Williston Restaurant Mural Draws Unwanted City Attention

By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

Several months ago an artist painted a mural on the wall of a Williston restaurant depicting cattle grazing on a fenced pasture. It represented Williston’s agricultural community and the city’s values perfectly, right?

Well, nothing is ever that simple in government.

Turns out wall murals need city government approval before the business owner can go forward with painting the picture, regardless of the subject matter and regardless of how well it represents community values.

Green Shutters Restaurant owner Tammi Johns didn’t order the mural painted. Her mother gave her the mural as a birthday gift. It was painted on the restaurant’s south wall.

Everything seemed fine until Marc Pompeo, a Williston businessman who serves on the city code enforcement and board of adjustment, asked whether Johns had received city approval for the mural.

“I know he asked the question because he went through it,” said City Manager Jackie Gorman, referring to the process of getting a wall mural approved. “He didn’t stir. He just asked a question which prompted our code officer to go and ask them if they had applied for a permit.”

Johns hadn’t received a special exception required by the city’s sign code. The special exception would have required Johns to pay a $720 fee and go through a public hearing process to get the mural approved. The fee is more than twice what her mother paid to have the mural painted as a birthday gift.

Johns has let it be known that if she is cited for a code violation she will paint over the mural and be done with it. She said friends have offered to pay the $720 but she has turned down their offer.

The mural popped up in conversation at the first city council meeting in January when Albert Fuller, a member of the city’s planning and zoning commission, asked for council guidance on the sign code and the mural.

“We’re looking forward to getting some guidance from the council on that issue,” he said.

He received no guidance from the council. The planning commission reviews the city’s land development code as part of its assigned duties. The sign and mural requirements fall under the land development code.

Gorman said the city is just trying to get Green Shutters to make application for a special exception. She said it’s not a permit. She said the fee is aimed at paying for city costs associated with the special exception process including legal advertising.

“Our planning board has been reviewing to see if we need to update that and what I’m hearing is no, they want to leave it as it is. It’s just an expression and doing this correctly so everybody has a chance to say whether they like it. If they think it is offensive that’s what a public hearing is for,” Gorman said.

She said there has been discussion of breaking out the mural requirements from the sign code and letting them stand by themselves rather than leaving it at the end of the sign code. She said the requirements for a mural were instituted by a previous administration.

“No one has come to the city to say I would do a mural if the fee was lower,” she said. “In the case of the Green Shutters people have even offered to pay the fee.”

Gorman said a code violation hasn’t been issued because she wanted the Green Shutters owner to understand the requirements of the code and file an application if she chooses to do so.

“We don’t want code enforcement up. That’s a last resort on anything,” Gorman said.

Gorman said lowering the fee for a special exception, in her view, isn’t the answer either.

“You’re going to invite all kinds of bad art to be put on buildings, graffiti, that sort of stuff. We’re trying to keep it where people can have really good art and expression,” she said. “Some people’s art is other people’s angst. This is an opportunity to let people say they like it or they don’t like it.”

Gorman said going back and reviewing at the mural requirements will let the town determine what it wants.

“But at the time the Shutters mural went up, the code was the code. We can’t just ignore it when someone else has complied,” Gorman said.