All up in your business: October 6, 2010
Kinetix replaces closed gym
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Kinetix replaces closed gym
The Princeton Review
Local jail officials said the 18-year-old man who police say fired a gun on a Chapel Hill High School bus Thursday was released from jail after his bail was raised.Aaron Small was taken to Orange County Jail the day of the shooting, and was released later that day on $15,000 bail.He was taken back into custody after his bail was raised to $30,000 on Friday. Small was released again on Saturday, when an additional $15,000 was posted.Katja Lake, a freshman at Chapel Hill High School, said she was on the bus when police said a shot from was a .22 caliber revolver blasted into the floor.It was at about 10:45 a.m., because the bus was arriving at school on a delayed schedule.“I didn’t think it was a gun. I thought something on the bus just broke,” Lake said. “Most people were just like, ‘What happened?’ and screamed out of surprise, and the driver didn’t really notice it at first.“He was like, ‘Keep on moving. Get off the bus.’”Lake said Small pushed riders out of the aisle and ran away. Police found him and arrested him about an hour later at his friend’s house at 103 Jubilee Drive, about a mile away from the school.Lake said the high school’s lockdown was initiated as soon as she got into her first class. The lockdown precautions were extended to nearby Smith Middle School as well as to Seawell and Morris Grove elementary schools.Gary Beneville, one of the school district’s five resource officers, said he’s had prior minor encounters with Small in the past. He also said officers have investigated in the past if he had a weapon on campus, but not enough evidence was found.Beneville said police believe based on witnesses’ statements that Small fired a shot while the gun was in his pocket. They said they do not know whether they think he intended to aim it.Officers are also investigating Small’s relationships with other boys at the school.Lt. Kevin Gunter of the Chapel Hill Police Department said more officers were on hand at the school Friday, but no extra safety measures were taken on the buses.He said the buses do not have guards or metal detectors.Since Friday, Lake said most things have gone back to normal. She said although many students and teachers were shocked, she never felt in danger.“There is a lot of chatter,” Beneville said. “Emotions range from kids that are scared to kids speculating why it happened.”Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
The Last Unicorn architectural salvage store is Gaines Steer’s home — a place for both work and play.The house, which Steer helped build, is hidden in the forest, amid a whimsical display of wrought iron work and other quirky visuals.It incorporates elements from different times and places. As he built it, Steer said he realized what he should be doing with his life. “The house was physical, emotional, spiritual evidence that this was good for me,” he said. “The house produced this profession.”He reinvented his business, located about five miles south of Chapel Hill, 18 years ago to embody the qualities of his home, and in turn, himself.Raised in a traditional textile town in South Carolina, Steer is as multifaceted and thought-provoking as his home and business.Make a weekend trip to The Last Unicorn, and you’ll be greeted by Wheat, the terrier, whose bottom teeth stick out through her lips. You may even get a tour of the five-acre property from Steer, who is eager to talk about his self-made sanctuary.“If I’m an artist, this is my art,” he said. “I like to put different elements together from different times and places. They tell a story.”Steer sells wrought iron fences, gates, stained glass windows and other architectural salvage. Everything on the property is for sale, including fixtures in his house.“Gaines wants these pieces to work for people. He wants it to be the right thing for the right person,” Scott Conary, owner of Caffé Driade and Open Eye Café, said. Conary has been a customer with Steer for 12 years.The items are dispersed throughout the property in themed areas with names like “Planter Trail” and “Gate Heaven.”“You walk through and all these ideas bombard you with what you can do with the stuff,” Conary said.He buys inventory from five architectural antique hunters who bring material from about five countries.“I like to look at it through my son’s eyes. I like to hear him tell his friends about it,” Steer’s daughter, Rebecca Ervin said.Steer said he has held 25 jobs in his lifetime and has his masters’ degree in education. He has been a reporter, a professor, a college counselor and has helped set up a rural farm community in Maryland, he said.Steer calls himself a community organizer. He hires additional help from the homeless shelter. He teaches spiritual chants and organic gardening to beginners.He constructed a gazebo for meditation for people of all spiritualities to use. The gazebo has hosted weddings, parties and bat mitzvahs, Steer said. He has never charged for any event, though he earned back almost $9,000 of the $10,000 it took to construct the gazebo through donations.Steer holds a writers’ group once a month, prints a newspaper when he has the money and wrote his own personal memoir.He is most proud of a collection of statues made by 19th-century artist John Rogers — he claims it is the only one in the South.The Last Unicorn was originally started in Maryland in 1984, but Steer sold it and moved to Chapel Hill for a change of scenery. Ervin said she admires how simply he can live, without fear of locking his door and not being restricted by having a nine-to-five job.“I don’t have a real plan. It’s kind of a flow that emerges every day,” Steer said. “Underneath that, it’s my values. It’s not what you say, it’s what you do.”Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
Downtown gallery to open
In the aftermath of a fire that nearly destroyed the Chatham County courthouse Thursday, the necessity of court operations leaves little time to mourn the loss of an iconic building.Courthouse employees met Friday morning to discuss immediate needs for a functioning work schedule, said David Samuel Cooper, clerk of court for Chatham County.While most essential records are still intact, Chatham County will have to rely heavily on Orange County in the coming weeks.It was too soon to determine losses and plans for rebuilding, Cooper said.Parts of the building were still burning Friday, Kost said.The building’s loss will not affect the district court schedule, Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour said.The Superior Court session scheduled to begin today is set for Wednesday in the Courthouse Annex building across the street, according to a news release by Jim Woodall, district attorney for Orange and Chatham counties.“We’re not going to have jury trials in civil or criminal court for a couple weeks,” Baddour said.The historic building housed the offices of the district attorney and superior court judges, Cooper said.About 15 people worked in the courthouse, Baddour said.Woodall is working out of the Courthouse Annex, while his staff has been relocated to offices in Hillsborough and Pittsboro, the news release said.Courthouse officials were trying to find rental space for employees who lost offices as of Friday afternoon, said Sally Kost, Chatham County commissioner.The N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts gave laptops on Friday to employees who lost theirs in the fire, Baddour said.The Administrative Office of the Courts backs up court systems automatically, Baddour said. “Every file I had on my old (laptop) is on my new one,” he said.But the probation and district attorney’s offices were not so fortunate.“The probation office has to work to create some or all of their files. And the district attorney’s office was hit hard,” he said. “Some of the evidence or reports they can get from police again, but all of it was lost.”The building also housed the Chatham Historical Museum that contained old documents, photographs and books, Kost said.“Our records were not affected one way or another,” said Cooper, whose office is located in the annex.Chatham County staff will have to work with Orange County in accommodating courthouse employees and sharing the case load, Kost said.Because Chatham and Orange counties share a court system, many of the employees are used to working at the courthouse in Hillsborough as well, Baddour said.The courthouse, built in 1881, was undergoing renovations by Progressive Contracting Company Inc., a company that specializes in restoring historic buildings. Commissioners budgeted $488,000 for the renovations, Kost said.“It’s like a death to our community when the town is centered around the courthouse,” Kost said.City Editor Sarah Frier contributed reporting. Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
Some U.S. towns have resorted to publicity stunts, from a town changing its name to Google to a mayor jumping into Lake Superior, to entice Google to lay high-speed Internet cable for free.But Chapel Hill, Carrboro and UNC may not be resorting to those tactics to supplement their application for Google’s experimental fiber-optic cable offer.But those at a joint meeting Monday said the towns still have something else to offer — the fact that they are already building a fiber-optic system.
Dual flush toilets, rainwater collectors, LED lighting and solar panels are not usually associated with a building dating back to 1905.Not to mention a car care center.After three months of renovations to its Carrboro location, Chapel Hill Tire Car Care Center plans to return to a normal business schedule by mid-April, with a much more sustainable building and lot.“It kind of flies in the face of what people think of when they think of a car care place,” said Joel Sheer, president of Sheer Associates Inc. and marketing manager for the 57-year-old business. The process was a bit more expensive than using non-sustainable methods, but it certainly wasn’t a deal breaker, owner Marc Pons said.“It requires different thinking more than it requires a lot more money,” he said.It was Pons’ membership on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce that first got him thinking about how he could sustainably renovate the Carrboro location of his business.“It really wasn’t in our financial interest to tear it down. That would have slowed us down,” Pons said.The chamber had been looking into incorporating green practices into local businesses, he said, using a test from the Green Plus Institute for Sustainable Development.“I figured as a board member I ought to take the test and see where this stood,” he said.Once Pons started planning, the idea began to encompass more than installing solar panels.“Ideas started flying — we said, ‘Let’s install dual flush toilets, use low VOC paints, reuse some of the building materials’ — it got to be really fun,” Pons said.There are 82 solar panels on the roof, said Ed Witkin, director of solar operations for Solar Tech South. The system will generate about 60 kilowatts a day with about 21,000 kilowatts being generated each year, he said.The electricity generated from the solar panels will be sold to Duke Energy at a wholesale rate, with the electricity needed to run the center bought back from Duke, Pons said.“You can actually sell the electricity that’s generated for more than what you buy it for,” Witkin said.With the circulation of energy being bought and sold and governmental tax credits, Pons said he expected the investment in the panels to be earned back after five years.Original beams dating back to the early 1900s were kept in place around the entryway and flash concrete, an environmentally friendly type of concrete, was used throughout the facilities, Sheer said.Impermeable surfaces on the property were torn out and replaced with new landscaping to prevent run-off, and a sitting garden was added for customers to enjoy.Although the building is not green certified, Pons said he hopes the changes made will inspire other local businesses to make their businesses more efficient.“Going forward with anything we do, we will try to incorporate what we’ve done in Carrboro,” Pons said. Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
Clarification (Feb. 25 1:54 a.m.): The graphic with this story made it seem that the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service does not use the extra food donations it receives. The IFC also distributes these “extra” donations.
Critics of revisions to Chapel Hill’s existing tree protection ordinance say the changes might place great restrictions on cutting down trees and potentially harm existing and future businesses.But those in favor of the revised ordinance see the new standards as important steps to protecting the area’s trees.The Town Council will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. tonight at the Town Hall to discuss the changes.The current ordinance regulates the removal of trees on non-residential properties and on single and two-family lots where more than 5,000 square feet of tree coverage would be cleared, regardless of lot size.Proposed revisionsn?Lots of more than half an acre would need a permit to cut down a tree 6 inches or larger in diameter. It would place additional restrictions on non-residential lots.n?For a permit, the property would have to meet standards based on tree rarity and tree canopy coverage, meaning the percentage of land covered by the leaves or branches of trees.n?Revisions to the ordinance have the potential to reduce carbon emissions and lower the “heat-island” effect caused by living in an urban area, it states.Who it affectsAbout 58 percent of single-family and two-family residential lots in Chapel Hill would be exempt from the proposed tree canopy coverage standards because of their lot size. These property owners could cut down any tree less than 36 inches in diameter without any restrictions, said Scott Radway, a local design and planning consultant and former member of the Chapel Hill Planning Board.For the other 42 percent, an arborist would have to determine the canopy coverage before any cutting could be done. If there was not enough coverage, more trees would have to be planted to compensate, Radway said.He said that the draft plan is not realistic for land owners.For University Mall to meet the proposed requirements, they would have to add about 1,680 trees, he said. Each tree would take up 1.25 parking spaces, which would total 2,100 parking spaces. There are currently 1,700 parking spaces, Radway said.The alternative would be to pay $1,000 for every required tree that wasn’t planted, about $1.7 million.“It would appear to meet the tree ordinance, you’d have to remove all the parking spaces and some of the buildings,” Radway said.Public debateThe town had already held two public information meetings.Bryan Lowrance, an arborist for Bartlett Tree Experts in Raleigh, said the revisions are just a beginning step to bettering the care of the trees so they will thrive in the future.“Generally, the ordinance is good to help people realize the importance of what the trees do for Chapel Hill,” he said.The canopy coverage content is a realistic goal and is the most important part of the ordinance, Lowrance said.Patricia Johnston, who owns 25 acres in the Kings Mill-Morgan Creek neighborhood, said she supports the revisions.“We bought this property because we did like the fact that it was heavily wooded,” she said.Radway said he supports more tree protection, but he does not support the ordinance as written.“All non-single family properties are being lumped under the same umbrella without acknowledging that there is a difference between a two-acre lot downtown and University Mall,” he said.Radway said the regulation is unenforceable and questioned how many property owners of lots larger than 20,000 square feet would actually go to town hall to obtain a permit to remove a tree.“You need to stop it in its tracks or put it on hold,” he said. “We need to get the economic developer or town manager to look at the effects that will be had on the development.”Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
Local businesses hope to see a boost because of their presence at the Collaboration: Humanities, Arts and Technology festival, which begins today at the Campus Y and lasts through Saturday.Many local businesses donated their resources for the event. Donations include lunches, a sweet tea station, equipment for the D.J. and video jockey party and a crepe station.Other businesses provided coupons for festival attendees. The attendees are encouraged to visit Franklin Street for dinner, festival project manager Kirsten Beattie said.“When we all pull together, we can make the region stronger,” Beattie said, adding that she expects 500 people to attend. “This is just one part of a long-term initiative.”
Tandoor Indian Restaurant spent between $25,000 and $30,000 on renovations a few months ago, said manager Balwinder Bhubal. “We changed everything except us and the food,” said Rem Bestole, who works as a waiter at the restaurant, located at 1301 E. Franklin St.Changes attracted more customers, so they’ve gotten a return on their investment, Bhubal said. “There are new restaurants coming to the city, so we want to compete with them,” he said.The restaurant now has a bar with TVs that play Bollywood music videos. Wednesday nights are Bollywood Night, playing up an Indian style.There are a number of new dishes, such as tandoori salmon and a special children’s menu with mild curry and tandoor chicken tenders.
It was a long process getting The Chocolate Door open due to strict business regulations and construction problems, owner Meghan Rosensweet said, but she’s happy with the way things came out.Rosensweet, who has made chocolate for the past two years for local businesses, opened her own shop Jan. 30 at 516 W. Franklin St., she said.The chocolates are all made by Rosensweet in the shop’s open kitchen, and patrons can watch the chocolates being made.Rosensweet said she uses local ingredients to create chocolates with such ingredients as bacon, triple chili and salty potato chips.“Stuff changes on a daily basis depending on what I feel like making,” Rosensweet said.A chocolate costs from $1.50 to $3, she said.
Sandwhich, a sandwich shop, will move to slightly farther east on Franklin Street, next to the McDonald’s, from its current space at The Courtyard at West Franklin Street and Roberson Street.The new Sandwhich store is slated to be open by April, chef Hich Elbetri said.“We don’t know the exact date because construction and all that stuff is unpredictable, so things never happen on time,” he said.Construction of the shop is a bit behind because of frequently changing weather, he said.The new space is about twice the size of the present space and will feature a larger amount of patio seating on an outside deck, Elbetri said.The new Sandwhich will have an expanded menu, with wine and rotisserie-style chicken.
Biting into a delicately crafted chocolate at Miel Bon Bons can release fusions of pomegranate, lavender, blood orange, rosemary, saffron or ancho chile.The owner of the place, Bonnie Lau, has as many flavors — her Hong Kong upbringing, her French and Japanese education, her Carrboro destination.“Chocolate is a universal language,” she said. “Using different tastes brings someone back to their home.”Lau and her business partner, Robert Healey, make an average of 2,500 chocolates a week by hand in their shop in Carr Mill Mall.Their titles range from mango and saffron ganache to four-layered almond truffle to lemongrass with coconut puree.“People’s tastes have evolved,” Healey said. “People don’t just want a milk chocolate anymore.”If a chocolate is made correctly, it should have a nice snap when broken, Lau said. Poorly made chocolates are grainy.One tray of 28 square pieces of undecorated chocolate takes Lau half an hour to make, assuming the temperature is stable. Healey said chocolate is incredibly sensitive to temperature.“If you’ve ever opened a candy bar and it’s white, that’s because it is poor-tempered,” he said.Dark chocolate is the most popular among customers, Healey said, especially filled with rose water raspberry ganache.To make ganache-filled chocolates, Lau first coats the inside of each spot in the tray with a thin layer of melted chocolate, tapping the sides of the tray to eliminate bubbles.After the inner shell sets, Lau squeezes ganache, a fluffy whipped chocolate, to each shell. The filling is made by boiling cream and infusing the desired flavors, she said.Lau feels the ganache to know when to add the top shell of chocolate. She pours the chocolate over the tray and scrapes off any excess.For colorful chocolates, Lau uses food coloring powder mixed with cocoa butter and airbrushes the inside of each space in a tray.The intricate designs topping some of the pieces like a tattoo are from transfer sheets, which are individually sized and applied to each chocolate.Lau said she uses her world experience as flavoring inspiration.Before making chocolates, she was a pastry chef for a five-star hotel in San Diego, Calif. In 2001, she was inspired to go to France to study chocolate.While Lau finished her studies in France, construction was beginning on the Carrboro store. She flew between France and North Carolina while preparing to open.Miel Bon Bons, which opened in 2008, has done well in its second year.“It’s like a guilty pleasure that people can still afford,” said Anna Pepper, owner of The Painted Bird, another store in the mall.Lau and Healey said they’d consider expansion in the future, eventually offering classes in chocolate-making and cake decorating.“Chocolate is very special,” Lau said. “You should treat it like a jewel.”Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.
Cartridge World, an Australian franchise, opened two weeks ago in University Square.
Franklin Street Market, which opened three weeks ago at 167 E. Franklin St., is Tekin Guler’s convenience store, though he said he has worked as a manager in many.
Kildare’s, an Irish pub that has several locations along the East Coast, will open Friday, owner Dave Magrogan said.
Top of the Hill owner Scott Maitland opened a new banquet hall and a new bar Thursday adjacent to the current location.
A dangerous Chapel Hill intersection is playing a decisive role in the attempt to bring another Walgreens to Franklin Street.The drug store cannot move into the former site of Walker’s BP Service Station at 1500 E. Franklin St. until the town addresses the problematic intersection of East Franklin Street and Estes Drive.Between 2003 and 2006, 56 car accidents occurred in the intersection. The intersection is the seventh most dangerous in town, council member Penny Rich said.“People are blindsided. They’re trying to cut across four lanes of traffic to make a left,” she said. “It’s the fact that we have more cars on the road. If you look 10 years ago, it might not have been such a dangerous intersection.”Among the options that the Chapel Hill Town Council discussed was adding a median on Estes Drive.The permit application from Walgreens states that the business would pay for a median, as well as changes to the entrance driveways and other features to make the area more pedestrian-friendly.The property owner of Caribou Coffee, which has entrances on both sides of the intersection, sent the town a letter expressing concerns that the proposed median would discourage turns into the parking lot.Diane McArthur, a Caribou Coffee customer, called the proposed median a terrible idea.“I do think it’s wrong to hurt the business of an established business in order to help a new business,” she said.Jessica Page, a Caribou Coffee employee, said the biggest problem is the need for pedestrian safety.“People are really rude, and you can never cross,” Page said. “People go way too fast.”Page said customers complain because they have to park across the street from Caribou and they can’t cross the street.“I’ll park where I’m not supposed to just because it’s so hard to cross,” Page said.The median would act as a resting place for pedestrians if they couldn’t cross in time, Rich said. The medians would help regulate the flow of traffic by eliminating the opportunity to turn at businesses along that stretch.Rich said they must take into account the added traffic a Walgreens would bring and must keep the turns directly into the parking lot.“There will be more cars going into Walgreens than into the BP,” she said. “It makes a bad intersection worse.”Rich said that regardless of whether a Walgreens moves into the location, the town needs to look at making the intersection safer.“It’s a constant balancing act between growth and cars,” Rich said.Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.