Honey vs. Vinegar

I learned one of life's greatest lessons in college from a well loved secretary.  She was honey sweet to everyone and when she needed a favor or had a special request, people bent over backwards to get it done.

I have had many not so shining moments, spewing vinegar and leaving a wake of smelliness when things did not go as planned.  To my credit, most of my sour years were during teen years and into my twenties.  But meeting this lovely secretary truly changed my outlook on life.  And I have been striving to choose honey over vinegar ever since.

Everyday we are faced with choices between honey and vinegar.  My most recent encounter came on December 4th while gaining our lovely Inglewood Zoning Planner's signature for our ABC license.  By now, you know that I researched and triple checked our zoning prior to signing our lease for our space.  When our Planner and I reviewed our potential property, I was pretty clear on our intended use (wholesale and retail sales for on and off site consumption), and our lovely planner signed off on it.  Turns out she made a mistake.  Before she said that we did not need a Special Use Permit for our tasting room.  She then realized that we will be selling beer directly to the public and THAT requires a Special Use Permit.   The Special Use Permit takes a minimum of two-three months to complete, which includes a hearing and a 20 day appeals period.  Inglewood also has a monthly filing deadline to get your Special Use Permit in by.  As I sat there I realized that the Special Use Permit filing deadline was the very next day, December 5th.  OMG.

We are now two to three months delayed on our tasting room.  If I didn't get our Special Use Permit application in by 5PM December 5th, we would be an additional 30 days behind schedule.  Ouch.  That is a three to four months of rent mistake.  Good thing we have a delay in taking possession of our space!

Honey vs. Vinegar.  It's a split second decision that can lead you down two very different paths.  One which is smooth gliding, the other bumpy, stinky and rough.  All my years of striving for honey paid off in tens as I sat at the planning counter and automatically poured honey.  Lots and lots of honey.

Just the look on our lovely Inglewood Zoning Planner's face told a story of how sorry she was for the miscommunication.  I sincerely got the feeling that she would go to bat for us if we could get our Special Use Permit application in by 5PM the next evening.   I know that the honey used today will helps us in the future if and when we need it.

I left the planning office on an impossible mission.  We had to design our tasting room (ADA Compliant), redesign our parking lot to meet the new parking requirements (ADA Compliant), provide exterior elevations of the building which included our "architectural design element of our brewery" (aka: our silo) and sign.  I had to write up answers to address their questions on the Special Use Permit form and provide supporting documentation.   We also needed our landlord to notarize and sign a form acknowledging our desired permit requests.  Did I mentioned that all of these plans had to be to scale?  All to be done in less than 24 hours!  I'm an optimist, but I'm also a realist.

Back to the honey.  Jonathan and I love to entertain.  We usually can't wait to share the new things we have discovered.  Most of our designers, trades and professionals that we have worked with have somehow become part of our extended family.  Maybe because we treat them as such, family.

So when I made a frantic phone call to our friend and designer Jeremy Taylor at 5PM December 4th, he assured me that together we would get it done.  Tons of Three Weavers love to Jeremy!  Not only do his interior and landscape designs rock, but he has become a dear friend.   You will have to check out our Jeremy Taylor designed Tasting Room!

Between Alexandra (brew master), Jeremy and I, we were able to knock out the tasting room layout.  The new parking lot took quite a bit longer as well as our "brewery architectural design element" (aka: silo) and building elevations.  I didn't finish my portion of the application until mid day.  Jeremy actually drove our finished printed plans directly to Inglewood Planning.  I was able to pay for our permit application at 5PM.  Our lovely Inglewood Zoning Planner made herself available all day to us, helping give us direction with our permit application.

It was a stressful 24 hours, one that I hope not to repeat.   After completing our permit application, I profusely apologized to Jeremy for my frantic crazy phone calls throughout the day.  Knowing that he had a long traffic filled drive home, I gave him the snickers bar I had.  Somehow I remembered that Jeremy likes snickers bars.