After leaving Kennesaw, pawnshop to opens anew
July 11, 2012 01:02 AM |
Marietta granted a business license effective July 1 for the store at 1245 Bellemeade Drive, in the Bellemeade Shopping Center, near Powder Springs Street.
When a reporter visited the address on Tuesday, there was no sign the store opened yet. A woman who answered the business’s telephone number declined to comment, saying she was tired of the media attention. A telephone call to their lawyer was not returned.
John and Serena Cruchelow originally opened their store in Kennesaw on Cobb Parkway, in the Mack Dobbs Point strip mall. That store opened on Dec. 28, 2011, and closed in late June.
In what the City of Kennesaw admits was an oversight, the city
granted a business license to the store, despite zoning restrictions put in place in 2004 that prohibited pawn shops and certain other kinds of businesses from opening in that particular mall. Celestino Venturi, who originally developed the mall, still owns it.
In February, Bill Harris, a resident of nearby Summer Stream neighborhood in Kennesaw, noticed small yard signs for the pawn shop and soon he and other neighbors began petitioning the city council to close the shop.
After Kennesaw’s City Council in May rejected a variance request that would allow the pawn shop to stay open, Venturi filed an appeal in Cobb Superior Court on June 15, arguing in part that his constitutional rights have been violated and seeking damages. As of late Tuesday, the city had not filed its response in the case.
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See additional photos at: http://johncruchelow.blogspot.com/2012/07/blog-post.html
The new location is undergoing renovations and is not currently open for business. It is located behind the Bellemeade Shopping Center, directly behind the Dollar General Store. It is in a very downmarket neighborhood.
