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Religious Slurs Deface Church
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By CANDACE J. SAMOLINSKI csamolinski@tampatrib.com
Published: May 8, 2006
"TAMPA - Children and their parents trekked three blocks from parking spots Sunday to attend services at Glory to Glory Ministries, only to be met by freshly painted religious slurs marring the side of the church on East North Street."
Interesting comment:
The neighbors don't want us here," he said. "They call the police every Sunday about our cars being parked along the streets. They have even put up signs in their yards."
"The building has stood on the property for more than 50 years and has always been used by churches, said Sevim Tavlan, whose company, Creative Housing of Tampa, owns the building at 610 E. North St. and a vacant lot across the street.
In three years, grass lots have given way to single-family homes, and signs have gone up warning not to park in the remaining vacant lots. The congregation has found parking in short supply, and tensions have risen"
Susan and I saw the graffitti yesterday and thought it was part of the same graffitti caused by the 13 year old kid who got arrested recently. I guess not.
Thanks for the update, I dug around TBO and the local news station websites, but couldn't locate anything early this morning. Guess graffiti is becoming the de facto forum for people who don't want to follow proper channels for disputes.
ReplyDeleteI believe this is the same building where the Alley Cat Players were performing. I know there was similar uproar from the neighbors, with some cause, about parking at that time. Driving on I-275 North on Sunday morning you can see how flooded the streets are with cars. I wouldn't be happy about it. In fact, the proximity of that building was a major reason I didn't purchase a home on North Street when we bought.
ReplyDeleteI don't think graffitti is a good solution, but I can sympathize with their frustrations.
I am disgusted at the antics some people engage in to get a message across. Although the neighbors are angry about the parking situation, I don't think anyone would say that a church in their neighborhood is a bad thing. It's the lack of parking, thanks to Charlie Thomas, that annoys everyone. To write on a building to express dissatisfaction does not resolve the problem, it only exacerbates it. The church people have a right to be annoyed.
ReplyDeleteI'm flabbergasted that everyone thinks it was the neighbors that defaced the building just because they pointed the finger!!! I live on this block and saw the graffiti for myself... the slurs, ironically, were not towards the non-denominational church, but towards Judaism - the name of the building is the Isaac Center. Furthermore, there was graffiti on a neighbor’s fence that sits adjacent to the church facing Lambright. Why would we deface our own property and neighborhood?! Yes, there have been problems regarding parking as well as reckless speeding down our street. We are all looking for a good solution but have not gone to such perverse measures. It’s a sad coincidence that what was most likely some young punks out trying to cause some trouble happened to fall in an area where there was already tension. We are happy that we get to attend the zoning hearing on Thursday and hope to find a fair resolution there. In the meantime, don’t go throwing your neighbors under the bus! Get the real story!
ReplyDeleteWhat a coincidence that this occured the Sunday before the Zoning meeting...nothing like media coverage to help them out. I wouldn't doubt if this was done by the owners..they are as ethical as Charlie Thomas.
ReplyDeleteIn the current climate of outspoken (at least here on the blog) proponents for graffiti as a legitimate form of protest, and given the spin provided by the local news outlets, I think it is quite natural that the assumptions might tend to skew towards locals upset by the parking issue. That being said I will be the first to apologize if I jumped to the wrong conclusions. Items like this are an example of why the blog is such a great community resource, it allows people who might be closer to the story to air their view, as opposed to the one-sided often spun stories of the news outlets.
ReplyDeleteI've lived in extremely close proximity to the building at the end of North Street now for about 10 years. I was here when the North Street Church of God was thriving and had enough parking to sustain its numbers. Then came Charlie. Charlie decided it would be best to develop all the lots, yet keep this building as a church, unfortunatly he let the building in question sit vacant for too long and it subsequently lost it's zoning and is now zoned as residental. We have now been dealing with a 100+ cars parked anywhere possible for over 3 years. We have utilized every available channel: code enforcement, police, and a meeting with Charlie and the Pastor. It has taken us 3 years to get to this point why do you think any of us would jepordize this by inviting negative publicity?
ReplyDeleteAlthough it has nothing to do with the issues at hand if anybody chooses to discuss the non-neighborly attitude on North Street, as was brought up on Channel 8, I will tell you about the first time the police came and a Sergent was told "lucky they all removed their Confederate flags before you showed up" or my wife being called a rude name by a motorist that she had asked to slow down while my 3 year old son was playing in our front yard beside her, or myself being "flicked off" under the same circumstances or another neighbor of mine being told to go back into her house and "pray" when she asked someone not to park on the street directly in front of her home, and yet another neighbor that was asked "what are you going to do about it" while the individual removed his jacket after being asked to please not drive on their newly sodded lawn. It is not the people that live in this neighborhood that are behaving this way.
After all this we have still chosen to handle things the right way. The legal way. And the neighborhood has never strayed from this ideal.
As someone that has been dealing and living with this issue for the last 3 years I can assure all that read this that no residents that are concerned with the building on North Street had anything to do with any graffiti nor racisit sentiments as eluded to on Channel 8.
The issue on North Street is about parking. Nothing else. We would still be at this point if it was a clown school at the end of the street. Everyone that is involved with the building at the end of North Street know that they themselves are the ones in the wrong. I invite anyone to come down and see for yourself this Sunday at around 11:00 AM.
Do not let your judgement be skewed by the statments or actions of desperate people.
I have to agree with Anonymouse 7:33 PM. The issue is parking, not a church, or the color of the congregants, or the religion. No one was unhappy when there was parking. Everyone is unhappy now that there is NO parking. The meeting with City Council to get a variance (for a church and for parking) hs been continued to June 8. I urge all the neighbors to attend. It is at 6 PM in the City Council Chambers. The church will bring about 30+ congregants. They have a lawyer, too. Where are those congregants going to park? That is the question. The answer is "There is no place for them to park."
ReplyDelete