DENVER — Vacant buildings and for lease signs fill Blake Street by the newly renovated 16th Street. Now, some businesses in the area are left without signage after they say the city recently cited the block to enforce the zoning code.
A flag that once greeted customers outside Jovanina's Broken Italian is now taken down. It had been up for the past five years, with the owner, Jake Linzinmeir, explaining it helped with the busy construction in the area and brought awareness to the restaurant.
"Flag was up. No problem. No comment. All of a sudden, we got cited, all of our neighbors got cited for the signage to various degrees, and we were told that we needed to take everything down," Linzinmeir said.
Ryan Huff, communications director for the City of Denver community planning and development, explained flags are not allowed under the city's zoning code, and their enforcement is "primarily complaint-based." While the flag had been up for several years, Huff said they did not want to ticket during the pandemic.
"We've been working with the business for some time on compliance. We did issue a $150 fine in October of last year, which we have now rescinded because the flag has come down, and so there are no current fines and no plans for any fines," Huff said.
The solution is for the business and others in the area to create new signage that meets the zoning code.
"We will work with the businesses, show them what the code is, show them examples of signage that is in compliance and then ask them to submit designs for approval, and that happens all the time across the city for new businesses," Huff said.
While Linzinmeir recognized that some rules and regulations need to be followed, he explained why he thought it would be fair to keep the sign up while waiting for new signage to be approved.
"... Because this isn't our process, and it's taken about a year to get to this point," he said. "They said, 'No, take it down.' Shame on me, I left it up, but they're also closing our street at the same time for 16th Street mall work — which, great, love 16th Street mall —but don't make it worse than it already is because people can't see my restaurant from either street and they (the city) wouldn't bend on that."
Next door is a similar signage situation with Samosa Shop keeping their banner up along with the two other businesses that fill the building. David Hadley, owner of Samosa Shop, explains that having this signage up allows people to realize there are multiple businesses in this old historic space and questioned how this is a $1,000 problem.
"But at this point, as three different businesses inside of one small building that's really just trying to survive and keep this place going, I think it's really annoying and hard on us," Haldey said. "We don't have that out-of-pocket money, and we really just want to find a place to bring people all in and support hospitality."
Moving forward, Hadley explained they want to work with the city to find a solution, but right now are just planning to leave the area.
"Officially, we are leaving this building in January. It's unfortunate. We just couldn't get everything together with how problematic this area is," Hadley said.
So while flag posts and empty buildings fill Blake Street, current business owners are left seeing a bigger problem of what this means for the future of the area. Huff explained that the goal of having a zoning code is not to be "punitive," with the city encouraging permanent three-dimensional signage visible from all angles.
"We want to provide the education to ensure that there's a uniform look throughout the city when it comes to signage," Huff said. "And we work with the business owner to make sure they know what the rules are, and we will work with them. And we don't have to issue fines if they can come up with signage that meets the code. We'll work with them and they'll install it, and then they're in compliance."
The city did approve new signage for Jovanina's, but Linzinmeir shared that it is costly.
"The cost of getting to that point is the sign alone is $13,350. The process probably puts it more like $15-16,000 for the sign. You know that's a payroll for me and way more profit over a couple of months than we're earning right now downtown," Linzinmeir said.
He said he hopes people will come inside to enjoy the food and service, and continue supporting them even without a flag in the front.
