Chapel Hill Shops Look to Carboro
by Nora Warren

Independent business owners in Chapel Hill are speaking out. Vivian Olkin, owner of the recently closed Inside Scoop Ice Cream Shop, says she doesn't think the Chapel Hill town council is "taking an overall perspective of what's going on and what needs to be done."

To shop owners the problems stem from the council's seeming indifference to the challenges affecting small businesses.

"In downtown Chapel Hill, the biggest problem is parking," said Paint the Earth manager Barry Slobin.

The parking issue is particularly cumbersome to small businesses owners who have a harder time enticing people to come downtown in the first place. Slobin says he knows people who won't even come downtown because of the lack of parking.

Both Slobin and Olkin suggest the town implement a limited free parking program. But Mayoral Aide Emily Dickens says that proposal just isn't possible.

"We can't offer free parking because we've got our debt service payments on Wallace parking deck. "

However, the town does offer a program where shop owners can buy parking tokens to give to their customers. But local shopowners say that's just one more cost a small business could not absorb.

"Everybody thinks that when you're in business you're doing well. And they have no idea how you're struggling," Olkin says.

The owners also say that even if parking were not an issue, stiff town ordinances would still keep them from thriving in Chapel Hill.

Aaron Nelson, director of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce says getting permits to put up signage is also a challenge small businesses face.

Olkin says the town has repeatedly suggested that she increase her advertising. So Last year she invested in an eight foot tall ice cream cone balloon to promote her Franklin Street shop. But town council barred her from putting it on the sidewalk because it was too big to meet town regulations.

Dickens says it is important for businesses to check regulations on signs before they spend money on items they can't use.

"You just have to try to be a part of the system and kinda stop complaining about it and become involved in the process," she said.

Town leaders say any business owner having trouble meeting town standards is free to petition the council to change ordinances. However, the council's process at the moment is meant to promote corporate business. The town's plan to revitalize downtown requires the presence of additional big businesses.

Accodring to Nelson, the big businesses could draw people to Franklin Street, helping small businesses score more walk-by traffic.

In Carrboro, the downtown area is thriving, but it's locally owned establishments, such as the Arts Center and Cats Cradle, that are luring people to Main Street. Carrboro Alderman Alex Zaffron says Carrboro's biggest challenge is that its downtown is full.

However, Chapel Hill town leaders maintain their policies aren't what's causing small businesses to close - it is a lack of proper business planning.

"It's always about having a good plan, knowing what the need is, filling that niche," Dickens says. The independent business niche, for now, seems to be in Carrboro.

"There may be space in the relatively near future to accommodate new businesses that move over here and we'd be glad to have them," Zaffron says.

Chapel Town council is working to create a clear vision of how to develop downtown. Until then, independent business owners will have to wait to see what the downtown's future holds for them.