Waffle House opens for 24-hour business

By Cindy Landrum  

JULY 16, 2010 8:13 a.m. (0)

Residents in neighborhoods surrounding a yet-to-open Waffle House on East Stone Avenue are deciding their next step after the restaurant was given permission to stay open 24 hours a day for the next year.

The city’s Board of Zoning Appeals granted a special exemption from zoning regulations approved last summer that prohibit some businesses next to residential areas from operating from midnight until 5 a.m. without a public hearing and board approval.

Nine neighborhood associations and dozens of residents who live there protested Waffle House’s around-the-clock operation, saying it would be too disruptive to the neighborhood and threaten its safety.

Prior to passage of the new zoning ordinance, no operating hours restrictions existed. City Attorney Ron McKinney said the ordinance was prompted by concerns about Waffle House but was the city’s attempt to stay ahead of a trend citywide.

“We are here because the rules were changed in the middle of the game,” said Waffle House attorney Rivers Stillwell, who lives in an adjacent neighborhood. “We can pretend it was done for general purposes, but we all know why it was done.”

Waffle House president Walt Ehmer said the company’s business plan requires their restaurants to be open 24-hours a day because most of its profit is generated during those late night and early morning hours.

“We don’t know how to close,” he said.

Stillwell told the board the restaurant would not open with anything less than around-the-clock hours.

The Stone Avenue location to be in the top 5 percent of revenue-producers for the chain.

“We would have never put the site under contract if we couldn’t run 24 hours,” Ehmer said. “We don’t feel like we did anything wrong here. The game changed in the middle… it’s a little disappointing to be treated this way.”

Ehmer asked the board to give the restaurant a chance to prove it would be a good neighbor.

Residents said allowing the restaurant to be open from midnight until 5 a.m. would be too disruptive, didn’t fit the city’s comprehensive plan and would decrease property values.

Residents said those five hours are when 55 percent of criminal offenses at other Waffle Houses occur. Scotty Roberson reminded commissioners that a city police officer was killed after a crowd swarmed another Waffle House restaurant in 1999.

The restaurant chain countered by saying it planned to have two armed security guards at the site on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Stillwell called residents’ protests “downright snobbery” and said it is “classic” not in my back yard syndrome.

The board decided to grant a special exemption that will have to be renewed after one year. It also ordered a review of the impact on the neighborhood in six months.

Waffle House officials have not yet decided whether to drop a lawsuit it filed against the city about the law change.

No opening date has been set for the restaurant.

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