Now it is freely to be admitted that if a regular person with no axe to grind sat down with a copy of the Moscow City Code, and his goal was to decide whether or not the Food Co-op ought to be allowed to move from its current location into the old Garts building, the answer could be arrived at within ten minutes or so, and the answer would be a resounding affirmative. This could be settled on two grounds. First, this is supposed to be a free country, and second, an intelligent reading of the code (provided no personal animosity is involved) clearly allows for it.
But in recent days, we have all been schooled in a different way of reading the code, which apparently involves reading the code through three or four wool blankets. According to this new way of “reading,” if a use is not distinctly mentioned, it is therefore prohibited. But the very selective (and illegal) way this is getting applied (only to Christian ministries) indicates that wool blankets are not being used at all, and our antagonists are not really looking at the code. They are looking at us, and will do or say whatever it takes to harm our ministries. Because when it is pointed out that this unique kind of reading would exclude quite a number of things downtown, the hermeneutic for reading the code suddenly shifts back again, and we discover that if the code doesn’t exclude the Food Co-op, it must be permitted. Heads I win, tails you lose.
But here are some quick thoughts on why this new and wooden way of code reading does exclude the co-op. In the Moscow City Code (3-7-B), the Motor Business Zoning District contains a section on “Permitted Principal Uses.” The code goes on, and I quote: “Retail enterprises dispensing food or commodities including on-premise sales, sales requiring delivery of goods, and drive-up facilities such as shopping centers and malls, grocery stores, gasoline service stations” and on it goes.
Now the people wanting to run NSA out of downtown (while keeping the Food Co-op) want to argue that this section should be read like this: “Retail enterprises, to wit, entities that dispense food or commodities on-site, entities that deliver, and entities that you drive up to, such as grocery stores.” That way, since retail establishments are expressly permitted in the Central Business District, and retail establishments include grocery stores, then the Food Co-op is also permitted. Ta da!
But there is a problem. Grammatically, the language of the code distinguishes between retail establishments that sell on-site and deliver, and drive-up facilities. Grocery stores are listed as examples of drive-up facilities, and they are plainly distinguished (in the language of the code) from retail enterprises. Two different kinds of nouns are set apart from one another — retail establishments and drive-up facilities. This can be plainly seen another way. Gas stations are listed there as drive-up facilities. Do we normally think of gas stations (without an attached convenience store), the kind of gas station that only sells gas and three-year-old packets of M&Ms, as retail stores? No, they are drive-up facilities.
Also, as we have just seen, in the motor district, grocery stores are listed as “drive-up facilities” and the code says that the central district is designed to promote “pedestrian use.” Consequently, the code would currently prohibit a Sam’s Club downtown, that would require a ten acre parking lot. But everybody (or, that is, everybody reasonable) knows that though the Food Co-op is technically a grocery store, and technically is not listed as a permitted use downtown, it nevertheless fits the description of the code for downtown use for everyone who is capable of reasoning by analogy, and who doesn’t have an axe to grind.
NSA is allowed by the code in the CBD because the code allows “commercial schools, churches, synagogues, mosques, governmental offices, libraries, museums, art galleries, police and fire stations, and similar public or private institutions.” But when it comes to NSA, there are a number of people who really do have a very personal axe to grind, and they are trying to settle these personal scores by filling out paper work that require various officials to go do something. And unfortunately, thus far, officialdom does not seem to see that this is what is being done. When will someone decide to investigate the source of these outrageous, multiple complaints? And when will the people of Moscow come to the conclusion that this kind of harassment has to stop?