Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 18, 1993 TAG: 9312180081
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Everything is for sale, except one item - a 35mm camera on a display table near the front door.
Owner Raymond Long keeps his camera there so he can dash outside at a moment's notice and snap pictures of people who don't belong in the parking lot in front of his store.
"I just run them off," Long said, "and I take a picture of them to make a record of it."
Long and his wife, Emma, protect the small parking area like sentinels at a border crossing. They even have two closed-circuit television cameras set up to monitor the comings and goings in front of their store.
The owners of two neighboring businesses have grown tired of the constant vigilance, which started shortly after the Longs bought the property last year.
Woe unto their customers who inadvertently park in front of Auntie Em's.
"They come out there screaming like a couple of maniacs," said Kathy Hudson, owner of a stained-glass shop next door. "These people are completely obsessed. This is their life."
Geraldine "Jerri" Lawrence, owner of Jerri's Hair Haven, has filed a lawsuit in Salem Circuit Court claiming that the Longs have conspired to ruin her business by scaring off her customers.
"It's about the strangest thing I've ever seen in this town," said Lawrence, who has been cutting hair in Salem for 22 years.
Raymond Long denies that he has done anything to harass the hair salon customers, saying that he is only trying to protect himself and his property from their harassment.
Long claims that Lawrence's customers were taking up his parking spaces and damaging his property while trying to maneuver back onto Main Street.
Lawrence denies she has done anything to hurt the Longs. "If we're harassing him, he should have plenty of it on film."
At the heart of the parking tiff is a landlord-tenant dispute between the Longs and Lawrence.
Last year, the Longs bought two buildings: their store, and the shop that Lawrence leases.
The Longs have tried to evict Lawrence, claiming she broke the lease by, among other things, overloading the electrical circuits with hair dryers.
A Salem judge threw out the claim. The Longs have appealed to Salem Circuit Court.
Lawrence said the parking-lot watch began after she refused the Longs' attempts to raise her rent.
She said the dispute has made it hard on her customers, especially the elderly ones who show up for senior citizen discounts on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Long has made it difficult, if not impossible, for handicapped salon customers to use a ramp at the front door, according to Emerson Gilmer, chairman of the Salem Community Awareness Council, who claims the Longs have committed a "flagrant violation" of the American With Disabilities Act.
"That ramp is no good anymore," Gilmer said.
Raymond Long said the ramp was not an issue. While the ramp helped customers get up a five-inch step to a concrete slab, they still had to step up six inches from the slab to the front door.
"If you can get over one, why can't you get over the other?" Long asked.
Lawrence said she would not build a new wheelchair ramp, because it was the duty of the landlord, not the tenant, to comply with the disabilities act.
"It's a shame," she said. "I'm sorry that I even have to be involved in something like this.
"All they do is sit over there all day long looking at what we're doing, so they can run out and take our picture or call the police."
by CNB