South Street Teardown

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 7, 2008 in Development. 12 Comments

Dave McNair writes in The Hook:

The Blue Moon Fund is getting ready to demolish a 13-year-old apartment building on its property at 222 South Street to make way for a new 6,800-square-foot conference center. But an adjoining property owner wonders why the philanthropic organization dedicated to “new economic, cultural, and environmental approaches to resource use, energy use, and urban development” didn’t take him up on his proposal to save landfill space by simply letting him move the building next door.

Tearing down a structure to build an environmentally friendly one is like…uh…help me out here. Pushing your poodle out of a moving car to save a mutt from the SPCA? Selling your child to organ thieves to foster another one? Hacking off a limb to replace it with a less calorically-demanding carbon fiber prosthetic?

Pick a CSA, Any CSA

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 2, 2008 in Agriculture. 21 Comments

It’s that time of year when a young man’s thoughts turn to picking out a Community Supported Agriculture program. Like many cvillenews.com readers, I’ve gone with Horse and Buggy Produce (not a true CSA, but more of a local farming aggregator for farmers who don’t want to run their own CSA) for the past couple of years, and ought to get off my duff and sign up again. And many friends speak highly of Best of What’s Around. For a review of all of the options, Cathy Clary provides a listing of seven area farms and explains the concept in the current C-Ville Weekly, while Erika Howsare airs some sour grapes about Horse and Buggy from local farmers.

The schtick, for those who aren’t familiar, is that you pay a big chunk of change up front — $150-$675 — to a local farmer to pick up a big box of fruits, vegetables, flowers, grains and herbs every week. They’re often (but not necessarily) organic, and “local” might mean grown right in Albemarle or from as far afield as the valley. Some CSAs require that you pitch in a few hours to help work on the farm. And some will let you pay extra for a weekly bonus supply of beef, chicken, unpasteurized milk or flowers. (I did the chicken and milk last year, and now I’m totally ruined.)

Now’s your chance to convince people to discover that Mexican stuff they’re buying at Food Lion is crap. Does anybody want to offer any specific recommendations for a CSA?

JABA Serving Local Foods

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 2, 2008 in Agriculture. 3 Comments

CSA HaulIn today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, Bill Lohmann writes about the Jefferson Board for the Aging’s contribution to the eat local movement. JABA’s end of summer goal is to have their kitchens serving meals that are at least 25% locally grown. Long term, they want as close to 100% as is feasible.

Very impressive. It’d be wonderful to see our local schools doing the same.

Judge Rules for Cav. Daily in ABC Suit

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 2, 2008 in Law and Justice and Meta News. 1 Comment

A federal judge yesterday ruled in favor of the Cavalier Daily in the matter of accepting alcohol advertising, the AP reports. Both UVa and Virginia Tech’s Collegiate Times had been barred from accepting any advertising promoting alcohol under state law. The Virginia American Civil Liberties Union argued on their behalf, demonstrating that not only is the restriction unconstitutional, but that there was simply no evidence that it has any impact on alcohol consumption. Advertising revenue at the papers should climb accordingly.

Orbit Billiards Shuts Down

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 1, 2008 in Business. 14 Comments

Corner bar and pool hall Orbit has abruptly shut down after a 13-year run. A band scheduled to play there this week has been told that the establishment is no more, and that the building is going to be renovated over the next month or so. There’s no word on why this has happened, or what the future holds for that space. All is presumably well at Orbit’s sister restaurant, Rapture, and some of the gigs will end up there. Orbit was the first business venture of local restauranteur Andrew Vaughan, who had previously owned and operated the Java Hut coffee cart on the Downtown Mall. It quickly became a favorite among students, packed to the gills on weekends.

This is probably a good time to point out that Gravity Lounge remains very much (and very successfully) in business, despite the 2006 declaration that it was going out of business. In case anybody lives in a cave, it’s probably worth pointing out that, happily, that news hasn’t proven to be true.

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