency to take things for granted.

I can remember gettin’ a pair of "engineer" boots as a kid. Wore ‘em ever’where. I soon learned, however, that my mother felt the same pride in the new couch. My boots, and especially the shinny buckle they bore, were expressly denied from bein’ worn while I was sittin’ on the couch watchin’ the Mickey Mouse Club. If I wanted to sit on the couch, I had ta take off the boots. I soon learned the advantages of stretchin’ out on the floor in front of the tv.

Like most kids, I prob’ly outgrew those boots ‘fore they wore out. I’d have ta guess there were a few times they made it on the upholstery, after time, and did some damage ‘cause I never got another set a footwear with buckles.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

by

Carthage Printing Services

COOL LUNCH BOX SURPRISES

Thumbing through outdated magazines in the waiting room of the doctor’s office the other day, I spotted some articles for perking up kids’ lunches. I was inspired to search for ideas to add zing to my kids’ meal.

Problem was, I couldn’t find any concoctions my kids would go for. Yes, they’ll try tuna (without celery) in a pita pocket or on heavy, organic whole wheat bread (as long as I trim the crusts), but there’s no way they’ll rave over julienned asparagus, sliced egg and Muenster cheese on pumpernickel!

Resolved once again to set up the early-morning assembly line with our family standbys - peanut butter and jelly, fruit, carrot sticks and a cookie - it’s still fun to spice up the kids’ lunches in other ways. Here are some noontime surprises you may want to try:

• Using acrylic paint in squeeze bottles, help your child draw a tick-tack-toe grid on the outside of a plain, plastic lunch box. Let dry. Place a few paper clips and small buttons or pennies to represent X’s and O’s in an empty film canister and tuck the canister in the lunch box. Your child can play tick-tack-toe with a friend after lunch.

• Use a black marker to write a short note of encouragement, a goofy saying or a funny face on a paper napkin, the shell of a hard-boiled egg or, best of all, the skin of a firm banana.

• For a midday chuckle, even teenagers will enjoy finding a comic strip or a page from a comic-strip calendar hiding discreetly between an orange and a sandwich.

Lunch packing tip: Set small plastic margarine tubs filled with quarters and dimes in the same kitchen drawer as your sandwich bags and napkins. Milk money is handy when making lunches early in the morning. No need to go rummaging through purses, pockets and piggy banks as the kids fly out the door to catch the bus.