Not Very Neighborly

An amusing, albeit rather shortsighted, response to a shop permit in Allenspark, CO has left the residents without an ATV rental and supply shop...and given them a close-up-and-personal porn shop.

Jeff Mead was recently denied the permit to open an ATV rental location in a shopfront he owns in Allenspark -- residents complained that ATVs are noisy, and have damaged private land. The story isn't terribly clear on whose private land - the renters of the ATVs? Someone else? -- but the residents successfully lobbied against the shop.

Well, Jeff Mead and his wife have responded by putting up a sign advertising "Patterson XXX Porn" on the site.

Mead said he's serious about opening the adult store to make money since he was denied a permit to open his rental shop.

Patterson is the name of one of the more vocal opponents to his ATV Rental shop proposal.

Childish, and immature, yes, but pretty damn funny.

It's a matter of economics, of course. There is no law preventing the use of the building as an adult store.

She and her husband, Jeff, say they are not smut peddlers but frustrated property owners. They say pornography is the only way they can survive in Allenspark after Boulder County turned down their request to run an all-terrain-vehicle rental business in a building they purchased for $428,000 in 2007.

The two-story log building housed the Eastin Gallery and Studio for 16 years just off the Peak to Peak Highway. Since the gallery has been an approved use, Boulder County cannot object to a use dedicated to adult artwork, Mead said.

"We just were shot down and shot down by Boulder County until we decided this is the only thing that's allowed where we might make some money," she said. "We just got to the point where we will do something legal with the building even though it appears unreasonable."

Patterson has made some rather snide comments about the Meads, apparently. Sniffing that what they really intend to do is sue Boulder Country, "that's how he would make his money" and argues that the sign is retribution for her fencing off a meadow that could have been damaged by the poposed ATV renters.

Yes, I laughed. I do hope they change the name - it't not nice to antagonize the neighbors. But I also with them well in their venture.