Downtown moratorium

Tattoo parlors, restaurant chain cannibals, what’s next? Maybe somebody will bring back the Red Garter. For all its parking tickets, the Downtown Improvement Board and the Pensacola City Council have never a real plan for Palafox Place –the downtown corridor from Garden Street to Main Street. The balcony of the defunct Will Call is a perfect example of someone bending the rules, ignoring the historic district and doing whatever they want….while others like Blazzues and the Studer project in the old Penko building have gone to great lengths to preserve the buildings and the character of downtown.

The rules appear to be fluid for whatever wants to bend them.

Mayor Hayward needs to place a 90-day moratorium on new business licenses for the three blocks until the community can decide what is the mix they believe is best for the area.

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Author: Rick Outzen

Rick Outzen is the publisher/owner of Pensacola Inweekly. He has been profiled in The New York Times and featured in several True Crime documentaries. Rick also is the author of the award-winning Walker Holmes thrillers. His latest nonfiction book is “Right Idea, Right Time: The Fight for Pensacola’s Maritime Park.”