PECKING ORDERS

The purple rooster has to go, along with the giant grizzly bear rearing up on its hind legs and baring its giant maw, and the unicorn, and the life-size black horse grazing on the weeds in the parking lot, the gigantic sunflowers, the towering red bull and the Shoney’s Big Boy hamburger kid. Brandon and Emily Chase Reids’ entire livelihood, packed up and hauled off.

St. Johns County’s code enforcement cited the young couple, owners of the Garden of Needin’, on May 3, claiming their whimsical yard art business on U.S. 1, known as Dixie Highway in that area, is illegal at their current location. They had 15 days to pay a $118 fine and haul their menagerie off the lot or store it inside. (There’s only a small building and a workshop on the lot, so onsite storage is not an option.) They can also take the matter to a circuit court judge.

On April 25, Emily Reid posted a note about the couple’s struggles with code enforcement on the Swip-Swap-St-Augustine-FL Facebook page. She also wrote a letter with similar content to the Historic City News.

“It’s a sad day in America when local businesses are defeated by the county they are trying to occupy,” Emily wrote on Facebook. “My husband and I are young parents to two girls, and have just bought our first house in Palm Coast.” She said that St. Johns County is enforcing its codes to put them out of business. “… And although we have committed to ‘playing ball’ with them and done whatever we must do to fall within their guidelines, they have refused to allow us to do business here,” she posted.

The couple is renting a lot that’s zoned commercial general, which means outside sales aren’t allowed. The county first told the couple in February that they weren’t in compliance with the zoning code. The May 3 citation came after months of discussion. The pair says they’d tried to suggest solutions, like putting their sculptures behind a fence. But the only way it would be legal would be if the Reids gathered all the lawn art and corralled it inside the small building on the property, conducting only inside sales.

If Facebook fans are any indication, the Garden of Needin’ is doing more than selling kitsch, it’s exercising a civic virtue. “Love the Shoney’s Big Boy,” one fan wrote on the Garden of Needin’s Facebook page. “You brighten up that intersection.”

A nearby neighbor said she loves the honey they sell and likes that their intersection houses a bait shop, a barbecue restaurant and yard art. “It reminds me of small town living,” she said. On Facebook, Charles Scozzari wrote, “Your ‘big’ purple chicken brings a smile to a lot of faces.”

The responses to Emily’s post were supportive, passionate and plentiful. It generated 164 comments, 307 sympathetic emojis and 352 shares.

“This is an outrageous way to treat a young family-owned business,” one commentator wrote. St. Augustine artist Bruce Bates’ response related their struggle with the county to the struggle of artists like him who have been harassed by the county when trying to create and sell artwork inside the historic district. “If you are a member of the creative class, run from this city and county,” he wrote. “Run!” Others speculated that somebody with better political collections might want the land and that was the impetus behind code enforcement’s focus on the Garden of Needin’.

But Michael Ryan, communications director for St. Johns County, says it was the Reids’ job to research the property before they opened the business to find out what was allowed and what wasn’t.

“Every entrepreneur and business owner has a responsibility to determine if the business he plans to operate is allowed within the current land use and zoning [rules],” said Ryan.

Ryan explained he likes to drive fast, but if he goes over the speed limit, it’s illegal. It’s like having a 10-foot-tall purple chicken on a lot that’s zoned commercial general. “I like purple chickens,” he said. “But it’s against the law there. We don’t subjectively enforce those ordinances and there is a process in place for someone who wants to change the land use and the zoning.”

Code enforcement is largely complaint-driven. With eight code enforcement officers assigned to 640 square miles, it’s impossible to stay on top of every overgrown lawn, every semi-truck parked in a neighborhood or grizzly bear statuary rearing up on its hind legs.

Business owner Bruce Griffy contacted St. Johns County on Dec. 17 about Garden of Needin’ because he saw it as selective permitting. He’d approached the county about opening a farmers market on the location. The county clearly explained to him, he complained, that no product could be displayed outside at that location. Griffy found another spot for his GoFresh Farm Market, but it cost him a lot more money to be in business there than it would have to open at U.S. 1 and S.R. 206.

Folio Weekly Magazine left a voicemail for Griffy, asking to talk to him about the issue, but he didn’t return the call.

Certainly, most people understand the need for zoning and land use laws to prevent a Target from opening in the middle of a residential neighborhood and to keep strip clubs from opening next door to daycares. But the battle against a purple rooster and a life-size black stallion seems a little more obscure. According to Ryan, the law is the law.

The property the Reids rent for the Garden of Needin’ is for sale, and the Reids are renting it on a month-by-month basis until it’s sold. And, as Ryan points out, the property owner could seek a rezoning and land use change to permit businesses like the Garden of Needin’ on that site. At one point, the owner of the property submitted documents for a zoning and land use change, but when he realized it would cost more than $3,000 to file it, according to county documents, he withdrew it.

The May 3 citation gave the Reids 14 days to pay a fine of $118 and comply or request a hearing. On May 16, they requested a court date.

“I’m just going to hire an attorney and take it before the judge … while I contest it, they’re off my back,” Brandon Reid said.

He thinks that the county did not properly inform him of what was allowed on the land and says that other business owners in the area do outside sales. He also believes his business has been targeted.

In arguing that the enforcement is selective, Brandon points to Bob’s Bait & Tackle & Produce across U.S. 1 from his business. The bait shop rents U-Haul trailers, which it stores outside. After Brandon brought up the issue, the area’s code enforcement officer Matt Randolph researched the zoning of that business, and has since cited it, too. That wasn’t the outcome the Reids wanted. Most people probably don’t have a problem with Bob’s making a little extra money renting U-Hauls or even with the gargantuan lawn art that the Reids sell. On that stretch of U.S. 1 near Matanzas State Forest, pockets of retail are carved out between pine trees and palmetto. At S.R. 206, Smokin D’s BBQ, Garden of Needin’, Bob’s Bait & Tackle and Ye Olde School Marine are all doing business in a small-town, traditional sort of way. Further up U.S. 1, large residential lots are cut from the woods and mobile homes are settled deep inside the lots. Some of those tracts are giving way to new developments, but it still has a rural feel, the kind of place where the neighbors wouldn’t find a purple rooster an aesthetic affront.

Brandon Reid grew up surrounded by this statuary. His grandfather, David Biggers, raised him in San Mateo, where he kept honeybee hives. Biggers also ran a lawn art business southeast of Lake George in Barberville. Brandon sold the large, smiling pink pig sitting by Smokin D’s front door, a landmark locals and tourists alike identify with the barbecue place, when he was just 13 years old and working summers with his grandfather.

Reid says his grandfather has driven up and down U.S. 1 looking for a commercial intensive location where the couple can move their business. So far, he hasn’t found anything. Bolstered by his Facebook supporters and customers, Reid thinks part of the problem is that St. Johns County isn’t friendly to small businesses. But for now, he says, he and his grizzly bear and his purple rooster are going to fight.

“I’m not going to move any of it. I’ll fight. Let a judge decide if we can stay or not,” he said. “If not, we’ll probably move out of the county.” He might just wind up taking his business elsewhere, though. “Volusia is a lot more friendly; they don’t come up with all these crazy zoning laws.”

His grandfather thinks that might be the solution, Brandon added.

“My grandpa says, ‘It looks like they kind of got it out for you.’ He doesn’t want to see us get bullied.”

Ryan disputed the notion that St. Johns County isn’t business-friendly. “Our goal is to help local businesses be profitable,” he said. “We are not in the business of shutting businesses down … But we are in the business of enforcing the codes and laws.”

Garden of Needin’ is successful at this sweet spot on U.S. 1 — where a woman from western St. Johns County bought a bison for her front lawn and a couple returning to Fort Lauderdale stopped in on a recent Friday afternoon to ask about buying statuary depicting a Native American.

“We were doing really well,” said Emily Chase Reid, “making enough money to feed our family, just on jars of honey.” And the spot has become something of a regional attraction, she said. “Kids come in, pet the unicorn, eat peanuts. What’s not to love?”