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Manassas leaders order color of restaurant’s brick wall be changed in party-line vote

City leaders on Monday phoned in their order to the owners of the Carmello’s and Monza restaurants.

  • A white-brick wall on the rear of the building that houses both restaurants at 9405 Battle Street must come down be repainted because it doesn't conform with the other buildings in the city's downtown.

The award-winning fine-dining restaurants are both owned by restauranteur Alice Peres, and she now has 30 days to remove the brick wall, black shutters, and chair railing on the wall, or face possible fines imposed by the city.

  • According to city documents, brown or red brick was to be applied to the wall on the backside of the restaurant when it was completed, as well as lanterns installed to give it a similar look and feel of other turn-of-the-century buildings in downtown.
  • Instead of red brick, city leaders say Monza and Carmello's, which both serve Italian food, chose white brick to apply to the wall and installed wrought iron shutters and chair railing.
  • “[The wall] can’t be Mediterranean… it needs to look like the turn of the century...early 1900s,” said Manassas Councilwoman Pam Sebesky, at a November 25 City Council meeting.

The city’s Architectural Review Board has already denied the businesses a certificate of appropriateness to keep the wall and issued a stop-work permit for the wall in July.

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