Upon reading the article on PotomacLocal.com (a site which we love), I just wanted to clarify a few important details and provide a couple visuals, so readers can see exactly the issue at hand on the day Pete and I (Deron) were trespassed from the property behind our building.
I want to make an important note and say that everyone at the City of Manassas government level – from the various departments we’ve spoken to, as well as the Manassas City Police and Historic Manassas, Inc, have been nothing but helpful and concerned about the situation.
With the way Downtown Manassas is laid out, it is indeed our neighbor’s property, so in many ways hands are tied on a solution at this time. I also want to say that we are friends/friendly with all of the various tenants who have occupied the neighboring building, past and present, and we have had no complaints from them – quite the contrary.
It is true that we have been asked to stay off the property in the past, but it is usually in the context of “the parking spaces are for my tenants and they need to be able to park at any time they wish.” To the best of my knowledge, in all but one case, we have never (and never would) block access to the parking spaces, so there was never any issue from our viewpoint.
There was one time where a pallet was delivered prior to our arrival at the shop, and it took up half a parking space. Mind you, this was at a time when the building was in transition and there were no active tenants (that I recall), besides Mrs. McCall herself.
We would never purposely infringe, or abuse, anyone’s right to conduct business or to utilize their own property. That would not be neighborly, especially in a tight-knit Downtown environment where it benefits everyone to work together.
When we do get a pallet shipment, which at this point is pacing every 1.5-2 months, it is generally broken down and moved inside within 15-40 minutes (depending on the number of boxes and weight of boxes on the pallet). Rarely will we not start loading it in within 5 minutes.
In response to the various cars and plates that were complained about – not all of those are attributed to Shining Sol, as various other surrounding businesses and general patrons have been at the receiving end of police and tow calls. When we do utilize a car for business purposes it generally involves loading 5-10 boxes into a trunk (while the car is running, and not pulled into a space) in the space of 2-5 minutes. That’s why there are never any cars to tow because we (and others) are never there long enough to be towed.
We have tried for well over a year to be as best of a neighboring business as possible, and I think we have achieved that by most standards. We lend a hand whenever asked, we help cross-promote, and we are always community driven in anything we do. It’s hard to come to a resolution when other parties are not willing to be neighborly and accommodating in any way, shape or form and to me, that’s a sad thing to see in such a small town.
